Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He hasn’t really thought about Agent Mulder in a few years. 

Dr. Heitz Werber remembers bits and pieces of that particular regression: a bright light, a levitating girl. Years of unresolved trauma that had manifested in insurmountable guilt. 

When Agent Mulder had summoned him to Washington, he was actually quite surprised to hear from him. The last time they’d spoken, Werber had been incredibly worried about the man’s mental health and well-being. To this day he still isn’t quite sure what happened to his younger sister, not really , but Mulder’s apparent certainty had made Werber feel somewhat responsible.

Before the young profiler walked into his office, Werber had spent his days uncovering long buried childhood traumas of a more earthly nature. Physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, he’d seen it all. But something about bright lights and visitors from another planet had gripped him in a way nothing quite had before. It was science fiction, surely, and yet thousands of people all shared these same experiences over and over again.

Thanks to Fox Mulder, his career path had taken an unexpected turn.

“I’m afraid…” the young abductee mumbles now, his terrified voice echoing around the FBI interrogation room. “I’m afraid they’re coming back.”

Werber clicks his ballpoint. “Don’t be afraid, Billy,” he reassures him. “We’re here to help you.”

He’s used to this: the droning, disquieting tales of abduction scenarios coming from otherwise untroubled individuals. It’s just another day on the job for him. And Billy Miles isn’t unlike his typical patients. But these stories' frequency (and consistency with those of other abductees) is exactly what he’s come to enjoy most about them. It’s fascinating and slightly terrifying.

Billy Miles concludes his session, standing and exiting the room. His father escorts him out, glaring at the doctor and more pointedly at Agent Mulder, who’s positioned himself in the corner like a piece of furniture, a silent but very present observer. His partner enters the room and closes the door behind her, eyeing Mulder warily.

“Dr. Werber, this is Agent Scully, my partner,” Mulder says, gesturing to the woman.

“Nice to meet you,” the doctor says, shaking her hand.

“So what do you think?” Mulder then asks Werber in that same eager way they’d discussed his own regression back in ‘89.

Werber sighs. He’s a fairly down-to-earth individual; his own crusade, while occasionally admittedly above the clouds, is not above a certain amount of skepticism. His fear for Mulder is that there’s no one to pull him back down to the ground.

“As with most of these abduction accounts, the small details shift, but Billy’s memories seem to line up with the physical evidence,” Werber responds. “He has no history of mental illness and I have no reason to believe what he’s telling me isn’t an accurate account of his experience.”

Agent Mulder turns to his partner. “Can Dr. Werber’s findings be used to substantiate all this in your report?”

Agent Scully draws her lips into a thin line, glances over at Werber. He can tell she likes her partner. She doesn’t relish disappointing him, but is unwilling to compromise her integrity. For this reason, Werber respects her instantly.

“Eyewitness accounts aren’t always the best way to the truth, Mulder,” she says. “Memory is fallible, it can’t always be trusted.” She turns to the doctor. “I’m sure Dr. Werber will tell you the same thing.”

“I’m afraid she’s right,” he says. “As you know, I spend every day working with memory and recollections. It’s not that I don’t believe in my trade– I do– but it’s merely a tool. I can’t say with absolute certainty any of it is the truth.”

He sees the frustration in Mulder’s eyes, recognizes it. Empathizes with it. Yet again, the man is alone in his crusade.

Another memory stirs, and he remembers now, vaguely: there had been someone with Mulder at his first regression, a wife or girlfriend… dark hair, a somewhat severe countenance. She hadn’t been very supportive, he remembers that. She didn’t accompany him again after his first visit. Over Mulder’s subsequent sessions, they’d uncovered more and more about that night together, until, one day he didn’t show up for his appointment. Instead Werber eventually received a letter from the agent that contained his thanks for helping him to find not only the answer to what happened to his sister, but– just as Mulder himself had done for Werber–  a new purpose in his life.

Today, as he looks into the young agent’s eyes, he’s realizing just what exactly that purpose has been. 

Mulder sets his jaw, unconvinced, undeterred. “Then I’ll find another way.”

As he picks up his materials from the table and brushes past them towards the door, Agent Scully looks helplessly at Werber, then turns back to her partner.

“Mulder, wait,” she says, stepping over to him. She reaches out to grab his wrist gently, and cranes her neck to look up at him. “ We will find another way.”

It only takes a couple of seconds, but their eyes search each other and find a shared understanding. Mulder nods, and she squeezes his wrist, then lets it go. 

Dr. Werber watches them leave together. He is alone again, but he’s pleased to see that Agent Fox Mulder is not anymore.

Chapter Text

She knew she could get them, well him, from the second they walked into the diner. He was just the kind of guy she could expect to ask about UFOs. It was always the ones who looked pulled together on the outside, expensive suit and an ugly tie, business card from some important job slid across the counter, corporate credit card. They’d sit and eat their meals and just before it was time for the check, the real reason they stopped in would flop out of their mouths, like it was an afterthought or a mere curiosity rather than the entire reason they’d been willing to eat Jimmy’s mediocre cooking.

The man had sat at the counter, scanning the pictures pinned to the wall, barely peeling his eyes away to glance at the menu. The woman, a colleague maybe, definitely not a girlfriend, had looked too, but Ladonna could tell she didn’t give credence to a single one.

When he finally asked about them, she told him she’d taken one of the pictures herself. And just as she knew he would, he took the bait and asked where she’d seen the “UFO.”

“Out on the back porch, taking out the garbage, and there it was, just hovering,” she tells him now as she removes the tack and studies the photo, before handing it to him.

The picture is nothing more than a piece of triangular cardboard her son had tossed in the sky while she’d snapped shot after shot on her beat up old Nikon. It’s grainy and hard to identify, but that’s what makes it perfect. Took a whole roll of film to get it right, but if you wanted to see a UFO hovering in the sky, she figures that is what it looks like. And she would know.

“Quiet like a hummingbird,” she continues. “For a minute there, I thought it was gonna land in the parking lot and I was gonna have to serve ‘em lunch.”

Ladonna can tell that she’s hooked him. He seems impressed, like he’s buying everything she’s selling. The woman next to him, however, closes her eyes like she can’t believe what she’s hearing, and takes the picture from his hands. Skepticism surrounds her like a cape as she studies the photo, but she doesn’t say anything.

It doesn’t matter though. She’s not the one who’s going to get her the sale. She’s seen her type just as many times as she’s seen his. She’s the girlfriend who’s been dragged along to hunt for aliens. She’s the wife who didn’t know the real reason they got off at this highway exit. She’s the woman who humored the man at her side.

“I'm selling limited edition prints, twenty dollars. Down to my last five,” Ladonna says, even though there’s a stack of at least 20 on the desk in the back. “If you're interested.”

“Put it on my tab,” the man says without even a moment’s pause.

Ladonna’s eyes drift immediately to the woman to see what she thinks.

“Sucker,” the woman says, leaning towards the man’s ear, but her voice is loud enough for her to hear as well. Ladonna is pretty sure that was her intention.

“What would the chances be, of someone like me, seeing a UFO?” the man asks, unaffected by the insult.

“Catch ya outside,” the woman says before Ladonna has a chance to answer. She gets up, leaving her half-eaten burger on the counter, and walks out.

Ladonna can’t help wondering how this UFO guy ended up with her by his side. Must be a drag.

“Sorry about that,” the man says as he reaches for his wallet. “She’s not into any of this. She doesn’t believe in extraterrestrial life.”

“Hon,” she says, placing the bill in front of him before collecting their plates. “I could tell that as soon as I saw ya. But what can I say? Not everyone can see what’s right in front of their faces.”

She gestures again to the pictures on the wall. She knows she’s laying it on thick, but their reputation was what kept them open. The Flying Saucer Diner was a little ways off the beaten path, but when the staff was able to convince tourists of the existence of life in space, those tourists told their friends, and the bills got paid.

The man looks at her with a small smirk on his face and she remembers his question.

“Ellens Air Base,” she says, as the cash register till pops open with a ding.

“I’m sorry?” the man asks. He’s looking at the picture again, tipping it in the light as if just the right angle will give him the answers he’s looking for. It won’t.

“You want to go to Ellens Air Base,” she tells him and hands him his change. “That’s where you’ll be able to see one of these for yourself.”

“Is that near here?” he asks as he puts his change back into his wallet. “I didn’t see it on the map.”

She’ll give him what he wants and with any luck, he’ll send more customers their way.

“You’re going to need a better map.” Ladonna smiles, hoping she looks believable rather than like a hungry crocodile. “It’ll only cost you five bucks.”

Chapter Text

“Damn him,” he grumbles, jaw clenched. “Damn them both.”

The clomp of his new Oxfords echo down the Hoover Building’s hallways. They gleam under the fluorescents as his pace rises to meet his irritation. 

Always dress to impress , his father had told him the day he graduated from the FBI Academy. The academy where he’d first met prim and proper Dana Scully, MD. They were friendly, mostly because of the other thing his father had told him: keep your friends close, and keep your friends your allies. And Dana was a smart, capable agent back then. A real rule follower. An ally to climb the corporate ladder alongside him, and maybe, even while holding his hand…

Tom Colton huffs, reddening at the thought. He hates being wrong. 

It was a mistake, asking her opinion on this case - his case , not hers, and certainly not the ET-chasing basement-dweller’s case. He sees where he went wrong now. He sure as hell feels it, too, with the SAC breathing a stale mixture of cigarettes and coffee down his neck ever since Fox Mulder had weaseled his way to Baltimore. 

A hot wave of fury burns in his gut. 

Tom yanks his tie loose and stops to stare at Dana through a conference room window. Files are spread out across the table where she sits alone. Black and white photos of elongated fingerprints and decades-old bodies with missing livers decorate the surface. The macabre display makes him cringe. And according to Spooky Mulder, Tooms uses these poor people as snacks before he crawls back into a hole to hibernate like a goddamn bear. 

Golden Boy, his ass. 

Once a household name, Fox Mulder has become nothing but water cooler fodder. Tom’s short stint in the VCU has done nothing to improve his opinion of the profiler Patterson won’t shut up about. A legend, the unit says. A real genius. It’s exactly why he came to Dana for a second set of eyes and not the man Tom can’t seem to live up to. Fodder or not, Fox slyly lives up to his god given name.

His radio rumbles in his pocket. SAC Fuller, finally. 

Tom spins around in his shiny shoes, ear by the speaker, grinning as the man in charge approves the request to end this ridiculous stakeout. Tom then gladly radios the message to his men stuck in a car for the last several hours and reclaims the reins from Mulder’s eager hands.

The Spookys have really mucked-up his case. But it ends now. 

Tom pushes open the conference room door and dives right in, “We have to talk.”

“I have to meet Mulder.” Dana ignores him, gathering her so-called evidence in a rush.

“That’s what we need to talk about. You’re using two of my men to sit in front of a building that’s been condemned for ten years?”

“It isn’t interfering with your investigation,” she snaps back. 

His face flames.

“When we first had lunch, I really looked forward to working with you. You were a good agent, but now after Mulder, I couldn’t have you far enough away,” Tom says snidely, fingers digging harshly into his hips as Dana stands. “Don’t bother going down there, I had the stakeout called off.”

A spark crackles in her eyes, sizzling with cerulean heat. Funny, she’s never looked colder. “You can’t do that.”

“No, but my SAC can, especially after I told him about the irresponsible waste in man hours.”

She grabs the phone sitting on the table but he swiftly takes it out of her small hand before she can dial. No way is he letting Mulder talk his way out of this one.

“Auh-uh! Let me call Mulder.” Dana has always been a little uptight, rigid even. But Tom has likened her to a spring - stiff, yet bendable. This is his case, dammit. He will keep it that way. “Let me tell him the news.”

“Is this what it takes to climb the ladder, Colton?”

He punches in the numbers. “All the way to the top.”

“Then I can’t wait ‘til you fall off and land on your ass,” she snaps, striding hotly past him with her burnt orange suit and fiery hair, slamming the door shut after her. 

The line rings and rings, unanswered. Tom’s fist tightens into a white-knuckled ball. “This is Fox Mulder, I’m not here. Leave a message…”

He slaps the phone down. “Sonofabitch.”

The door swings open suddenly, the knob bouncing off the concrete wall behind it. It’s Dana standing in the doorway. And she’s pissed. 

“Oh and Tom,” she seethes, “The next time you use derogatory language about me or my partner while working a case, I’m filing a harassment complaint.”

Tom scoffs. It’s as if she likes working out of that hole in the basement. Maybe she likes being Mrs. Spooky even more. 

“You two deserve each other,” he says with a shake of his head. Dana only smirks, brow arched as the door creeps closed.

Bitch. 

He’ll solve this case without her. Who needs allies? Maybe his father doesn’t know everything. Let those two chase Stretch Armstrong like a bunch of fools. He’ll find the real killer. 

Tom Colton will climb the ladder alone.

Chapter Text

“Darlene Morris? My name is Special Agent Fox Mulder. I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. My partner and I are investigating Ruby’s disappearance. We’ll be arriving in Sioux City tomorrow, and we were hoping we could stop by your house and ask you a couple of questions about Ruby.”

She had talked to a lot of law enforcement officers in her life, but this was the first time she didn’t have to beg for their attention. It was a new experience having someone actually want to hear what she had to say. At first, she thought it was a prank call. A man from the Federal Bureau of Investigation? Interested in her? Fox ?

Darlene was used to law enforcement dismissing her outright, and now the same was happening on her daughter’s behalf. The only difference was instead of “a vivid imagination,” Ruby was being labeled “a troubled young girl.” Active imagination, rebellious teenager, it seems like the town has an endless amount of labels to use instead of the word “victim.”

Even as she sat at the kitchen table and talked, she waited for the proverbial shoe to drop. She felt the familiar dread settle in the pit of her stomach as she anticipated the moment when she said too much and the kindness in this man’s eyes turned to judgment.

She was sure that moment had come when Agent Mulder mentioned her name was affiliated with UFO sightings. Her body tensed as she waited for the conversation to pivot into blaming her for Ruby’s disappearance. The Sheriff sure had been doing that lately, insinuating that she was a bad mother and Ruby ran away to get away from her. She thought Agent Mulder would take it a step further and throw her past in her face, saying she was using her daughter's disappearance as evidence for her own alien abduction story.

But that moment didn’t come. In fact, when she pressed him on it, he was the one who looked admonished. She realized there was something different about Agent Mulder, an empathy she’d never experienced.

Agent Scully was polite enough, at least she wasn’t laughing in her face like others did. But every time her partner mentioned Darlene’s story, she saw Agent Scully grimace. If she wasn’t so attuned to the skepticism of others, it probably would've gone unnoticed. It was the same look her own mother gave her whenever she tried to tell her story. Darlene had learned young that it was never the fault of the skeptic for not being open-minded, but the fault of the believer for having conviction.

When Agent Mulder first brought up her past, she saw his partner bristle, much like her mother did when she spoke out of turn: fear that her child was putting herself in a position to be laughed at, embarrassed to be the crazy girl’s mother. She didn’t think Agent Scully wasn’t as cruel as her mother was, but she could tell she didn’t share her partner’s viewpoint. 

When Darlene pushed back against the look in Agent Scully’s eyes, the woman didn’t get defensive like most. She didn’t insult her or insinuate she was deserving of criticism. She just said she didn’t know what to make of it, but that she wanted Ruby to be returned safely. Even while Agent Mulder was in the other room, Agent Scully was kind enough to ask questions and try to learn more about Ruby outside of the reputation that was bestowed on her. Even if she didn’t believe it was them , she still cared enough to want Ruby safe and she was willing to treat her partner’s view with respect.

Darlene Morris felt a kinship with the young man. There was something about his curiosity that she felt a connection to. It wasn’t that they wanted something so evil to exist, but if it did, it shouldn’t be brushed aside. Instead of judgment, he had empathetic eyes that made her want to trust him, made her feel like she could tell him everything and be understood.

It just felt like… he wanted to believe.

Chapter Text

Hungry. So hungry.

He had been gone for days after the others came with their noise and light and took him from her. There is no food left in the cave. The little one has been crying and rubbing her stomach. She ate some leaves from the cave entrance, but they made her stomach grumble and flip until they came back up.

She misses him and is afraid they will come back, but she can’t stay in the back of the cave forever. She needs to find food, something more than berries.

Squirrels are too fast. She doesn’t know how he caught them.

Want. They are delicious.

Maybe a deer would be good, but the points on their heads and their hard feet had caused injury to her mate. When she sees them, she she is scared and hides. They could hurt her and the little one would be alone.

Need to protect. Need to keep safe. So hungry.

The other ones who sometimes come into the woods look like her but their bodies are different. They cover them with things that she can’t identify. They don’t look like leaves or fur and they are colors she has only seen on flowers.

They have arms and legs like her though. And their faces look like her mate’s.

The others stand up tall and make noise when they move. Their feet are loud and their voices are louder. They make sounds with their mouths– one making a sound and another one making sounds back. She doesn’t understand them. She doesn’t know what they want.

Sometimes they run, like like animal cubs. They are not fast and they don’t hide.

She knows they hurt her mate, but he had caught them many times.

They are easy. They are prey.

She can get them.

They need food.

They are big, more food than their small pack ever needed, but when her mate got one, he would take some of it and leave the rest. They would eat and sleep well, until the sun came into the cave the next day.

Now he’s not here. It’s up to her now. She needs to keep what remains of their pack fed.

Need to hunt. Stay safe. Keep safe.

She’s scared. She’s never hunted before. She wants to believe that she can do it, but when she left the trees the last time to look for food, she saw one of the other ones and ran. He was by the big rock place. She saw him while she dug through a box of scraps and things that smelled like they could be eaten.

He chased her, but she was faster. She could hide.

Because of her failure, today there is nothing for them except for mushrooms and some small things she’d found in a crinkly pouch that crunch when they eat them.

She decides to go back to the rock place while it is light. There is food there and maybe the other one, the one who had chased her, is only there when it’s dark.

But he is there. And so are a lot of other ones. They are everywhere, in the rock place, near the food.

Need to run. Need to get back to the little one. Need to stay safe.

The one from before chases her again, but she keeps going.

Need to hide.

She finds a dark place and stays quiet, hoping he won’t see her. Then he comes too close. She can’t let him hurt her, so she jumps at him and knocks him down before sliding back into the darkness.

This is it. She could kill him, just like her mate would. They are so hungry. He could fill their bellies. They wouldn’t be hungry anymore.

She creeps forward, careful and ready. She is stronger; he was easy to knock down. He is bigger though. She needs to stay safe.

He watches her from the ground, as she crawls to him, above him, on top of him.

Bite? Scratch?

Her body is on fire. She caught one. She could have food. She will protect the little one.

He stays still, watching her, and she feels something she doesn’t understand. It is something she’s felt before. For her mate.

This one is different. It’s his eyes. She feels the hunger in her stomach, remembers the little one back in the cave, but she can’t look away.

His eyes.

She doesn’t know what to do.

She sits back, her body on edge, ready to attack. But also wanting something else.

He keeps watching. She tries to understand, but she can’t. She stays still.

Until he starts to move and gets too close and remembers where she is.

Need to stay safe. Need to protect. He is like the others.

She lashes out, keeps him from hurting her, and runs, back to the woods, back to her little one.

She runs through the trees and she’s safe. She doesn’t want to leave the trees again. She’s safe here. She will find other food.

She goes to the water. Maybe she can find a fish. She’s ready to try until something bites her shoulder and everything feels wrong.

Need to… cave. Little… run.

She runs over the rocks, legs too heavy. Her eyes are wrong. She’s almost there. She can make it.

Then she sees them. The others, with legs and arms like hers but covered in colors. There are so many of them. They hold things towards her. Long and dark.

There’s a sound and she falls.

Little… the cave…

Sleep.

Chapter Text

He’s been watching her. 

Watching her grieve at home, at the funeral, in their shared office space, shadowing her like a spiritual embrace. The thought of her pain stings somewhere in the vicinity of where his heart used to beat, only for her. But it’s the soft sobs that escape her as she slumps into his chair with tears streaming down her cheeks that does him in. All the pent up emotion that’s been stirring and swelling within his soul since the moment dirty Dorlund had him killed shoots through him like a laser, scooting the glass paperweight with Ben Franklin’s words etched into it across his desk: One To-day is Worth Two To-morrows. 

Lauren takes it then, tucking it to her chest, making it her own. In that very moment, Howard Graves vows to keep on watching.

It’s days later when Lauren finally puts a voice to her paranormal experience. The two FBI Agents - one skeptic, one believer - continue to do their damnedest to solve a mystery of what they cannot see. The clues, the pieces to his murder are there, yet it’s only her who can put them together. But she looks so frightened during this interrogation, curled into herself as her big brown eyes water under the weight of her worry. She may be sad and angry for his loss of life, but Lauren is still as strong-willed and beautiful as ever. 

“I still feel him,” Lauren admits on a sob, pacing across the room. The young agents are captivated. “Sometimes… I even smell his aftershave. If you could’ve seen the things I’ve seen… I just want all that to go away, that’s why I’m leaving. Maybe he can move on.”

Howard is struck with an instant emptiness, an overwhelming hole as she talks through tears. He misses her. Oh God, he misses her more than the feel of his heart hammering within his chest. 

The redhead, Agent Scully, he recalls, stands and reaches out to Lauren. “That’s not enough,” she says softly. “You have been given the chance to tell him again. Take it. Tell him you love him by showing him. By… helping us finish his unfinished business.”

Lauren gasps, awed. It’s all it takes for Howard not to shake the foundation at her feet. He knows how she feels about him. They all do now.

He has known she’s uncomfortable with his otherworldly presence in her life. She can no longer ignore the swift justice he’s been inflicting on the dangerous men who framed him, nor how the familiar scent of his aftershave fills her with a fleeting sense of joy. It’s a tease, yet he can feel her too - her hope that he will move on and find solace in the light. It radiates from her gaze like the sun’s rays. But Howard loves her too damn much to give up and give her what she wants, not yet. Because right now, this isn’t about him or the unyielding pull of the afterlife. It’s about keeping Lauren safe from the hands that harmed him. Now, it’s only about her. 

To Howard, it always has been. 

“Lauren,” Agent Scully continues. “How will you ever be able to rest if he never can?”

“Okay,” Lauren exhales, as if a tidal wave of relief washes over her, and for the first time since leaving her alone in a world without him, Howard feels the same. 

As Lauren leaves the room to compose herself, he sticks around, turning his watchful eye onto the pair of arguing partners. Mulder is what she calls the man, and he calls her Scully; the way they say each other’s names is laced with something much deeper than mere letters rolling off their tongues. Though the skepticism practically drips from Agent Scully’s pouty lips, Agent Mulder seems to take her opposing views in stride. Reveling in them, even. They may believe differently about what’s really happening here, but their shared compassion and camaraderie is striking. 

Howard has seen this very thing before. Has felt it with every ounce of his being, even if that reminds him of his own actions after the death of his baby girl decades ago, throwing up walls to avoid emotions. They look at each other but they don't see. Not yet, but one day they will. One day, they will blink and never see one another the same way they did the day before. He should know. Like a hurricane, Lauren had blown into his life and swept his heart into her open hands.

Love is a terrifying and beautiful thing. 

Later, when Howard wields his own kind of justice on Dorlund, Agent Mulder finds the proof to finally toss the traitor who was supposed to be Howard’s friend into prison and throw away the key. 

It’s freeing, seeing Lauren happy again. Watching her smile, a warmth swiftly fills the once cold and empty void. 

But it is time for him to go; to step into that beckoning light. 

Now that he knows for certain she is safe and the men responsible for his death are dealt with, Howard will rest peacefully from this day on. 

One today is worth two tomorrows, after all.

Chapter Text

Mulder doesn’t know what it’s like.

Ever since he messed up the evidence, the name ‘Jerry Lamana’ has been used as an adjectival phrase to describe massive fuck ups in procedure. ‘Spooky’ might’ve been a designated nickname, but it was Mulder’s eccentricities that earned him the ridicule.

His very name wasn’t the joke.

Not too long after ‘the incident,’ Jerry overheard some fellow agents gossiping about him. “How did Spooky get partnered with a clod like that?”

In the Hoover Building, there was a hierarchy. You never really had to question your position in the rankings because it felt like people would go out of their way to make it known to you. 

“That's not how it was.”

Even thinking of the words leaving Mulder’s mouth still made Jerry itchy with irritation. For a profiling genius, he was pretty fucking inept at recognizing that no one at the FBI thought less of Mulder than he did himself. Sure, people made fun of him, but it was low-hanging fruit, and there was nothing as desperate as the grasp of a man trying to cling to anything that would keep him from being at the bottom of the proverbial pyramid. People had no problem condemning Mulder if it meant their own pathetic shortcomings would go unnoticed.

It was just annoying to him that Mulder didn’t understand that. Jerry even explicitly laid it out in front of him, and Mulder still looked at him with that same earnest expression that just fueled his resentment. While Jerry Lamana was a name to be condemned, Fox Mulder was one to aspire to. Unlike Mulder, when fellow agents made fun of him it wasn’t a self-defense mechanism. Newbie agents fawned over the man’s impressive work, and the real pricks, the ones who hated Mulder because of his success, were quick to spread the rumors about Spooky Mulder, stamping on the embers that threatened to turn into flames of adoration.

It was easy to play off the jealousy as judgment. Mulder might not be a loser, but he was odd, eccentric, spooky. None of those things were really anything people thought about Mulder though, maybe those who only heard whispers, the game of office telephone warping the truth that Fox Mulder was the type of agent everyone dreamt of being. Brilliant, witty, and charming. 

Mulder was the best partner he’d ever had, and sometimes he hated his fucking guts. He just didn’t understand how his mind worked. During their partnership, it felt like they were always looking at the same Rorschach test, but he’d only ever see ink stains while Mulder would see a Da Vinci embedded on the page.

That’s why he’d asked for Mulder’s help. Some fucking newbie agent asked if he was the guy who sent evidence to laundry, and while he said it, all Jerry could focus on was Fox Mulder’s monograph tucked under the rookie’s arm with post-it notes marking all the pages where Fox Mulder was brilliant.

He knew he could ask for Mulder’s help, take advantage of his work, and the guy would be too insecure to make any waves. He was nice on top of everything, and in moments like this, Jerry felt like a teenage bully picking on the defenseless younger kids because he was jealous of how adults fawned over how cute they were while he sat in an ugly, uncomfortable body.

It worked too, for a moment while he was cloaked in the disguise of Mulder’s intelligence, he was treated with dignity for the first time in months.

Mulder confronted him, but they both knew what happened and after that conversation, nothing more would come of it. He felt bad. Really, he did, but the feelings of guilt didn’t outweigh how good it felt to hear praise associated with his name.

The nerves he had leading up to the meeting had died down, the anxiety he felt in his chest as he passed his old partner’s genius off as his own had faded, but there was a rock of self-hatred that was sitting at the pit of his stomach, placed there personally by Agent Scully.

He’d had his fair share of women look at him with disgust, but… not like she had. For every ounce of resignation Mulder held, Agent Scully matched him with indignation on his behalf. Mulder left that meeting with his shoulders slumped. He looked embarrassed, and Jerry couldn’t figure out if it was because Mulder was taken advantage of by his former partner or because his current one was there to hear it. The same thing that made him feel guilty was the same thing he’d been banking on this whole time. Mulder wasn’t really upset about his work going uncredited, his feelings were hurt because Jerry took advantage of his kindness. Mulder wouldn’t really put up a fight, but just accept the hurt.

Whenever Mulder got that depressed look on his face, Jerry always backed off and gave him space. He was the smart one after all, he’d sort it out himself. But after the meeting, when he saw Mulder start to retreat into himself like he always did, Agent Scully was right at his side. It amazed him how the woman could rub Mulder’s shoulder while simultaneously glaring Jerry’s way with such vehemence he felt his blood acidify.

He’d always considered Mulder a professional in the art of self-flagellation, but maybe no one had ever tried to combat his own propensity for self-destruction. Although he was pretty sure Scully wouldn’t be allowing him anywhere near Mulder in the near future, he had to admit he was intrigued to see how Mulder might change with a woman like that by his side.

After working with Mulder, Jerry always just figured the man was a lone wolf who worked better alone, maybe all he needed was a gentle hand there to intervene.

But then again, Jerry’s profiling skills paled in comparison to Mulder’s. Maybe they were just fucking.

Chapter Text

Fucking Hodge.

It’s forty below outside but she’s burning up in here. He said it wasn’t a fever but she isn’t so sure anymore.

Da Silva tosses and turns in her bunk, her mind in overdrive. No big deal, just a homicidal worm set to kill everyone it comes into contact with. Usually she’s calm and collected in stressful situations but to be perfectly honest, she’s never been in a situation quite like this one before.

It’s probably going to be burned into her brain forever, the way that parasite wriggled just beneath the surface of Bear’s neck. It killed him so fast, so fast. The same thing could easily happen to any of them if they aren’t careful.

She lets out a long, shuddering breath. Goddamn, it’s hot. It’s hard to tell if she’s actually starting to feel unwell or if it’s just the paranoia. It has to be, it has to. She can’t be sick. She didn’t touch the infected blood when she was helping Hodge move Bear’s body. She didn’t, she’s almost completely positive.

There’s no way. She’s fine, of course she is.

Think about something else, dammit.

She shouldn’t have listened when Hodge told her this would be a quick and easy trip. She had work to do back at home, and quite frankly she’s getting pretty fed up with the way he’s been bossing her around, talking down to her. He’s basically running her schedule these days. 

In bed, that sort of thing can be good. Really good. But she wishes he’d cut that shit out while they're working.

Her mind drifts to Agents Mulder and Scully. She wonders if they’re fucking too. They probably are, why wouldn’t they be? If she gets a chance she’ll have to pay closer attention tomorrow. 

I’ll bet he respects her , she thinks. I’ll be he doesn’t condescend to her or bark at her, or make her feel two inches tall.

There was a moment during the plane ride over when she’d watched them together, Scully dozing off and resting her head against Agent Mulder’s shoulder while he read the AICP reports. They looked so peaceful, so comfortable. Mulder had mentioned they’d only been working together for a few months and she felt a white hot stab of jealousy rip through her core. The trust those two must share already… it was something she realized in that moment she’d never have with Hodge.

She grits her teeth. Fucking Hodge. 

Restless, she throws the covers off and pulls another layer on, regardless of the heat. Trying to sleep is pointless. Maybe she should go over the toxicology from Richter’s blood again, see if there’s something she missed. But as she steps towards the door, her head starts to hurt.  And what is that awful buzzing sound?

She opens and shuts her door as quietly as possible, not wanting to disturb the others, and heads back out towards the main lab. As she brushes past the cage with the dog in it, he growls; a low, guttural sound. For some reason an irrational anger surges through her veins, and she feels a strong desire to kick the cage as hard as she can.

Da Silva stops.

What was that about?

The unwelcome urge passes as quickly as it had come over her. She doesn’t know why she wanted to do that. The poor creature is terrified enough already, possibly even dying. It should have her sympathy. Besides, she likes dogs.

Shaking off the feeling, she continues to her temporary station where her notes are strewn about the table. A light is coming from Murphy’s bunk– he must still be awake, she presumes– and she opens her file, studying her notes, attempting to make sense of all of this. 

“And it’s Hendrickson down the middle, five yards… touchdown!”

Da Silva looks up to see Murphy’s shadow against the wall of his bunk, punching the air in apparent exuberance. 

“Denny, can you keep it down, please?” she asks, trying to keep her voice as quiet as possible. “Everyone is trying to sleep.”

There’s no response. After a few seconds, Murphy mumbles something about John Carney and starts hissing, imitating a crowd. Da Silva stands up, suddenly pissed as hell at this fucking guy for having not only the ability but the audacity to tune out everything going on around him when it’s all she can think about. It’s not fair. It’s not right. 

And this is when Da Silva’s mind goes completely blank.

One second, she’s approaching Murphy’s shadow, his arms both straight up in the air like goal posts, and the next, she’s washing blood off her hands in the sink.

Blood.

There’s an object tightly clutched between her fingers, and she has to tell herself to drop it, like her mind has disassociated from her body. She drops the object into the sink and it clatters. It’s a scalpel.

How did I get to the sink?

Why is there blood on my hands?

Why am I holding a scalpel?

The last of the blood swirls down the drain and she turns the water off. The lab is quiet, and nothing seems amiss. She doesn’t hear any more football chatter; Murphy must have finally gone to sleep.

What the hell just happened?

She must be so tired she’s going crazy, actually crazy. She should have taken a cue from Agent Scully and napped on the plane; she would have if she’d known things were going to get this bizarre.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

An overwhelming wave of exhaustion crashes down on her. Da Silva shuts the lights off and slips down the hallway, quietly, quietly. She climbs back into bed and pulls the blankets up to her chin. Her head doesn’t hurt anymore, but something feels very, very wrong. It’s unsettling.

We’re not who we are.

Trying to brush away the errant thought, she closes her eyes.

Chapter Text

She is curious about these two. Has been since she first laid eyes on them sitting patiently together, sharing sunflower seeds, their bodies a hair’s breadth away. She’s curious about him in particular. Of course thousands of people who share his enthusiasm stroll through NASA’s doors often - giddy to see and touch a piece of astronomical history, but there’s just something about the childlike wonder she’s witnessed on the grown FBI agent’s face that makes her feel proud to call herself a mission control commander.

Michelle Generoo’s boots echo throughout the main entrance of NASA’s Space Center. Agent Scully had suggested her partner might have wandered his way down here after their introduction to Colonel Belt - his childhood hero , she’d added in amusement. 

Michelle glances at her watch: ninety-six minutes and counting. The electric buzz of anxiety hums in her veins as each second ticks away on the shuttle’s launch time. 

The frightening realization that space sabotage could actually happen while her fiancé floats through the atmosphere makes her queasy. 

The glass doors swing open as Michelle steps into the gift shop. She nods a greeting of solidarity at Bev standing at the counter. She likes the southern gift shop clerk with kind eyes and white hair who refuses to tolerate horseplay from visiting children on field trips. Bev is the only other woman who works here. So naturally, Bev is the only one who keeps her sane.

“Lookin’ for a tall handsome man in a suit?” Bev coyly asks. 

Michelle rolls her eyes. “Yes Bev, I take it you’ve met?” 

“Oh honey, I introduced myself before both of his shiny shoes stepped through these doors.” When Michelle inevitably has a hard day working alongside the horde of men upstairs, she takes a detour down here to listen to Bev rant and rave about tourists. 

Bev offers distraction, Michelle offers gossip. It’s not a bad trade. 

“He’s in the back, still gawking at the keychains. A gift for a friend, he’d said,” Bev adds. “Boring gift if ya ask me.”

“Got it, thank you,” Michelle says. Her heart pounds as her eyes catch a glimpse of the countdown clock hung above the t-shirts. 

When she sees him, she slows to a stop and watches him shop. She can’t help it, even amongst the stress of the upcoming launch, the way his green eyes shine like supernovas as he revels in space trinkets makes her smile. 

“Agent Mulder,” Michelle calls. “I want to speak to you.”

“Just Mulder.” 

Michelle chews her lip and moves closer. “You’re coming to watch the shuttle launch, correct?”

He grins. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Good. That’s good,” Michelle hesitates before focusing on the black and gold keychain Mulder has chosen. The gentle way his thumb traces the commemoration on the back calms her. “I just- I’m very worried about potential tampering. More worried than I thought I’d be.”

“You’ve got a lot on the line,” he agrees. “Someone you love, too. And that can… that can make waiting, wondering, that much harder.”

Michelle blinks away tears. She should be appalled at her wavering professionalism, but the understanding in Mulder’s tone urges her on. 

“I’ve heard about you,” she blurts. It sounds judgmental the way it flies from her mouth. But Mulder doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, the sly smirk on his face suggests he’s been waiting to hear her say exactly that. “Heard about what you do, I mean.”

“I assumed as much.” He shrugs, eyes still glued to the keychain in his palm. “You said someone had given you our names when you reached out to the bureau for help.”

“Oh, um… yes.” She stutters, and Mulder does not miss it. She hasn’t thought seriously about the man in question in years. About how he’d encouraged her - a woman in a male dominated field - to enter the space program back then, or how he made her heart swoop when their eyes met across the room. Not until this happened, anyway. “Walter Skinner.”

“Ah,” Mulder stares at her, brows rising to his hairline. 

And not because she’d simply spoken to his boss about his specialty, she knows. But because of what his investigative assessment of the blush pinkening her cheeks indicates. If this Oxford educated psychologist wonders if she’d once had an intense and rather inappropriate crush on a director of the FBI, he’d be undeniably accurate. 

“Walter was a mentor of mine,” she dismisses, waving away how much her fiancé reminds her of the married man she’d once swooned for years ago. It seems rather insignificant at this point. “I explained NASA’s situation over the phone and he suggested you two.”

“Skinner knows what he’s doing.” Mulder places a hand on her shoulder, gives it a squeeze. “Scully and I will do everything we can to find out who, or what, is tampering with these missions.”

Michelle swallows hard and checks her watch again. “I should get up there, ready the team for liftoff.”

“See you there. Front row seats and all.” Mulder’s practically beaming as he slings the keychain around his finger. 

“Apollo 11,” she notes. “An historic mission that was not made without enduring many trials. A good choice.”

“Teamwork makes the dream work, right?” He laughs it off, but Michelle can see this gift is meant for more than laughter. 

“Or a partnership,” she counters.

Now it’s Mulder’s turn to blush. “I just thought it was a pretty cool keychain.”

Michelle can only pat his hand and walk away. 

Agents Mulder and Scully will do everything they can to fix this. Everything they can, he’d assured. And for some reason, she believes him. 

Her shoes clack through the main entrance once again and this time she holds out hope that Walter is right about his agents. With their help, Michelle and her team can save the future of NASA, and her future husband along with it.

Chapter Text

Over the years, Max Fenig had plenty of experiences that aligned with the phrase ‘don’t meet your idols.’ William Shatner rolled his eyes when he’d asked him for an autograph as a kid, Robert Stack almost hit him with a car (that might’ve been an accident, but he was skeptical), and his letter to Rod Serling was returned to sender just a little too quickly for Max’s liking. His mom said it was bad luck, but Max just accepted the fact he had a tendency to set his hopes a little too high and he destined himself to be let down.

Last night proved there’s an exception to every rule.

The minute he laid eyes on the man in the cell next to his, he was almost positive it was the legendary M.F. Luder. He’d seen his picture once in a magazine, and even though it was a couple of years ago, the man had a distinguished profile. 

Ever since reading his article in the Omni, he tried learning all he could about the man. He even knew a guy who knew a guy who heard M. F. Luder, Fox Mulder , worked closely with the men who curated the Lone Gunmen publication every month. He owned every edition, and after scouring through them, Max was fairly certain Fox Mulder wrote in some of his favorite articles using the name George Hale. 

Despite his excitement at seeing one of his idols in action, he didn’t want to come across as overzealous. Plus, he’d just watched an underground documentary about shapeshifters that made him worry this might be too good to be true. While it was plausible he might run into Mulder under these circumstances, he also knew they knew he knew that it was plausible. It would be the perfect scenario to trick him into revealing more than he should. 

But if it was the real Mulder, Max wanted to impress him, to let him know he knew his stuff too. Unfortunately playing it cool wasn’t really his nature, and he couldn’t help quoting one of his favorite F.M. Luder lines. “ Trust no one .” He’d written that in the September 1993 edition of the Gunmen, and Max couldn’t get over how gnarly it sounded. 

Sure, he didn’t get a chance to see as much of the crash site as he’d wanted, but getting to spend hours picking Mulder’s brain was just as exhilarating. He knew his buddies would say he just didn’t have anything better to do, but it felt like he really cared. Usually when Max started getting excited, people would cut him off, but Mulder just listened. Sometimes Max felt himself stammering because he wasn’t used to talking for so long, and he felt himself getting flustered to the point the backs of his ears felt hot, but for one of the first times in his life, he felt like he wasn’t annoying anyone. 

It didn’t feel right to admit he knew who Mulder was after an hour in, but he could barely contain his curiosity when he alluded to his work on The X-Files. It felt like the piles of expense report copies and miscellaneous news articles were coming to life. He had to bite his tongue a few times from filling in details he already knew about some of his cases, but hearing them from Mulder’s perspective was fascinating.

For the past few months, Max and his associates noticed a change in the expense reports. Two motel rooms instead of one, the food bill was higher, he stopped for gas more often than he usually did. It was obvious someone had been sent to spy on him. 

Well, maybe not so obvious. When Mulder mentioned his partner, there didn’t seem to be any traces of hostility or judgment like Max assumed there might be. Honestly, it was a little hard to keep up with. He was pretty sure he heard Mulder say his partner, named Scully like the baseball announcer, conducted autopsies. Yet she was a field agent. Max didn’t want to ask for clarification and make it seem like he wasn’t paying attention, but the woman Mulder described so fondly seemed intimidating. Max realized the tonal shifts in some of the documents he’d gotten a hold of must’ve been a result of Mulder wanting to impress her. 

After a while, the guards told them to shut up and go to bed, and he was left in the dark whispering to Mulder like kids at a sleepover. At least- he imagined it was like a sleepover. He wasn’t sure how much time passed, but eventually, his whispers were met with silence and snores as Mulder slept. Only then, in the cover of night, did Max Fenig finally release the beaming smile he’d been holding in all night.

Mulder was still asleep by the time Max was released, but he had to wait for the guards to find his belongings before he could leave. While he was waiting, a young woman burst into the room with so much confidence that he presumed she worked there. It wasn’t until he watched her eyes quickly scan the room that he caught a glimpse of her worry. He couldn’t hear her conversation very well, but it sounded like her husband was detained. As the guards sorted out whatever they needed to, the petite woman kept nervously switching between glancing at her watch and picking at her nails. She didn’t seem to take note of Max, but most people didn’t, especially when they were as pretty as she was.

He got his stuff back while the woman was waiting. Max hoped the guards would be too preoccupied with her by the time Agent Scully got there to bail Mulder out so that he’d have more time to search the agent’s motel room. Even though he was pretty certain he was the real Mulder, he just wanted to make sure. Better to be safe than tricked by a very convincing shapeshifter.

Chapter Text

It happened on the playground at recess. Not in the way she’d read about these kinds of things in storybooks: a flash of light, some ghostly vision, a possession of some kind. It just was. 

She wasn’t like the other fifth graders. She was smart, advanced. There had been no need for first or second grade. And it was while she sat reading her science textbook cover to cover for the third time, studying the chapter on ionic bonds, that she became aware of thousands of other things she’d never learned. It was as if she were suddenly leading another life, but not just one. Maybe three or four. Five, perhaps. 

It felt like there were… six.

Teena Simmons sat alone next to the water fountain except she wasn’t alone, not really. There was another presence with her now.

It was hard to explain, but somehow she knew. 

She just knew. 

***

Cindy Reardon opened her eyes, aware. 

She was only eight and knew basically nothing about death. But there was now a sense of loss that she could not explain: the loss of a parent. A mother.

How could that be? Her mother was in her bedroom right now, opening the curtains, telling her to get up and get ready for school. 

But no. The thought arrived quickly and clearly, the method and manner so specific. Ovarian cancer. She'd never read about it, but still, she knew exactly what it was and what it meant. Her mother was dead, she was quite certain it had to be true.

Then, yet another intrusive thought… I have no mother. 

I have no parents. 

Cindy wasn’t aware of Teena immediately, but the knowledge was inside her, as if she’d been born with it.

Not born. Created.

All her life there had been an emptiness inside her, and at this moment she became nothing more than a singular impulse: to find the missing pieces, and to rid herself of anything that was standing in the way of that goal. 

She couldn’t explain how she knew she was going to murder her parents. 

She just knew.

***

Teena was afraid. 

She sat in the foster home clutching Bun Bun tightly to her chest, knowing her task was complete, and that all she had to do was wait. For what, or who exactly, she didn’t know… but she did know that whoever it was would come for her soon. Then everything would be okay.

When her mother died two years ago from cancer, Teena felt nothing. She knew she was supposed to cry, but something deep inside was telling her it didn’t matter. None of this mattered. It was all merely a prelude to something else.

This time, however, was different. She could feel it now, unable to articulate in her own mind that which was happening: her innocence draining away just like her father’s blood did. As she’d watched it leaking out of his body, it was as if she finally felt new life pouring into her own, and she heard Cindy over and over again in her mind, encouraging her, telling her this was the way. 

This was the only way they could be together. 

When Eve 7 arrived in the middle of the night telling Teena it was time to go, she took the woman’s hand and followed her out into the raging storm, into what she knew was a completely new chapter of her life. The beginning. 

Bun Bun remained behind, discarded, right along with Teena Simmons. 

She was Eve 9 now, and she was no longer afraid.

***

Cindy held Teena’s hand tightly, the streetlights rushing past them in a blur as they sat together in the back seat. For the first time in her life she was exactly where she belonged and she knew it. Teena was a part of her– was her – and although she couldn't explain it, she could feel it. She hadn’t felt much at all for eight years.

The FBI agents had no idea what she and Teena were capable of. Honestly, she didn’t even know what she was capable of until after she’d done it. But as she held Teena’s– no, Eve 9’s – hand and exchanged a glance with her, they both knew these two agents were the last obstacle in their way. They needed to be eliminated, just like Eve 7.

“Agent Mulder, I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Me too,” Teena parroted, and they both saw it in their minds simultaneously: Agents Mulder and Scully slumped in the front seat of their rental car, blood dripping down both of their necks. 

The thought pleased them. 

***

It didn’t happen the way they’d hoped. But they were together, at least. And soon Eve 8 would arrive to free them all. Then, they’d be whole again. Then, they would be the most aware they’ve ever been.

Soon. It was hard to explain, but somehow they knew. 

They just knew. 

Chapter Text

Phoebe watches Malcolm as he guides his wife smoothly across the dance floor. The woman’s hand is in his as he holds her tight to him with his fingers spread wide across her lower back. They move without effort, as if they’ve done this a million times before, which they likely have, considering their roles in society.

What’s more, there’s not even the slightest hint of distress on their faces. They are the picture of happiness even though they’ve run from their home. Even though their family is in danger. Even though Malcolm has been unfaithful many times before, but most recently with Phoebe herself.

She hadn’t planned on sleeping with him when they first met. She never planned on sleeping with anyone, actually, but it almost always worked out that way. She’d meet a man, one with power or intelligence. She would flirt, since that was the only way she knew how to relate to that type of men, and before long, she would find herself in their bed, entwined in their sheets and their lives in ways she probably ought not have been.

As she watches the supposedly happy couple, she tries to unravel her feelings. At first she thinks it’s jealousy, that she’s longing for what they have, or what they are pretending to have, but she knows that’s not it. She has never wanted a marriage or a family. She has never worked towards the conventional types of relationships that those around her always seem to want.

She laughs to herself when she realizes the irony of what she wants.

Fire.

There’s a low rumbling in her belly, the need for excitement and passion that makes her think of Fox Mulder, just outside the banquet hall doors. He’s probably being a good agent of the FBI, watching the exits and looking for their arsonist, no thoughts on his mind other than solving the case.

Phoebe smiles and removes the napkin from her lap, folding it neatly on the table. Mulder hasn’t changed one bit since their time together at Oxford. He was always so studious, so focused on his future. It was like his whole existence depended on that degree, like it would be the answer to all of life’s questions.

He had been a challenge for her. At first he didn’t notice her, which only made her want to work harder. She’d imagined removing his glasses followed by his clothes, tossing his books and papers to the floor and showing him how much more exciting their time at school could be.

It had taken a few months, but eventually she got what she wanted, just like she always did. She was surprised to discover that he could be just as adventurous as she was, the list of places where their mouths and bodies had met growing by the day. He was like a drug she couldn’t get enough of, until one day she saw someone else. A professor who just so happened to have a wife and two children. He made eye contact with her during his lectures, and before she knew it, Mulder was gone from her mind, replaced with the new conquest.

She had enjoyed Mulder for a time, though. If she were the type of person who wanted to settle down, she could have imagined doing it with him. Still, she knows she left her mark on him. If she wanted him now, which she knew did the second she watched him and his young partner walking through the parking garage, she could have him.

Phoebe takes one more look at the couple she is assigned to protect and leaves the table. She can’t help but notice how handsome Mulder is when she finds him standing alone in the parlor outside the hall. She’s genuinely happy to see him, even if she knows it will only be for a short time.

“Enjoying yourself?” she asks when she gets close.

He turns to face her and they lock eyes. “Good food, witty conversation. I'm having the time of my life.”

He’s being sarcastic and it makes her laugh. She feels the part of her that gets what it wants start to take over. “I wondered if you'd think it's safe enough to indulge ourselves in a dance.”

She can hear the flirtation in her voice, and while she is actually concerned about the safety of the Marsden family, right now the only fire on her mind is the one standing in front of her in his tux.

“It doesn't look like your arsonist is going to make an appearance,” he says, taking a slight step back, looking around the room.

“That doesn't mean there won't be any fires to put out,” she says, stepping closer, forcing him to focus on her. A small smile slides across his face and she wraps her arm over his shoulder.

He takes her hand in his and she buries her face in his neck, pretending they are a couple, like they are the husband and wife dancing in the other room, like they have been together all these years since Oxford.

“I’ve thought about you often,” she says, and it isn’t a lie. She’s always wondered what happened to Fox Mulder after he returned to the states.

They sway together, fitting easily as they dance without music, until he shifts slightly and she pulls back to look at him. There’s a moment, just a brief second, before his lips touch hers, where she feels her body come to life like it hasn’t in years.

Her hands move to his neck as their kiss deepens. She feels his hand slide low on her waist, just low enough to be not entirely appropriate for a public setting, and she loses herself. She doesn’t think of the case or Malcolm, or any of the other men she’s kissed since university. All she thinks about is Mulder.

Until his partner snuffs out the flame and all she’s left with are smoldering embers.

Chapter Text

When Captain William Scully first anointed Dana with the nickname ‘Starbuck,’ he hadn’t really considered that he subconsciously positioned himself as Ahab.

It was clear the nickname suited the little girl with curly red ringlets that framed her thoughtful expressions. All of the discipline and rationality that the Navy had to instill in him seemed innate in the child.

When she started calling him Ahab, he presumed his daughter just associated him with the fictional captain as a result of their shared position and love of the sea. Even though he didn’t see himself as the obsessive, self-destructive protagonist from Moby Dick , if his baby girl said he was her Ahab, he would be a fool to turn down such an honor. 

Over the decades spanning his career, he accumulated two things, colors on his breast and absences in moments he should have been present for. Charlie’s first steps were during his time in the Atlantic. He wasn’t there to instill the fear of God into Melissa’s first boyfriend, and he wasn’t there to mend the ache of her first heartbreak. Bill Jr went from a bike to a beat-up Ford over the span of one deployment.

He supposed that’s where he differed slightly from Ahab. His leg wasn’t taken whole by his whale, but instead gnawed on for years while he was none the wiser. Perhaps he never felt it because he knew that no matter how far he went, once his boat docked ashore his family would be there waiting to steady him with open arms.

It wasn’t until he came back from deployment to find only Maggie there to greet him that he realized Ahab was a name far more fitting than he’d ever imagined. William Scully never felt the acute pain of his peg leg until it was burdened by the weight of a family man standing in the middle of his childless home.

How much had he missed while trying to make his family proud?

For all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.

One autumn night, when the absence of bickering kids was too loud and the unused rooms in the house looked a little too empty, he confessed his fear to Maggie. From the look on her face, you would’ve thought he told her hell had frozen over. 

“Do you have any idea how much your kids respect you?” she asked, placing gentle kisses along his shoulder.

“I know that,” he replied with a sigh. He’d mastered the art of the unspoken only to realize it left him speechless when there was so much that needed to be said.

Maggie was quiet for a moment, and decades of marriage told him that she was reading his mind and coming up with a solution to his problems. He didn’t know how she did it, but she was his true guiding light. 

“They know you love them without you needing to say it,” she affirmed, nestling closer to him on the bed.

“But?” he supplemented.

“But -” she drew out teasingly. “I think it would do good if you were a little more verbally communicative. Not everyone is as proficient in non-verbal communication as we are. Tomorrow when we visit Dana, you should try asking her about work. You know how much she worries about disappointing you.”

A frown tugged at his lips and he tsked in reply. As the kids grew older, they worried Bill Jr.’s temper would get him into trouble, they worried about the dangers that came with Melissa’s carefree spirit, and they worried the cruelties of the world would hurt Charlie’s sensitive heart. Dana was the child they never really worried about, and while she was bright as the sun, his daughter took their worry as a sign that she’d disappointed them.

“She just wants to know you’re proud of her,” Maggie pressed, squeezing his arm lightly.

“Of course I am,” he whispered firmly. “I’m her father.”

Death is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried it is but the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense Remote, the Wild, the Watery, the Unshored...

For once, words came easy to him. 

“I’m so proud of you, Starbuck.”

“I love you."

His daughter was staring at him from her position on the couch with the familiar look of intrigue that she’d worn since she was a child. He wasn’t sure when he’d have the opportunity to speak to her again, but he hoped it wasn’t until the concentration line on her face was well-worn in and her hair was long and white.

As a ringing sound broke the tranquility, William Scully found himself sitting in a boat that was tethered to a dock by a single rope. His beloved wife and children were standing at the dock, just like they always were when they sent him off to sea. 

His temple was warmed by his mother’s kiss while his father patted him on the back for a job well done. William felt the familiar sensation of his childhood dog, Daggoo, jumping on his shins. Turning around, he was met with the kind expressions of more loved ones than he could count — all of them making a path for him to the helm of the ship.

Turning back to look at his family, he noticed they were joined by a nervous-looking man standing further back, looking like he was about to fall into the water until he suddenly disappeared.

His attention was drawn back to his wife as he heard Beyond the Sea playing. Maggie smiled at him with all the love in her heart, and he knew she was telling him it was time to go. 

With a gentle tug of the rope, the boat started off toward the horizon.

Chapter Text

The lights scatter across the ceiling, their spiral movements echoing the way most of the club’s occupants probably feel this evening. The music blares and the chatter is relentless. 

Brother Martin smiles. This dizzying, frenetic energy is electric; as if he’s not already lit up, it only adds fuel to his fire. And across the room stands a young man in a loud patterned shirt, a cell phone up against his ear, the perfect amount of distracted.

He’s on the prowl. His kind have always been predators in a way, but tonight it’s a different, special kind of prey.

They’d been sent years ago – decades, really, he’s lost track – and not once had any of the others ventured out beyond their assigned tasks. They’d made their way in the human world, kept to themselves for the most part. Pleasure was unnecessary, superfluous, and no one but himself had dared seek it. 

He’d been stuck up in those damned woods for so long, just waiting; waiting for the mother ship to return and remember them. To take them all home. But he’s tired of waiting. The temptations of the flesh have been much too great for him to resist.

His kind are asexual – always have been, always will be… always should be. But he’s different, somehow. Sister Abby refers to their kind as “we who are separate,” but for as long as he can remember he’s felt even more removed than that. None of the Kindred would approve of his indiscretions, much less partake themselves. No… he needs to be a part of the human world, the place where his desires can be met reliably and indiscriminately.

The first time was an experiment, really. Curiosity. He hadn’t meant it to go that far. As he’d stared down at the lifeless (yet satisfied, he couldn’t help but thinking) human body beneath him, it struck him that the teachings of the Kindred had always warned against giving into temptation; that the punishment for this grave transgression was death. He didn’t know he would be the one bringing that death. 

Better them than me , he’d thought. He persisted anyway.

The second time was easier. His prey was male, which was new to him, but it didn’t matter. He has no preference. Male, female, it was all the same to him. 

All the same… until that sweet moment of release. 

Wow.

It must have been a fluke. There was no logical reason the human female orgasm would be that much more powerful than the male’s, was there?

He had to be sure. That was the only reason he’d gone back to being male again: to confirm his theory. And then he decided sticking with female in perpetuity was the best solution. If the consequences would be so dire every single time, it had at least better be worth it.

He laughs to himself, remembering the prayers Sister Abby had recited over every supper:

“We pray for the day of the coming, the moment of our release.”

Sister Abby has no fucking clue. He pities her.

He pities them all, really, that none of them will ever experience the extent of what humanity has to offer. None of them will ever understand. Brother Andrew had certainly never understood. Even when they’d found those magazines off Route 44, he hadn’t given in. He hadn’t admitted the red-headed woman on the nineteenth page did look an awful lot like Sister Mary, and that despite what Brother Andrew refused to confess to his best friend, he’d had plenty of impure thoughts about Sister Mary.

Brother Martin — no, it’s Marty now — fixates on the attractive male on the phone across the club. He’s engaged in his phone conversation, but Marty can tell he’s sweaty. It’s the sweat that probably does it; the guy has more invisible sexual energy than anyone in the room by far. 

Marty eyes his prey from beneath long lashes. After spending months in nightclubs just like this one, he’s getting used to the way feminine wiles work. And when he touches the man’s hand, slowly caressing the pulse point between his thumb and index finger, he can smell the release of the pheromones. 

It doesn’t take much effort with human men. That’s another plus.

The man – Michel, he learns, although he doesn’t really care – follows him towards the entrance of the club, at a certain point reaching out to take his hand. In the parking lot, Marty listens to a bit of small talk about how Michel’s parents were Russian immigrants, about his twin brother he hasn’t seen in ages. None of it matters; he’s merely waiting for the main event. And before too long, they’ve made their way to Michel’s car.

Sometimes his prey takes a while to get there, be it nervousness or drugs, but Marty can feel his victim already hardening beneath him, even through his jeans. Before they can get much further, however, there’s a loud rap at the window. 

He crawls off his prey and out of the car. The officer shines a light in his eyes, and for a moment Marty considers the officer himself might be game for some off-duty play. But Michel heaves and spits against the car window, drawing attention to the deadly consequences of his actions, and before he knows it he’s on the run, on the prowl again.

The music from inside the club pulses in his ears, dizzying, electric. And now, he is even more ravenous than he was before.

Chapter Text

He did all of it for her, the love of his life. The yin to his yang, his reason for living. 

It was all for her and she’d gone and held a gun to his head. Lula’s eyes were cold, ruthless even, any sign of the love they’d once had was gone. 

But when she talked about the snow on the way to the Pine Barrens, Jack had seen it there, what they’d shared years before. They should never have been together, but neither could resist the pull that they felt when they were in each other’s presence. He noticed her almost instantly when she joined the academy and he immediately fell. 

The fact that she’d fallen for him too had caught him by surprise. A beautiful, exciting surprise. 

And that bitch, that red-headed bitch just left him there to die. Shot him in the chest and left him on the table while they worked on her friend. Well, joke’s on her. He’d come back in this fucking cop’s body and he would have been fine if they guy hadn’t been a diabetic. And if Lula hadn’t smashed his last chance of making it out of this alive. 

The medicine bottle, shattered on the ground like—

Ice. Dana had reminded him of fishing on the ice. No one believed New Jersey could get cold enough to ice fish, but deep in the woods by his father’s cabin, there was a lake that always froze over, and the fish were plentiful. 

Dana had been afraid the ice would crack, walking across it like a newborn fawn. He laughed, falling in love with her more and more by the minute, even though he knew she was too guarded to let him say those words. 

He told Lula he loved her any chance he got, but she only said it when she wanted something. The times when she needed money or wanted to do a job was when she loved him the most. In those moments, he would slide his hands across her skin, taste her lips, and he would rob whatever fucking bank she picked. 

Afterwards she’d be hungry, grabbing at his clothes, pulling and tearing as he wrapped her in his arms, hot and heavy, like horny teenagers. 

But it was cold.  

“Was there snow?” He was tired and so, so cold. 

“Yes, Jack.” It was Dana. The student who’d come to talk to him after his lectures. The woman he’d loved but had been unable to keep. “There was lots of snow.” 

The bank, and the cabin . Lula. Dana. His thoughts were fractured and the room around him had begun to darken and blur.  

“I can’t.”

“It was December,” he heard Dana say. He could barely see her, but he remembered how her eyes had looked when… Jesus, he’d held a gun to her face. “It was the weekend after Thanksgiving.”

“I remember,” he said, trying to focus, pushing Dupre’s memories to the side. “A red stove.”

“Yeah. That's right. There was a wood-burning stove right in the middle of the room.”

He could remember, her body, naked and covered in goosebumps. She was always hot when they were together. 

No. Dana. She was cold. Soft and eager, but chilled from the winter air. He’d held her in his arms, her skin… “Cold.”

“Yeah.” Her voice was gentle. He didn’t like it. He remembered the sound of it like it was yesterday.

“So cold,” he said, holding onto the memory like a lifeline. “I remember I had to wrap you in a blanket when the wood ran out.”

“Yeah.”

He was so tired. He didn’t know this body, what the fuck it was doing. He knew he needed insulin. He remembered feeling this way when he was young and didn’t know how to control his blood sugar. It was such a long time ago.  

He felt worse than the time he’d been shot. 

He just needed to rest.  

“No! Jack, don't close your eyes,” he heard Dana say. She sounded far away. He thought maybe it was Lula, but he remembered what a backstabber she was. “Come on, keep talking. Jack, keep talking. Come on.”

The bank. Everything had been going to plan. Until they’d ruined all of it. Jack and this woman. He thought he’d had the shot, but he’d been wrong. Dupre was faster. 

He was faster. 

“I’m gonna execute every one of you!”

The bank and Dana . Lula, his stomach. So tired. 

“No. No.”

He was tired of her. He hadn’t realized how much he missed her. 

He was fucking pissed. 

“Shut up and do it!”

He saw her eyes, the way she looked at him, and he wanted to take it all back. Involving her in this case, ending things the way they did years before. He wanted to hold her in his arms, apologize for being arrogant back then and thinking that they weren’t right for each other. He wanted to go back and give up on this case before he ever entered that bank. He wanted to try harder, start over, leave the FBI, visit the Pine Barrens. 

But they would need money, and that bitch had ratted him out. He hadn’t seen it coming. 

Maybe he’d always loved Dana. 

Maybe he’d never loved Lula. 

He wondered what the weather was like at the cabin. It had to be warmer than it was there.

He was so cold.  

Fucking cold.

Chapter Text

The crime lab is the heart of the Bureau: the center of all things scientific. It’s also a perpetual melting pot of rumors and testosterone. Being one of three women in Hoover’s bustling Laboratory Division, she can relate to being held under a microscope while confined to a station the size of a Petrie dish. 

Special Agent Lisa Henderson sips her double-shot espresso and sighs as caffeine’s sweet nectar fills her veins. She is in desperate need of a break. If she has to analyze another forgery, or stare at one more ransom note, she might start taking hostages herself. 

“Hey, Henderson,” Richards hollers on his way out the door. “Agent Mulder just phoned. Said he needs your expertise .” 

She scoffs at the fingerprint analyst’s teasing tone. Agent Richards is reliable, attractive, and even more eager to date her than her ex. 

“Don’t you have prints to play with?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just don’t let Spooky distract you too much today, we’re swamped.” Richards winks and disappears around the corner. 

She shakes her head and settles at her station. “Distraction is right.”

No matter what kernel of gossip churns within the Bureau’s rumor mill, she agrees with the rest of the lust-struck special agents that Fox Mulder’s sexiness is undeniable. Henderson chews her lip, contemplating. She knows she will flirt; that he will flirt back. She knows she’s playing with fire every single time she stares at his cocky smile. It’s a harmless repartee, really. She’s sworn off work relationships in recent years for a damn good reason. But men like Mulder don't seem to mind risks, so maybe she shouldn’t either.

Agent Mulder strolls into the lab with evidence in hand and an eager gleam in his eye. “Henderson! My one and only.”

“As if there would be anyone else,” she teases. “What’ve ya got this time?”

“Ya know, your run-of-the-mill Spooky Mulder fan mail.” 

He would be easier to ignore, she thinks as she pulls on her latex gloves, if he wasn’t so charming. 

“Popular, are we?” Henderson prods, flicking on the electron microscope.

“Always,” he quips back as her eyes narrow in on the note’s cursive scrawl. 

Fox can’t guard the chicken coop. 

Their light moment dims under the dark message. 

“Gimme a few,” she says, glancing up to see Mulder nod and wander his way into the hall. 

Then Agent Scully sweeps into view, her nose buried in a file as she paces outside the lab. Suddenly Henderson feels acutely inadequate. Brains, she’s always had. Beauty is subjective, of course. But the strong, enigmatic energy that Dana Scully imbues is inspiring. 

She blinks and refocuses: fresh ink. Recently written. Ballpoint pen. Right-hander. Confident cursive. Direct, aggressive…

Minutes pass before Mulder is pulling up a stool across from her and wiggling his nose between the opposing microscope's eyepieces. 

Henderson grins.

“This guy a friend of yours?”

“Yeah, I play golf with him every Sunday,” he retorts. “What do you think?”

“You just brought this in ten minutes ago.”

His head pops up, a whiff of aftershave wafting her way. He smells as good as he looks.

“You're slipping, Henderson.”

“Ten minutes may be enough time for you, Mulder,” she flirts. “Of course, I wouldn't know that from personal experience.”

“Yeah…” He leans back on the stool, amused, tossing her his usual look of levity. “Seriously, what do you think?”

“Okay, first impressions…” she starts, then dives in doing what she loves: analyzing and explaining. 

In the end, both she and Mulder agree the threat came from convicted killer John Barnett. She whips off her gloves and taps her glossy red nail at the plastic-covered note, sliding it Mulder’s way with confidence. Her job is done.

“Thanks, Henderson. I owe you one.”

She offers a sly smirk. “Promises, promises.”

Mulder quickly takes off to join his partner waiting patiently in the hall. 

Across the lab, the phone rings. Henderson bolts from her seat to answer the call before quickly transferring it. The image this new position provides is captivating.

The pair are walking slowly towards the elevator, Mulder’s hand brushing the small of Agent Scully’s back, the clack of her heels sluggish against the glossy floor. She seems hesitant to leave. He seems hesitant to watch her go. 

Now this is the most intriguing thing Henderson has seen all day. She leans closer to the glass, stretching to get a clear, concise look. What kind of forensic analyst would she be if she didn’t? 

“Well, well, what do we have here?” she mumbles. Agent Scully steps into him, brow arched. A challenge Henderson’s seen Mulder thrive on before. 

Their easy camaraderie is obvious now that she scrutinizes clues and mentally sifts through inner-office rumors. Gossip goes, these two are shaking up this straight-laced system. Breaking rules, making waves. 

Getting close.

The elevator doors ding open, and there’s a pause - a murmur from him, a flash of a smile from her. Something sizzles between them, and it sure as hell isn’t irritation. 

Henderson smiles on the way back to her station, oddly satisfied with her new-found conclusion of the basement-dwelling duo. 

“His one and only, indeed,” she mocks playfully just as Agent Richards re-enters the lab, a genuine grin plastered on his face the moment his eyes lock with hers. 

Henderson finds herself grinning in return. Maybe interoffice dating isn’t so bad after all. 

“Hey Richards, does your offer of dinner and drinks still stand?”

Chapter Text

She’s hot.

He didn’t feel bad for saying it, because it was true. But after Agent Dana Scully left the gunmen’s headquarters, Melvin Frohike realized what he’d meant as a compliment had probably come across as reductive. Over the course of her visit, his initial summation of her physical appearance had only been enhanced exponentially by her wit and intelligence. 

In reality, she wasn’t just “hot.” In reality, she was the perfect woman.

“So Mulder…” Frohike asked, as his friend packed up his belongings. “What’s going on between you and Agent Scully?” 

“Nothing. She’s my partner,” Mulder said dryly.

Byers and Langly exchanged looks. Frohike knew what they were thinking: It hadn’t stopped him before.

“I hope we’re not witnessing Diana Fowley, part deux,” Langly muttered under his breath.

Mulder grimaced at the comment. Byers glared at Langly, who looked chagrined, as if he’d bit his tongue. They were all too aware of what Langly had done for Mulder years ago, erasing all the evidence of his marriage from his records. It was a sore subject and they’d all been sworn to secrecy. 

“I suppose it’s a valid concern,” Mulder said, however. 

They all looked at him curiously. Part of Frohike wanted to hear him say he and Agent Scully had already slept together, so hands off , just put him out of his misery. But another part of him was hopeful; ridiculously, ludicrously hopeful. And that part of him was already shamefully aware he was developing an affection for Dana Scully that wasn’t going to just evaporate if she happened to be unavailable.

“I’ll say it again though, the answer is nothing, guys,” Mulder sighed. “And for the record, Diana was a mistake. I’m not making that mistake again.” He looked at them all pointedly. “Never again.”

Frohike took this information in with a somber nod paired with that same (albeit miniscule) supply of hope. Maybe his FBI buddy’s apparent lack of interest was a sign he actually had a shot. 

“So you’re saying she’s available…?” he asked. “Does she have a boyfriend?”

Mulder tossed a sunflower seed in his mouth. “Nope.” He grinned at his friend and chewed. “Why, you gonna call her up? Take her to the Anime Expo?”

“No. As a matter of fact, I’d take her somewhere nice. Maybe dancing. Bring flowers, wear a suit. The whole shebang.”

Mulder raised an eyebrow. “You own a suit, Frohike?”

“Of course I have a suit,” he said indignantly. He hadn’t worn it in at least a decade and had no idea where it was, but… “Somewhere.”

“Uh huh.”

“So, can I get her number?”

Mulder threw another seed in his mouth, chewing deliberately. “Sure, you got a pen?”

Frohike nearly fell out of his chair as he scrambled for one, then locked eyes with Mulder, waiting eagerly. Mulder leaned in close, so only Frohike could hear.

“It’s area code 202… over my dead body. ”

Mulder smirked, tossed one more seed in his mouth, then took his leave.

Frohike sighed as the door closed behind him, and looked at the Polaroid he’d taken of Agent Scully. The chemical process had completed, leaving an image of the woman in question. She was just as photogenic as he assumed she’d be– albeit slightly less indulgent, looking directly at the lens beneath unbelievably long lashes.

He had a shot. Right?

He turned to his buddies to ask them if they agreed, but before he could, Langly spoke up. “Twenty bucks says they’re doing the nasty by the end of the year,” he said with barely restrained glee.

Byers narrowed his eyes, pointing out the obvious. “You don’t have twenty bucks.”

“Fine, Byers, ” Langly conceded, “I bet a month’s laundry duty that Agent Dana Scully is head over heels for Mulder.”

“You don’t do laundry, either.” Byers said. “Anyway, I think it’ll happen even sooner than that.” 

They both turned to Frohike expectantly, who stared back, conflicted. Was he actually supposed to be rooting for this?

“Um….”

Byers shook his head. “You think he’s lying, don’t you? You think they’re already together.”

“No, it’s not that,” Frohike said. He shrugged. “I just wonder if… maybe Scully doesn’t go for the tall, brooding, handsome type.”

Langly grinned, seeing right through his friend. “You mean, maybe she goes for the short, sloppy, stinky types?”

Frohike frowned. He didn’t kid himself that he was an attractive man – not like Mulder was, anyway – and he certainly wished he had a few more inches on him, but what he was lacking in height he made up for in charm, even confidence. And as far as the way he smelled… well, Langly was certainly one to talk. Whenever he was out all night with his D&D crew, he always returned in the early hours of the morning with the sour tang of male body odor clinging to his shirt. Frohike was a gentleman, or at least he tried to be. He never smelled foul.

“You?” Byers laughed. It wasn’t a malicious laugh by any means, more of an incredulous one. But it still stung.

Frohike shrugged. “Why the hell not?”

Byers put his hands up in a defensive gesture. “You’re right, I’m in no position to judge.” The gold wedding band flashed on his ring finger as if in emphasis.

“I for one would like to see it,” Langly said. He crossed his arms and leaned against the drafting table. “You, asking Dana Scully out on a date.”

“A real date,” Byers piped up. “Not here and not with us around.”

Frohike scoffed. “I can do things without you two, you know.”

His cohorts eyed each other, obviously disagreeing with this sentiment, but said nothing.

“Byers and me on laundry duty for two months,” Langly said.

“Six,” Frohike said. The guys looked at each other again. “What? She’s hot.”

They all nodded and shook hands. Frohike fell asleep in his bunk that night after taping the polaroid onto the wall next to him. He dreamed of Dana Scully.

Chapter Text

Miracles are everywhere, if one is only willing to see them. Small miracles happen every day– the trees regrow their leaves in the spring, a dark sky full of clouds opens up to release life-giving rain upon the earth. A child is conceived.

Every child is a miracle, but one, just one of those children, the one who had been sent to earth by his father, had been the true gift to all of humanity. Carried and delivered by a young, unassuming woman, the virgin birth, this child was born to save all of God’s children from their sins. Through his sacrifice, this man who had started his life in a manger among the cows and sheep, delivered the human race to the kingdom of Heaven.

From humble beginnings, Jesus Christ had led a life of virtue and humility. He cared for the sick, condemned the corrupt, and spread the word of his Holy Father. He created wine from mere water, he filled the fisher’s nets.

He’d raised a man from the dead.

Samuel didn’t know how he’d done it, but what he did know, even at such a young age, was that Christ had been with him when he’d laid his hand on Leonard Vance’s burnt flesh. He said the words he had been taught by his father. He felt the love of his Heavenly Father pour down into him. He felt Jesus with him. He held his power within his own hands, his gift of healing and life.

Then the man had clasped his hand. His life had been restored.

“Hallelujah, Samuel,” his father said, proud but reserved. “Hallelujah.”

And so it had continued. Jesus walked beside him, an ever-present force in his life. God’s glory rained down upon him in all aspects of his existence. When it was time for him to share his gift, he would call to the Creator, pray for forgiveness for any transgressions, and ask His assistance to separate the light from the darkness, remove the sickness from a believer’s earthly body, and replace it with health.

He had healed them all, brought them new life, to walk as he did, with God by their sides. It was his gift and his duty, until pride had interfered and it had started to become his power. As if he were a god himself, he’d started to enjoy the accolades. The believers followed him, listened when he spoke, showered him with gifts. He’d turned it all away at first, preferring to live a humble life like his savior had, but unlike the divine child in the manger, he was only human. Samuel was tempted. He’d lost his way.

And thus he had been punished. This time, he hadn’t saved a life, but instead took it away. He had ended the suffering of one of God’s children by shepherding them to their eternal rest.

Because he had strayed from the path of righteousness. He was no longer an agent of life and healing. So quickly had he fallen out of God’s good graces and become the angel of death for those who had believed.

“I muddied the river of my own faith,” he told the FBI agents who came to speak to him before he was to be led to a jail cell. “Now my gift has been corrupted.”

He could tell that the female agent didn’t believe him, but he could sense that her life had been guided by the touch of God’s hand.

“Do you doubt the power of God, ma'am?” he asked, testing her, wanting to see if they shared faith in the Lord.

“No,” she said calmly. “But I doubt the veracity of your claims.”

These agents couldn’t understand. They hadn’t been blessed by the Heavenly Father the way he had. Though the woman did hold her faith close to her heart, much like the cross she wore upon her neck, the man… he could tell he had been hurt. He could see his pain, feel his loss.

If Samuel had trusted in his gift, he would have made an effort to heal Agent Mulder’s trauma, but without his ability, his words came off as nothing more than a parlor trick presented by a second rate magician.

Still, the man believed him. In this, he had faith. He wanted his help, needed it, but Samuel was not the man he had once been.

“I can't help you,” he said, as the men closed in to take him away. “Not anymore. My gift is gone.”

The cuffs were placed on his wrists and there were hands on his shoulders. God’s presence was nowhere to be found, but the air was thick with belief. It wasn’t his own, and it wasn’t from the woman. The belief came from Agent Mulder. He had believed what Samuel had said, and he believed in his sister. He wanted to heal what had been broken from her disappearance.

His faith was strong, if he was only willing to trust in it.

“I'll tell you, Mr. Mulder. God watches over his flock,” Samuel said, looking back over his shoulder at the man who was walking alone but could have God by his side if he so chose. “He gives us signs every day. Open your heart. He might just open your eyes.”

As they led him away to his fate, he sent up a prayer that he had done enough, had helped another to the best of his ability, that God would accept his repentance, and restore his gift.

He prayed that he could do God’s work.

He prayed that he would once again be able to heal.

Chapter Text

Soft earth squelches beneath Gwen Goodensnake’s boots as she solemnly approaches the funeral platform. To see Joe, the last of her family, wrapped head to toe in ceremonial sheets with ropes tying his body to the wooden pyre makes her chest ache. 

Her eyes fall shut as Trego tribesmen gather their drums and prepare to send the soul of her little brother on to the new world. As freshly burnt sage overtakes the loamy air, a childhood memory sweeps through her mind unbidden. Like a vision, it engulfs her…

Campfire flames lick Montana’s midnight sky. Sage burns and the new clawed pouch she’s just made for her brother rests within her lap. 

Her father is alive and sits on a rock across from her and young Joe. He continues to speak eagerly of a tale of manitou wolfmen shedding their skin and letting the inner beast out. How every eight years a simple wound from these wolfmen can change a human into one of their own. And how some - if lucky enough - are born with this shape-shifting gift from spirit. His voice carries a fierceness, a knowing tone, with a glint of pride glowing eerily in his big brown eyes. 

A flicker of fear sparks within her younger self, but Gwen will not show it. A gift? She has heard differently.

“Father, that curse is only legend,” Gwen says boldly as she tosses a long braid over her shoulder in confidence. Even at the young age of fourteen, she is brave. 

“A curse only to some.” Her father gives her a wolfish grin through the firelight. “And just because it is legend does not make it untrue.”

A breeze wafts thick sage smoke into Gwen’s face. Her eyes fly open and she grinds her heels into the mud, her grief-stricken body swaying with the wind. 

Every eight years… 

The exact length of time that her father has been dead. 

Gwen shakes her head in denial. It’s those damned Parkers and their bloodthirsty greed for more land that has never belonged to them in the first place that’s caused this, no matter what the FBI thinks. 

She feels eyes boring into her before the agent with flame-colored hair suddenly appears, invading her solitude. Gwen sighs, clutching the last of Joe’s possessions within the pocket of her leather jacket. 

She does not need to look at the shorter woman beside her for what comes next. “You don’t belong here.”

“Gwen…”

“You’re only around to wrap up your investigation.” Gwen knows it’s harsh, but it’s true. Soon they will be gone, and Joe will still be dead.

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for your brother,” Agent Scully says softly. “I feel sad for anyone who loses a part of their family.”

There is fresh loss weighing down her words. Gwen’s stomach twists.

“A part? He was my whole family. I’m it now,” she rasps as she pulls out the old leathered claw. “As a demonstration of sorrow… I’m supposed to give away my brother’s possessions.”

Gwen handles the first gift she’d ever given Joe for the very last time.

Agent Scully accepts it, of course. Gwen knew she would not refuse such a thing, even if she does not believe in their ways. She had felt it the moment the redheaded woman stood next to her. Just like she feels that her partner may be a more obvious option to pass her brother’s belongings on to. But Agent Scully is the one standing here now, and as her pale fingers curl around Joe’s well worn claw with care, Gwen is satisfied with her choice.

“Gwen, I don’t know what to say. I’m…”

“It’s no big deal,” Gwen says thickly as anger and grief clog her throat. “He had more possessions than he had friends.”

She turns her back on the baffled agent before stumbling into the tree line, overwhelming anguish swimming through her veins. 

Soon, darkness falls. Beating drums vibrate the earth. Fire crackles and flames curl around the wooden platform in embrace. The soulful song of her tribe’s chants are suddenly interrupted by an unwelcome arrival of Lyle Parker. 

Gwen runs up to the man sitting upon his high horse, looking down on her brother’s burning body. Fury takes hold. “Get out of here!”

“Please, I just want to show my respects.”

“I don’t want your respects,” she snaps back. “I want your heart to grow cold. I want you to feel what I’m feeling!”

The sheriff says something to Lyle, yet she hears nothing but the blood rushing in her ears. 

The sad look on Lyle’s face sickens her. Gwen spits with disdain at the man she feels is responsible for this loss of life before stalking her way back to Joe’s side one final time.

How dare he show his face on their land. At her brother’s sacred funeral!

Anger swells inside her like the rising fire. The Parkers will pay for this. She will make sure of it.

“I’m sorry Joe,” she whispers. “I’m sorry.”

The heat from the funeral’s flames attempt to warm Gwen’s skin, but she is numb to it. Nothing but revenge can comfort her now. Gwen sighs as Agent Mulder stares at her sympathetically from afar. It’s as if he knows her pain well. Like an old, unshakable friend. And though her tribesmen chant on in celebration of a life well-lived, her heart cracks within her chest.

Finally, the FBI agents turn to leave the ceremony in unison. Gwen tilts her head, watching as they walk away together, barely a breath between them.

She blinks, staring through glassy-eyes as her brother’s spirit rejoins Mother Earth. That’s it. Joe Goodensnake is gone. Her eyes burn as hot tears threaten to scour her lashes, but she will not let them fall. Her brother would not want them to. 

Gwen lifts her face to the blackened sky, her chin trembling, watching with clenched fists as smoke swallows the moon. 

Chapter Text

Saying Agent Scully was making it worse would be unfair, but he couldn’t help but think it. 

He didn’t blame her though. In his fifteen years working for the Federal Forest Service, Larry Moore had never seen anything like this. From the way they moved in clusters to their unnatural coloring, the insects were perturbing in every way.

Moore certainly didn’t like it, but he just had to pretend it was normal. If he thought of them as a swarm of fireflies or a nest of any other creepy crawlers, then it wasn’t so bad. He’d slept in hostile environments before and made it out, it was just a matter of waiting it out.

What he couldn’t deal with was the voice of reason in their midst completely losing it.

Ever since he was tasked with accompanying the feds, he got the impression part of Agent Scully’s job was keeping her partner from blowing a gasket. They were both fine people, but the eccentric man just seemed a little more prone to emotional outbursts than she did.

His heart nearly fell outta his ass when she whacked that lightbulb. He didn’t mean to yell at her, and he felt bad that he did. Moore supposed he just was reacting to his fear in the same way she did — acting on impulse without thinking.

The whole time they’d been there, with every crazy theory her partner suggested, Agent Scully’s level-headed reason had been a comfort. He’d been a Freddie for nearly a decade now. He could sense a storm coming hours before a cloud darkened the sky. He could read imprints left in the dirt as if they were words from a storybook. But this was so out of his realm that for the first time in his career, he felt on edge. Watching her devolve into blind panic so quickly made him spiral with her.

While she wasn’t screaming anymore, her eyes were wild. It was a look similar to the animals he found whose feet had been caught under fallen rocks — trapped and vulnerable. Only right now, there was no proverbial rock anyone could lift to set her free. But that didn’t mean Agent Mulder wasn’t trying.

Moore watched as he gently led the trembling woman to his bed, sitting her down before joining her so that they were hip-by-hip. He couldn’t hear what the man was whispering to her, but he could see his hand rubbing her shoulders.

It was a nice image, but one that made him feel even more isolated. While they found comfort in sharing each other’s warmth, he felt a draft from the dank corner that caused the outburst in the first place. When he saw Agent Mulder press a chaste kiss to her temple, he suddenly felt like he was witnessing something he shouldn’t, and he decided it might be for the best if he tried to get some rest. After all, someone needed to have a clear mind.

However, as soon as his back was against the mattress, he shot back up into a seated position as the springs beneath him screeched in protest. On an impulse, he rubbed the palm of his hand against the prickly hair on the back of his scalp. He was trying to stay calm, but he could see his hand trembling as he brought it in front of him to check for bugs. It was fruitless, he knew Agent Mulder was right. Even though all he could see reflected in the dim light was his sweat, he knew there were bugs crawling on him.

Rationally, he knew that was always true. He’d learned about how there were always microscopic bugs and bacteria present on everyone’s skin when he was a Boy Scout, but this was different. The honest to god medical doctor had been on the verge of tears a few minutes ago, and it was harder for him to relax knowing that.

He glanced down at the pillow resting by his hip and, instead of respite, he just saw all the nooks and crannies where the pillow’s edges cast a shadow against the mattress. No matter how many times he blinked, it still glowed.

“Don’t look.”

Moore turned towards the hushed whisper and saw Agent Mulder had his hand resting on the back of Agent Scully’s neck, not forcing her head but guiding her attention away from the corner of the room. 

It was strange. Moore really would’ve pegged Mulder to be the one who freaked out with how incendiary he’d been over the past few days, but he was the pinnacle of peace.

He rescinded that thought when he saw the agent’s other hand anxiously scratch the back of his neck when Scully wasn’t looking. 

“Breathe in through your nose,” Mulder instructed, his ribs flaring out as he demonstrated the action. “Then let out a long, steady breath through your mouth.”

The two agents whipped around as they let out a breath and he realized he’d been subconsciously following the man’s instructions. If he had to guess from their reactions, they must’ve forgotten he was there.

“Sorry,” he murmured awkwardly.

“This is going to be a great story to tell around the fire to scare the pants off Boy Scouts, huh?” Mulder joked.

Moore knew he was trying to talk about the future like it was a definite in order to help his partner, but he was surprised at how much it was helping him too. He tried to join the agent in his efforts to make tomorrow a certainty: “It’ll be a nice change from my usual Bigfoot tales.”

“We’ll have to trade stories. You wouldn’t believe what I found on the banks of Mogoagogo River,” he replied with a mischievous glimmer in his eye.

Larry’s gut told him that was probably true.

Chapter Text

He assumed he was no different than any other person when it came to food preferences, but then he couldn’t really be sure.

Eugene’s understanding of the human race came from what he witnessed and what he had seen in the papers, and in television and movies when they became prevalent. He didn’t have any real connections to people and rarely spoke to any of them unless it was entirely necessary. But from what he could tell, most people were like him in that when hungry, they would have a craving, a desire, for something specific to fill their stomachs and fulfill a need for sustenance.

For them, maybe it was a hamburger, Mexican food, Chilean sea bass in a white wine butter sauce. For him, it was always the same: one meal, one food, one thing that would make him sigh in relief if only for a moment until he needed another one.

Liver.

Eugene didn’t remember his childhood or much at all before the time of his first long period of sleep. It was almost as if his life had begun with that first taste of a human organ on his tongue. At least he assumed it was the first time he’d eaten it, but he had no way of knowing, really, if he’d had a taste for liver as a child.

The earliest memories he had were of smelling the intoxicating scent of something he knew he had to have. He wasn’t sure what it was a floor above him, with beams, plywood, and carpets separating them, but the smell permeated his brain. It was soft at first, almost like a lingering perfume that fills a room after someone has left, but the more he focused on it, the longer the smell was present in his nose and in his mind, the stronger it got.

It was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. It was different from the smells of cooking coming from an active kitchen. Those were okay, he supposed, but this… this was delicious. It was a heady smell of iron and protein, not completely unlike a buttery steak, but it had a quality all its own.

All he knew was that he needed it, and he did what he had to do to get it.

Every time after had been the same. He walked among humans day in and day out, and while he was aware of the livers they held inside them, there were some that stood out, called to him, as especially… mouth watering.

But he did have his limit. Five was all he could have before he felt his heart rate slow, his body grow heavy, and the need for sleep would overtake him.

Now, he was looking for that fifth. The desire to rest was nagging in the back of his mind, but the blood thirst for that one missing liver remained in the forefront. It was all he could think about. He could hear the pulsing blood in every human who came near him. He could feel their organs working, filtering blood, keeping them alive.

He started his preparations, biding his time until the perfect opportunity presented itself. The organ he sought was in so many of the human hosts that surrounded him, but he wanted to stay strong. This would be his last for the next thirty years, until 2023; he wouldn’t stand for mediocrity. He wanted succulent, orgasmic fulfillment.

He was getting desperate. He could take whatever liver he could manage, but there were still some he would have preferred. The woman on the street– warm and floral, her liver healthy and full of fresh, clean blood– would have been his, until Agent Mulder got in his way and it was lost.

It only made him more hungry, more in need. His mouth filled with saliva and his mind was fuzzy. He needed it so he could finally be satiated, so he could finally rest.

He tore his newspaper strips, slowly and methodically, waiting for the right one and the right moment to arise. He knew it would happen if only he waited, tearing… preparing.

And when the door to his room opened and the doctor walked in, filling the room with a tender, savory bouquet, he knew he was the one.

His heartbeat grew faster as he walked to the door, his eyes began to burn and his stomach growled.

The door clicked shut and he turned to look at his warm and delicious prey.

Chapter Text

Michelle Bishop’s sweaty palm slides into her mother’s outstretched hand. 

“It’s okay, honey,” she calmly repeats, but Michelle’s stomach twists anyway. “Dr. Spitz just wants to ask you a few questions.”

Her sneakers squeak along the linoleum floor as she walks down the hallway of the police station. She gladly follows Dr. Braun around the corner. She’s Michelle’s psychologist and she knows her mom pays for her to be nice to her, but Dr. Braun listens.

Dr. Spitz meets them at the end of the hall. He’s old and smells like peppermint and coffee. She thinks that smell reminds her of someone she used to know. Someone important… 

Michelle frowns. Lately, everything reminds her of someone or something she thinks she knows. Michelle is only eight, and she doesn’t even know herself. 

“Mom.” She tugs her mother’s arm with one hand as the other one tucked into her pocket thumbs the origami giraffe she made this morning. 

“Honey, are you okay?” Her mom kneels down and the two agents in suits step out of a room with a desk and a tiny TV inside.

Michelle shakes her head, her braid swishing across her back. She hasn’t been okay in a long time. Her eyes scrunch shut and she hears Dr. Braun ask someone for a cup of water. 

Water.

Water in her eyes, up her nose, filling her throat. Killing her-

“Honey, we’ll go home if you don’t want to-”

“No!” Michelle shouts suddenly. Her eyes fly open to see the tall agent that makes her laugh crouched in front of her. Agent Mulder’s pretty green eyes and silly smile slows her heaving chest. 

“Michelle,” he whispers, tilting his head at her, waiting patiently. “Do you want to go home?”

“No,” she repeats. 

Her mom always looks at her sadly like she’s just a little girl who has nightmares every night with nothing real to bother her. But Michelle knows her nightmares are not like other little girl’s, and there is a lot that bothers her.

“Mulder.” The other agent with bright red hair holds up a plastic cup. “You sure about this?”

“ She is.” Agent Mulder hands Michelle the water, but she only stares down at it rippling in the glass. “I think she wants to talk. Don’t you, Michelle?”

He looks at Michelle like he already knows there’s something, someone, inside her, just waiting to act. 

Michelle looks right back, “Yes.”

***

She sits bravely in the large chair in the middle of the small room. There’s a giant glass window in front of her where the agents said her mom will be watching from. Dr. Braun’s gold earrings shine in the light where she stands off to the side as Dr. Spitz sits close by, speaking to her softly, telling her to close her eyes and think back to a time when she was sad or scared. Telling her to remember…

Her heart pounds so hard she thinks it might burst through her chest, like in that Aliens movie she wasn’t supposed to watch.

Michelle’s nails dig into the leather chair. 

“Count of five, tell me where you are now.” Dr. Spitz’s voice seems far away. “One… two... three... four... five. Do you know where you are?”

Michelle’s eyes dart around a room she’s never seen, yet knows well. “Yes.”

“Where? Tell me where you are.”

Michelle feels like she’s floating outside of her body. She sees the living room, the couch, the Noah’s Ark origami art, the gurgling fish tank… “At home.”

“What time of day is it?”

The voice guides her eyes to the front window. It’s dark, and there are men she knows there with her. “Night time.”

“And how old are you?”

Instantly, she knows she’s twenty-four and the men surrounding her are angry. She’s floating further and further upward, watching herself from afar now, but it’s not her she’s looking at. She looks at a man with dark hair and a thick mustache, holding a bloody hand over his now empty eye socket. 

He is the same man she sees in her nightmares. 

Oh, god. Oh god, no!

“No! We can't!” Michelle hears herself scream while watching the mustached man’s mouth moving instead of her own. She’s confused, but somehow this feels like she has lived this moment before. “We can't do this! It's wrong!”

The other men are yelling back, calling the man Charlie, and pinning him face first against the wall. 

Suddenly, a loud, roaring noise erupts in the room. Its vibration is so strong that it ripples the surface of the fish tank. 

“We warned you,” a man Charlie had once considered a friend says. “It’s you or us, Charlie. And you aren’t with us on this, man. Now you gotta go.”

“I can’t! I can’t!” she sobs. 

Fear takes Charlie’s breath away as another man holds a howling chainsaw into the air and swiftly swings it downward with a sickening squelching sound. Its spinning chain chews through Charlie’s shoulder, spitting out chunks of flesh and blood into the saltwater tank. 

“They’re killing me!” Michelle feels the panicked plea rip through her throat as she watches Charlie holler through his tears. “They’re killing me!”

Shuffling feet and familiar voices filter through Michelle’s ears, but her wide eyes are still glued to the image of Charlie’s head being shoved into the fishtank next to his severed arm. His body flails as salty water shoots up his nostrils, filling his lungs, killing him… 

“NO!” Michelle cries as she rocks in her seat. Suddenly she feels warm arms wrapping around her, holding her close. “No, no, no!”

Then Michelle hears the lingering sounds of sloshing water and her mother whispering, “It’s over. It’s over. It’s over...”

***

Hours later, Michelle Bishop finds herself standing on a familiar porch where she’s never been. She places the origami giraffe on the doormat, returning it to the woman Charlie Morris died to protect. 

Chapter Text

1980

Tracy never liked moving, and she always tried to be on her very best behavior so she wouldn’t be asked to leave. Most of the time it was her mom who made her move. She would usually say that some of the doctors were being mean to her friends and that she just wanted to keep Tracy safe.

Things had been going really great at River Hills. It had been her favorite place she’d ever lived. The nurses never made her take ice baths when she got upset, they always fed everyone three meals a day, and they never locked her in her room. But Mom said someone named Washington couldn’t give River Hills any more money and that she’d have to move again. It wasn’t fair.

She just wanted a home, with lots of people who loved each other. It looked like so much fun on the Brady Bunch, and she had so much love to give. She just needed someone who wanted her to be a part of their family.

Everyone at the Heritage Halfway House seemed nice. Mrs. Stodie always asked how she was doing, and they had more crafts than she’d ever seen before. But she still couldn’t stop crying. Tracy missed River Hills. Every hour, all she could think of was the scheduled activity she no longer got to be a part of:

5:00pm Tuesday was meatloaf night, her favorite.

6:00pm she should have been helping Mrs. Hanisch with the dishes.

7:00pm all of her friends were going to watch Wheel of Fortune. She didn’t really get it, but she liked seeing Vanna make the letters appear.

8:00pm was story time. Now she’d never know the ending to Charlotte’s Web. She hoped Charlotte and Wilbur would be friends forever .

Tracy wanted to go back. 

Another hot tear rolled down her face as she continued rocking herself back and forth, holding her legs against her chest.

“Don’t be sad.”

She turned and saw one of the people from earlier standing in the doorway of her room. 

“I miss my friends… I want to go home,” she whimpered.

“B-but, this is your home now,” he replied.

She clenched her eyes shut as she opened her mouth to let out a long sob. Tracy heard the rubber bottoms of his shoes squeak against the hardwood floors as he rushed to her. His knees clunked against the wood as he sat next to her. “I’m sorry!” he cried apologetically.

Her eyes squinted open and she saw the man was holding his hands in front of his chest, reaching to touch her but stopping himself from doing so. Then, in a voice replicating Mrs. Stodie, he declared: “Our new friend, Tracy Kerry, is coming Tuesday!“ Then, in his own voice, he smiled at her and repeated, “New friend.”

It made her smile a little, but when she sniffled to try and keep the boogers from coming out of her nose, it made the man frown. “W-wait here.”

He ran out of the room as she rubbed the back of her hands against the hot, damp skin of her eyelids. The sound of his shoes loudly hitting the floor as he ran made her wince and cover her ears as they got louder when he returned. Tracy felt him poke her collarbone and she opened her eyes to see a bright gold sticker in the shape of a star adhered to her shirt.

The star reflected the light from her lamp and it made it look like the little spot on her shirt was glowing. “Pretty,” she beamed, touching the smooth material with the pads of her fingers.

“My teacher told me tha- stars are the same for everyone,” he explained. “Y-your friends and family are always with you because they are looking at the stars too!”

“Really?” 

He nodded and a bright smile lit up her face. She wished she could show her friend Teresa this star on her chest, but it made her happy to think they would always be tucked in by the same blanket of stars every night.

“My name’s Roland,” he said with a shy smile, looking at the floor instead of her face. “I’ll be your friend.”

1994

Roland had been getting upset recently and it worried her. When people acted up too much they usually had to leave and go somewhere else. She hoped it might be different because he had been here since he was three, but after Roland’s friends came to visit, it seemed to get worse.

Now it was Roland’s turn to move.

He didn’t seem too nervous, but she was. Roland was always so shy. What if no one would color with him? What if people were mean to him? What if he kept dreaming of Arthur?

As much as she missed him, she tried not to be sad. Roland might be gone, but she saw him everywhere. The nurses told her to stop putting stickers on the furniture and the walls, but she cried so hard when they tried to remove them that they gave up a long time ago. She promised to keep them all in her room, and that was fine with her. She did give one to Mrs. Stodie though, she missed Roland awfully bad. 

She still had the poster he’d made her with her name written on it with the sun in the corner. He was shy about saying he loved her, but giving her his stars was proof he did.

Now when she looked around the room, it was like Roland was there with her. Every star was like a memory she had with him. Then, when the sun went down, she could look out the window at all the real stars in the sky too. They couldn’t color together anymore, but they’d always have this.

“Goodnight, Roland. I love you,” she whispered to the night sky.

Chapter Text

He sits alone in his car in the dark, the scent of wet pavement wafting through the open window. There are sounds of traffic, a bus braking, a couple pedestrians in the distance. A broken stop light flashes down the road ahead; a T junction heading east and west. But there are no choices, not anymore. Not for him. The light blinks red over and over, like a metronome, like clockwork. Like a heartbeat. 

Like the end of his life fast approaching.

Ronald closes his eyes and sighs, his hands gripping the steering wheel. Helping Agent Mulder would come at a price; he’d known this from the start, always. But he’d barely made a dent in the long list of things he could have told him. That was his own fault, his own guilt. 

His own cowardice.

You’ve never been closer, he’d told Agent Mulder no more than twenty-four hours ago. And yet he could have supplied the truth himself. All of it. Now he has only one chance left, one final hail mary to pass the torch to the only man who has any hope of uncovering it.

Ronald glances around, but sees no one yet. Agent Scully should be arriving any moment with the means to end all of this. Tonight must go smoothly, the fate of the world depends upon it. He can only hope everything has gone according to plan. 

They will be true to their word. He doesn’t trust them – never has – but Spender will see to Mulder’s safe return. 

I should have guessed you’d go to Mulder, he said when he’d discovered Ronald’s treachery. Smart. You’ve always been the smart one.

And Bill was the good one. The decent one, Ronald had replied.

What does that make me, then? Spender had asked with a sardonic smile, but Ronald didn’t answer. 

He didn’t have to. They both knew.

A car turns onto the bridge and parks exactly where instructed. The diminutive but tough Agent Scully gets out with a parcel and spots his car, approaching him with caution. It’s a real shame he hasn’t gotten much opportunity to work with her; Mulder had only revealed his existence to her quite recently and Ronald suspected his discretion was motivated by a desire to protect his partner. Mulder likes to pretend he wouldn’t move mountains for her, that he wouldn’t go to the ends of the earth for her. But Ronald knows more about these two than they do of themselves, and he’s certain they will stick together to the bitter end. 

He’s the smart one, after all.

Agent Scully denies him the collateral at first. “I don't trust you,” she says, a defiant fire in her narrowed eyes that’s admirable but extremely inconvenient in this case.

“You've got no one else to trust.” Not even me , he wants to tell her, but he can’t. Not if he wants everything to go smoothly. Not if he wants Agent Mulder to live.

She eventually relinquishes the package, as he knew she would. Above all else, she would put it all on the line for Agent Mulder. She’d said so herself once (yes, he hears everything).

Agent Scully hasn’t a clue what’s going on; the scope and magnitude of the project is something he will have to have faith she will learn one day. That she will see . That together, and only together, she and Mulder can complete the work he began the moment he’d executed that EBE and his moral compass did a swift about-face.

The truth is out there, and Mulder and Scully will find it together. In this, he trusts.

Ronald watches Scully’s retreating figure, drowning in her enormous trench coat, the fate of the future of humanity resting on her petite shoulders. The traffic light continues to flash, the countdown nearing its final moments.

At last, a white van pulls up next to him and stops. He wonders who they’ve sent to do it. It could be any number of mindless goons for hire. The only question he has is how far up the pecking order his executioner will be. 

He steps out of the car with the merchandise and straightens his coat. A man gets out of the van and steps towards him to take the box, and he can’t tell who it is. He isn’t sure if it’s the dim lighting or that he’s simply accepted his fate moments before it occurs but no name flashes through his mind, no recognizable face. Only death.

A shot rings out through the metropolitan night, clear and crisp. He falls to the ground with a thump, and the only thing running through his brain is Mulder… they were supposed to let him go…

All of it for nothing…

He can hear Agent Scully screaming, getting closer, and he wants to warn her to stay away but he can’t move. He can feel the life draining out from underneath him. But then she cries “ Mulder! ” and a relief comes over him he finds difficult to reconcile with his current situation.

Scully moves over to him and cradles his face in her hands. He wishes he could do more, so much more.

“Trust… trust no one,” he tells her, because it’s all he has left to offer. The truth, such as it is, will have to wait.

Deep Throat dies with his eyes open.

Chapter Text

The classical acoustics of Brandenburg Concerto soar melodiously through his office. It’s loud, each note vibrating his mahogany desk. Much too loud for daylight hours on Capitol Hill. One could hardly think, or hear, a thing.

Richard Matheson rises from his leather chair, twirling his wedding band around his finger. Under the dim light of the room, its gold still gleams like the sun, somehow unsullied after years of systematically soiling his hands as senator. 

Richard’s black wingtips tap impatiently along the plush carpeting. He scowls at the stale scent of Morleys lingering within its fibers. He eyes the statue of Lady Justice’s scales set on the table in front of his window as he paces. The heft of their silent judgment weighs on him more now than it ever has. 

The phone call from his source came an hour ago - an urgent message whispered through secured lines: “The WOW, it’s happening. The retrieval team will be notified. Who do you trust, senator?” 

He must carefully reignite the dwindling fire within a broken believer to bring balance and fairness to the public in a way that isn’t incriminating his own deceit. There’s a dark faction of this government, a secret cabal of men that seek to stifle those who rebel against their crooked plans in the most sinister of ways. 

He comes to a stop in front of the stereo, turning the volume up a notch, just in case. Unspooling the tightly-wound truth to those who seek it for the greater good is one act he can orchestrate behind this faction’s back. 

Bach’s orchestral masterpiece swells in time with his urgency to speak to the one man he can trust with this time sensitive task. Arecibo holds tangible proof, and only Agent Mulder can grasp it.

His office door opens suddenly, and he waves Fox Mulder in with his back turned. “Do you know the significance of this piece, Fox?”

Though the X-Files have been shut down, he knows it’s a fruitless attempt to thwart Fox’s quest by separating him from his loyal partner and wasting his talents on wiretaps and fraud investigations. It’s only a matter of time before Richard can utilize his senator's clout to sway certain men into reopening them. After all, it was he who’d suggested Bill Mulder’s son look into the files in the first place. 

“Well, recalling music appreciation with Professor Ganz, Bach had a genius for polyphonic-”

Richard spins, finally looking at the young man he holds so much hope for. He’s disheveled, desperate now that his lifelines are gone: his files and his pretty partner. “This is the first selection of music on the Voyager spacecraft. The first.”

Richard moves to the mini bar, pouring a glass of Cognac three fingers full. 

“Four and a half billion years from now, when the sun exhausts its fuel and swells to engulf the earth, this expression will still be out there, traveling four and a half billion years. That is, if it’s not intercepted first. Imagine, Fox. If another civilization out there were to hear this, they would think "what a wonderful place the Earth must be,” he continues, his knowing eyes locking pointedly onto Fox’s curious ones. “I would want this to be the first contact with another lifeform.”

“I know I’ve let you down,” Fox blurts, and Richard falters. For all the Mulder family flaws, Richard holds nothing but respect for Fox. It’s why he calls him by his first name. “You’ve supported me at great risk to your reputation. I realized when they shut us down, there was nothing you could do. All I can say is, I think we were close. To what, I don’t know.”

Richard takes a sip of brandy and smiles. Yes, he thinks, the truth is out there, and Fox Mulder will find it. The song slowly ends before Richard raises a halting hand. 

The walls have ears.

“Do you like Bach, Mulder?”

“I live for Bach.”

Richard jots down words of warning and hands over the note that reads, They may be listening.

“Then let’s hear it again.”

Richard restarts the classical song and leads Fox to the opposite side of the office to explain the task at hand. Their time here is limited.

“You have to get to the radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. I’ll try to delay them as long as I can but my guess is you’ll have at least twenty-four hours. After that, I can no longer hold off the Blue Beret U.F.O. Retrieval Team. And they have been authorized to display terminal force.”

“What am I looking for?”

Richard pulls out the paper that was slipped under his door after his source’s call and hands over a copy of the WOW signal. Richard suddenly realizes that in order for the berth, the magnitude, of this governmental underbelly to be exposed properly, he will need to send Fox an informant of his own. A special representative from the United Nations, to be exact; and she’s as lethal as she is gorgeous.

Richard smiles slyly, sliding his thumbs up and down his suspenders. “Contact.”

Then, in a blink of an eye, Fox is gone. Richard flicks off the swelling sounds of violins and slumps against the bookshelf. 

There are dangerous things many do not know. Soon, secrets will snowball. Good people will suffer. Even senators will lose much more than their seats. Richard stares at the photo of his smiling granddaughter perched proudly upon the table. It’s the first image he sees when entering his office every day, and the last one he thinks about on his way out - an innocent wedged between two sides of morality’s raging war. Protecting her, keeping his family safe while doing the right thing, is becoming more and more difficult. 

Richard sighs. He knows dangerous deals are being made now that will affect the future in ways even Fox Mulder cannot imagine. 

Proof of contact has never been more imperative.

Chapter Text

Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Riiipp. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Chomp. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Crunch. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Gulp. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. вкусный. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Clamp. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Nibble. Fluke. Fluke. Munch. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Wait. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke.  Aww. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Splish. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Splash. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Trapped. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Runt? 

Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.

Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. 

Fluke. Fluke. Dry. Fluke. Fluke.

Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke.

Fluke. Want. Fluke. Swim. Fluke.

Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke.

Fluke.      Fluke.       Fluke.       Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke. 

Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Food. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Hungry. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke.  Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Wiggle. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Wiggle. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Wiggle. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Free! Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Happy. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Snack. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Chomp. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Munch. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Slurp. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Yum. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Want. Fluke. Fluke. Water. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Water!

                                                                                              Fluke.

                                                             Fluke.

           Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke.

           Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke.

           Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke.

           Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke.

           Fluke. Fluke. Splish. Fluke.

           Fluke. Fluke.  Fluke. Fluke.

           Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke.

           Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke

           Fluke. Splash Fluke. Fluke.

           Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke.

           Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke.

                          Fluke…

                          Fluke?

                          Fluke!

                                   Fluke.

                                             Fluke.

                                                        Fluke.

                                                                  Fluke.

                                                                              Fluke.

                                                                                       Fluke. 

                                                                                                 Fluke. 

                                                                                                           Fluke. 

                                                                                                                     Fluke. 

                                                                                                                               Fluke. 

                                                                                                                                         Fluke. 

                                                                                                                                                  Fluke. 

                                                                                                                                                            Fluke. 

                                                                                                                                                                       Fluke. 

                                                                                                                                                                                  Fluke. 

                                                                                                                                                                                            Fluke. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                      Fluke. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                Fluke.  

                                                                                                                                                                                                       Fluke. 

                                                                                                                                                                                             Fluke. 

                                                                                                                                                                                   Fluke. 

                                                                                                                                                                        Fluke.  

                                                                                                                                                             Fluke.  

                                                                                                                                                  Fluke. 

                                                                                                                                       Fluke. 

                                                                                                                              Fluke. 

                                                                                                                   Fluke. 

                                                                                                         Fluke. 

                                                                                              Fluke. 

                                                                                    Fluke. 

                                                                           Fluke. 

                                                                  Fluke. 

                                                        Fluke.

                                              Fluke.

                                    Fluke.

                           Fluke.

                 Fluke.

         Fluke.

Fluke. 

Fluke.                     

Fluke.                     Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke.

Fluke.                     Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke.

Fluke.                     Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. 

Fluke.                     Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. 

Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. 

                              Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. 

                                    Fluke.                                                       Fluke. 

Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.      Fluke.

Fluke.

Flu     

     uke.

     uke.

Flu     

F     

     L

U     

     U

U     

     U

U     

     U

U     

     U

K     

     E

Splash!

Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Happy. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Yank. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Play. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Food. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Warm. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke.  Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. Fluke.  Fluke. Fluke. Run! Fluke. Fluke.

F

L

U

K

E

!

Ouch! 

~                                              ~                                                           ~                                              ~

~                                                    ~                                                 ~

~                                                 ~

~                                                    ~                                                           ~

~                                                    ~ 

~

~                             ~                                     ~                                         ~

~                                             ~                                          ~

Fluke

~                                                           ~                                                           ~                                                           ~

Chapter Text

He liked Agent Mulder from the start. He expected to; Sheriff Spencer had always been the only cop in Franklin to entertain unusual possibilities. Most of the others were content to stamp a case closed and head out early for a drink regardless of his insistence that extreme possibilities had been overlooked. 

One of the killers, Glen Taber, had been an acquaintance of his. They’d played ball from time to time in the city league, shared a beer or two afterwards. These memories were incongruous with what had occurred in that elevator; the scene was brutal, grotesque. Nothing like anything anyone had seen around these parts.  

And most of all, it made absolutely no sense.

Based on the fact that there was simply no reasonable, logical explanation the man would have to do something like this, Spencer knew he could only turn towards the illogical – and that happened to be the X-Files. He’d heard about them for some time and had been waiting for a chance to find out more about the department. It was only unfortunate that it had to occur under such grim circumstances.

He observed Agent Mulder sitting on a hospital bed, covered in a sheen of grime visible from across the room. Spencer didn’t know the agent very well, but he’d trusted him instantly and if Mulder said he’d been sprayed with something, that was what happened. And the source of the spray was extremely suspect. County Supervisor Larry Winter knew more than he was letting on. There was something off about the man, and not just the low-level hum of paranoia Spencer generally felt whenever the presence of a deep state was even hinted at. He was evasive and agitated.

“If it’s so safe, then why was it done in secret?” Mulder challenged.

Secret. Spencer felt uneasy with the look on Winter’s face. 

“What kind of crusade are you on?” Winter snapped, and Spencer couldn’t help but notice he’d been evading Mulder’s questions. 

“Answer the question! Are we spraying?” Spencer raised his voice at the older man, something he’d always been taught not to do. But if Mulder was right… he had children of his own. Could something like this happen to them?

To himself?

Winter looked thoughtful, then gave a typical non-answer. The county benefits from crop-generated revenue, the spray was proven to be safe, blah blah blah. 

It wasn’t good enough for Agent Mulder. “Who proved it to you?”

Winter remained silent but the answer hung in the air nonetheless. Everyone could fill in the blanks: it was “proven” by the very same people whose interests were met by the spray being used in the first place. With one last belabored look at the sheriff, he exited the room without another word.

Spencer mulled this over while Agent Mulder and his partner talked shop. If this had been happening in their town and Winter knew about it, what did that mean? Who could he trust anymore? Was the place he’d called home his entire life no longer safe? And if that was the case, could anything be done about it now?

Suddenly his ears perked up at Mulder’s next topic: subliminal messaging. 

“The insecticide LSDM is known to invoke fear response in cluster flies. What if the chemical causes the same reaction in humans? All the perpetrators were phobic. Taber was claustrophobic…”

Claustrophobic.

What hadn’t made sense to him at the scene finally clicked into place. What would cause someone like the unassuming real estate agent to murder six people in an elevator with his bare hands?

Fear. It seemed so simple.

“...The messages were relayed purposely,” Mulder was finishing. Spencer had heard enough. He walked out of the room without another word.

“Supervisor Winter,” the young sheriff called after the departing visitor. Winter turned, appearing off-balance.

“What?”

“When did this spraying start? I’m talking about an exact date.”

Winter’s discomfort was all the answer he needed.

“Level with me,” he said, deciding to appeal to Winter’s human side. “Is any of what Mulder is suggesting true? Because if there’s even the possibility it is… You’ve got kids, Larry. I’ve got kids. And I don’t trust any of this with their lives. Do you?”

Winter just stared at him, looking utterly lost. Spencer understood his quandary. On the one hand, his job, the economic survival of the county…

…But on the other…

“I’m calling for an immediate stop of the spraying,” Winter said. “But Sheriff, I can’t stress enough to you the importance of this: there can be no public link made between the spray and what’s gone on here. Do we have an understanding?”

Spencer nodded. He could only do so much. Protecting citizens was the most important measure to be taken right now. He turned away from the county supervisor to give Agents Mulder and Scully the news.

***

The killer had been apprehended, and according to Agent Mulder, the spraying had stopped along with the messaging. The blood drive crowd dispersed and all of the officers went back to work. Spencer watched the agents drive away, relieved that this ordeal had finally come to an end.

Are you sure it’s over, Mulder? he’d asked the agent.

Pretty sure. Take the rest of the day off, Sheriff. 

An uneasy feeling came over him once again, the knowledge that something terrible had happened here and the government knew about it. He’d always been secure with the knowledge that being a police officer gave him some measure of control when it came to protecting the people in this town. But he had no power over any of this, and the thought sent a chill up his spine.

Spencer stood alone in the courtyard and looked up at the sky, half-expecting to see a crop duster fly overhead, but there was nothing. Silence. His hands began to shake.

His watch beeped, he glanced at it. And where there was usually a time readout, blocky letters read words instead.

KILL ‘EM ALL

Chapter Text

Twenty-four years. It had been twenty-four years since he’d had a good night’s sleep. Twenty-four years since he’d been able to shut out the noise, the pain… the memories. Twenty-four years since he’d felt refreshed, hopeful.

Alive.

Salvatore had tried to move on when he got back to the states after the war, but he hadn’t had much of a promising future in the first place, even before they sliced into his brain and turned him into whatever the hell he was now. His prospects were slim and the bar was set low.

Really, he’d like to see anyone who had constant bags under their eyes, chain-smoked like cigarettes were the only thing keeping them alive, and who had uncontrollable tremors in their hands to find gainful employment.

He didn’t have a skill or a trade. He’d barely finished school. He couldn’t be a waiter because his brain was too scrambled to remember orders, plus his demeanor unnerved the customers. He’d eventually found himself bussing tables and counters at cafes and diners that were open all night and over the years, it had gotten him through. He got free meals and was able to make rent. In the life he was left with, that was enough.

Many times since ‘Nam, he thought he wanted to die, just end it all and be rid of the memories of all the things he’d done, the people he’d killed. But once the men in his squadron started turning up dead, he realized just how powerful the instinct to stay alive truly was. He hated this, but he wasn’t ready to die either.

When he saw the two men walk into Jay’s Cafe, he could feel the panic of imminent death all around him. He was sure his time had finally come. Someone had tracked him down. It was his turn to be killed, senselessly and brutally, just like all the people of Saigon.

But he was wrong. The men, one with a friendly and empathetic look on his face, the other, green and scared like a nervous cadet, just wanted to ask him questions. Questions. They wanted to know. After twenty-four years, someone finally wanted to know what had happened to him and the rest of his company.

Not that it would change anything. He was still fucked. There wasn’t any respite in sight for him. This was life for as long as he stayed alive.

“You mean the entire squad went AWOL?” asked the agent, whose name he couldn’t remember, something Russian maybe. He looked shocked, almost like Sal was making it all up.

“Yeah, something like that,” he told him, though it wasn’t really anything like that. It wasn’t like anyone would have stopped them when they killed every living person in their path. It wasn’t like they had a choice whether they would stay or go.

It wasn’t like he’d wanted any of it.

He watched as the agent wrote something in his notebook, a look of judgment on his face. The other agent, Mulder was his name, looked more open as he spoke. “Well, then who did you take orders from?”

“We just made up missions as we went along, until it didn’t matter anymore who we were killing. Farmers, women. Outside of Phu Bai, there was this school, and uh…” The images of that day flashed before his eyes. The blood, the dead bodies surrounding him and the other sleepless men. He could hear their screams, just like every night when he laid down in his bed and stared at the ceiling until the sun came up. “They were just kids.”

Agent Mulder looked horrified as he listened, but the other man… he looked angry. And not at what had happened to these men, but because he and his squad were monsters. Sal felt blamed and guilty when he made eye contact with him. He already carried enough shame without seeing it so plainly across the other man’s face. This clean-cut agent, with his new looking suit and perfectly styled hair didn’t understand what he and the other men had been through. He couldn’t understand what they’d experienced… what they’d seen.

“No one ever tried to stop you?” the Russian-named agent asked like it was the most obvious solution ever suggested.

“No sir,” he said using the respect and manners that were hard to shake, even after all of it. Even if he didn’t respect this agent. He took a drag from his cigarette and watched the man run his hand through his hair, looking away in disgust.

After they left, after they’d asked him about Preacher, after he’d said and heard names of men he tried not to remember in his day to day, he stubbed out his cigarette and went back to work. He picked up mugs and plates, scraping the remnants of pies and omelets into the trash, the same as every other day.

But he was on edge. It was one thing to live with the fallout of becoming someone who never slept. It was another to have the memories of the horrors he had committed thrown back in his face when all he was trying to do was make an honest living. His body moved like he was traipsing through the muddy jungles of Vietnam. He felt heavy and slow, weighed down by the lives he’d stolen.

It would take time, but he knew it would fade. It always had before. He would stay awake, hour after hour, until the sharp edges smoothed, the bright red blood would turn pale. He would wipe counters, stare at the TV, lay in bed with his eyes open, and he would keep going.

This was his life. It continued to move forward without rest. It was how it had been for twenty-four years, and it was how it would be until the day finally came, when his breathing slowed and his heart stopped.

Until the day came when he could finally sleep.

Chapter Text

Duane Barry was not crazy. Other people said he was, but that was only ‘cause they didn’t see the things he did. They didn’t feel what he felt.

What Duane was feeling right now.

He was sure those state-sanctioned psychiatrists would have plenty of fancy phrases to use: paranoid delusions, psychosomatic malingering, a physiological response to an imagined threat, a permanent state of psychosis. He’d seen it all written in his file before. 

It was wrong. All wrong.

Duane told them the truth. They needed to listen. The doctors always tried to make things up to confuse him, they lied about him having a wife and a kid just so they could up his meds when he tried to set them straight. That man even lied to him about having a little sister! It was a Special Agent, the government was taunting Duane Barry now, rubbing it in his face that they were torturing him! Duane Barry wouldn’t be tricked again.

The doctors didn’t care, but Duane Barry knew who was truly listening. They were always listening. 

It was like what the Japanese did in the Second World War. Duane Barry didn’t know what data they were gathering from him, but he was tired. His teeth ached.

They would always find him. His gums, his sinus cavity, his bellybutton, there was no way Duane Barry could escape. The very place he’d been cut from his mother was the same place that they prodded and poked and hurt. He could try to scoop the implants out, but it wouldn’t matter. They would just put more in and Duane was already covered in gouge marks. 

They were coming for Duane Barry again. He could feel it thrumming through his veins like his blood was magnetized. It felt different depending on where he was standing, depending on if he was facing the direction of where he needed to go. Duane Barry had an internal compass that always spun out of control until they were near. As soon as they needed Duane Barry, the spinning stopped and his body ached.

They took Duane while he was sleeping. How’s a man supposed to feel comfortable falling asleep again if he never knows what he’ll wake up to?

Duane Barry doesn’t want to go, but it’s out of his control. 

They talk to Duane Barry, but they don’t speak. 

He could feel when they were reading his mind. It felt like a sharp, ripping pain in the middle of his skull. 

Don’t take Duane Barry.

Don’t take Duane Barry.

Don’t take Duane Barry.

Don’t take Duane Barry.

Don’t take Duane Barry.

PLEASE DON’T TAKE ME!

They always do. They never listen to Duane Barry when he wants them to. Maybe they laughed at Duane Barry too.

Tonight was different. For a moment he thought they were about to take Duane, but Duane got out of the hospital before they could. His compass flickered off-kilter, not quite due North.

What does that mean ?

Were they asking Duane Barry for a favor?

Duane Barry would do anything they wanted if it meant they might leave him alone.

The racing heartbeat and frantic footfalls that usually led him to Skyland Mountain took him to Georgetown.

Why was Duane Barry in Georgetown?

Instead of an answer, he felt the left side of his body start to vibrate. They were answering Duane Barry. They were telling him where to go, who to find.

Someone had his implant. Someone… a woman in Georgetown.

Do you want her?

If I bring her to you will I be safe?

His body felt electric.

Duane Barry didn’t even remember breaking the glass or crawling into the apartment. 

Duane Barry didn’t even know which floor she was on.

Duane Barry knew the name she was screaming sounded familiar, but he couldn’t focus. 

Duane Barry tried to make it look like he was carrying a loved one to the car so he could take her home.

Duane Barry didn’t know how he knew this was the car to use, and he didn’t know whose University of Maryland sweater he was wearing.

Duane Barry put his hands on the wheel and drove. He didn’t remember much else. He just knew he couldn’t be late. He just kept going until he knew where to stop.

ASCEND TO THE STARS

WELCOME TO SKYLAND MOUNTAIN

Chapter Text

It’s cold in these boxcars. Always cold. He’s been doing this for so long it seems like another lifetime, but being in this white, bleak space for days at a time always brings back childhood memories of winters in Kyoto.

He has always thought of himself as average and ordinary on the outside, ever since he was a child; blending in with the children around him, only with something extraordinary buried deep inside. Just like this boxcar, stranded alone in some Pennsylvanian rail yard, thousands of passersby going about their lives, none the wiser. But what they do inside is extraordinary.

He closes his eyes and tries to remember life before all this. When he was young and spent his summers at the local festivals eating takoyaki and making samurai hats from newspapers.

That was before the war. Before everything stopped mattering. It was quiet then. 

He misses the quiet. Now it seems all he hears is drilling and beeping and yes, sometimes screaming.

So many people have been under his knife over the years: lepers, vagrants, the insane. At a certain point he’d become numb to it. But his current subject is a woman with red hair and pale skin. Her eyes – when they’re open – are bluer than the crystalline waters of Biwa-ko. She looks like a regular person; like the rest of the ordinary women that surround them, she is no more or less innocent than anyone else but somehow more human. It hurts just a bit more to look down on her than the others, which is an unusual feeling. But it’s nice to occasionally be reminded that there’s still a beating heart in his chest.

He looks up at the sign the Elders placed in his operating room, the same one he looks at every single day:

世界の支配者は、もはや最も勇敢な兵士がいる国ではなく、

最も偉大な科学者がいる国です

He is here to do a job. An important one. Let history judge him.

The Americans won the war, and now he is paying for his sins by engaging in new ones. A vicious circle he will never escape. But his work is valued and respected. This will be a nameless legacy, but a lasting one all the same, with worldwide ramifications.

Someday, his work will be successful. Maybe then he can go home.

The fertility experimentation on this subject has concluded. His colleagues turn the woman over onto her side with callous indifference and he makes the final incision: a tiny piece of technology decades in the making is inserted beneath the skin of her neck, positioned directly at the base of the cerebral cortex. As she is bandaged up and turned onto her back, the monitors go wild. Perhaps this could finally be the one to turn the tide. And she will not remember this, she will not remember him. She will not remember any of it. The chip is already hard at word recalibrating her memories. Just like the rest of them.

He steps back from the operating table and removes his gloves, looking around at the other men tasked with this important scientific venture. He nods and congratulates them on their good work, and they all bow in return. 

The subject is taken away to the recovery room, where she will begin to heal. Soon she will be returned to her life. Altered, but alive. Which is all he can hope for himself at this point.

There’s a man in the corner, the one usually smoking a cigarette, but not in here. He watches the red haired woman get taken away. He’s been watching this one closely, for some reason. He looks back at the group of scientists with a long, appraising stare, then specifically at him. 

“Excellent work, Dr. Ishimaru,” he says. He turns to leave, seemingly satisfied, and the doctor tries his hardest to feel the same.

Inside this boxcar, he is respected. Extraordinary. 

Outside of it… well, he will have to live with that.

Chapter Text

He stops her as she brings her finger to her mouth. The smell of his blood, sweet and full of loss and longing is too much to resist. She wants to taste it, feel on her tongue the essence of what keeps him alive.

But he stops her. He holds her hand in his and tells her this isn’t who she is, that it doesn’t make her happy.

What does he know? How could he understand what makes her happy? She isn’t even sure anymore herself. What she does know is that she’s hungry. There’s an emptiness inside her that needs to be satiated with blood… or something else.

His blood makes her feel dangerous and seductive. She can hear it pulsing through this FBI agent’s veins. She can smell it in the air from the place she’d nicked with the razor. It makes her want to feel and be touched. Her skin is on fire and there’s a warmth spreading between her legs.

Kristin’s eyes drift down to his lips and for a moment she wonders how her life has gotten here, but she places her hand on the back of his head and she doesn’t care anymore.

She leans in, pressing her lips to his, and she knows instantly that he’s just as hungry as she is. He kisses her back, his lips and tongue hot against her mouth. He kisses her again and again, mouth wide, tasting her, enveloping her like he can’t get enough.

His hand finds the back of her head and he leans forward, lowering her to the counter. The shaving cream from his face smears against her hands and onto her cheek. She feels his tongue dip deep into her mouth as his lips lock around hers, making her suck in a loud breath through her nose.

The edge of her robe is in the sink, soaked in the stagnant water from his shaving. She slides her arms out of the sleeves and lets it fall.

Not once does his mouth leave hers.

She presses her nearly bare chest against his and he drops his hand to her back, unhooking her bra in one quick move. She works it off, throws it to the floor and sits up tall on the counter.

With his eyes locked on hers, his hands travel up and he traces a thumb across the sensitive skin of her nipple. She closes her eyes and feels his mouth on her neck. She wishes he would bite down, suck the blood from her veins, but she knows he won’t.

It’s good but it’s not enough. She slides her palms down his chest to the waist of his pants. She needs more. She needs to feel.

She works to remove his pants before slipping her hand under the black lace of her thong. She moves her fingers, wanting, wanting, wanting, before she feels his hand tight around her wrist.

“Let me.”

He pulls the lace slowly down her legs. Her pent up desire is reaching a peak. It takes all of her strength not to lick the place on his jaw where she can still see a drop of blood.

He steps closer and she reaches out, taking him into her hand, feeling the length of him as his fingers find her center. He kisses her again, and it’s almost enough to make her forget that she is being hunted.

She wonders what he’s trying to forget.

There’s a sadness about him that matches her own, but his unhappiness only spurs her on. She kisses him fiercely and touches him everywhere she can reach. He tugs her hair, grabs her breast. She digs her nails into the skin of his back when he pushes his fingers inside her.

A moan escapes from his lips as she grips him a little tighter, but she’s tired of playing around. She stills his hand, inching towards the edge of the counter while pulling him closer.

“Do you have…?”

She rolls her eyes. “Top drawer.”

Kristin watches him as he finds a condom and rolls it on, wishing he could be as reckless as she feels, but then he’s there, nudging against her and she figures it doesn’t really matter.

He barely hesitates before pushing inside her. She calls out. It’s exactly the pain that she wants, lasting for only a second before transforming into pleasure. He thrusts into her, quick and forceful, like he’s angry. Like he has something to prove.

She loves it.

She holds onto his shoulders, tossing her head back, baring her neck to him should he want it, as he slams into her over and over again. She’s coiled tight, her climax building until she can’t hold it in any longer. She gasps, trying to remember his name as she comes.

He lets out a strangled cry and clenches against her before falling into spent and lazy thrusts.

They breathe together, panting and coming down, and she is finally satisfied. Her mind is quiet and her hunger is gone… for now.

She watches this man, Fox is his name. He’s staring down at his hands where they rest against the counter on either side of her hips. When he finally looks up, there’s a tear dripping down his cheek.

He reaches up, taking hold of the cross dangling around his neck, worrying it between his fingers like he never wants to let it go. “I’m going to get dressed.”

Chapter Text

Machines steadily beep in the background as Melissa stares down at her sister’s supine sprawl. No more ventilators, no more artificial life support. Only brain monitoring wires weaving through the gorgeous red waves of Scully hair remain. Melissa reaches out to gently smooth a stray tendril tangled within one of the many strips of tape stuck to Dana’s porcelain skin. The brittle hair snaps in two, and Melissa swears she can feel a piece of her heart snapping right along with it. 

She curls the cool healing crystal into her fist and squeezes.

“I’m here, sis,” she whispers, pressing a promising kiss to Dana’s cheek. “This time I’m not going anywhere.”

The hard hospital chair creaks as she sinks into it while shoving the smooth stone into the pocket of her favorite knitted sweater — a birthday gift from her mother a few years back. Melissa had been on a year-long spiritual journey in Thailand at the time, and though her mother had struggled to swallow her Catholic pride on the topic of Chakras, she’d made sure her daughter felt her love, even if she wasn’t there to give it. 

Melissa smiles fondly at the memory. She loves traveling the world and immersing herself in cultures different from the one she was raised in, but she cannot deny missing her loved ones just as much.

One frantic phone call, two hastily packed bags, and a three hour flight later has brought her to Georgetown Medical Center’s ICU where her baby sister’s life hangs in the balance. 

“I’m glad you could come,” her mother said as her sister’s soul thrummed warm beneath Melissa’s palms. As if this tragedy were an annual gathering after church on a Sunday afternoon. The words were laced not only with residual betrayal for her eldest daughter's flighty disposition, but with the weight of relief that at least one of her children within arms reach was safe from harm. 

Melissa frowns; her infamous lack of communication and alternative lifestyle has left the grounded matriarch uprooted. She glances at the exhausted woman across her sister’s hospital bed with her head bowed in prayer, and sighs. Trust her mother to pack thirty-three years of parental guilt into a single sentence.

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

The moment the words roll off Melissa’s tongue, her mother’s shoulders slump. “Oh Missy, don’t be sorry for living your life.”

Their eyes flick to Dana’s closed ones, and the deeper meaning of what was just said sends an ache through Melissa’s chest.

“But I know I’ve worried you while I was away. Especially after Dad…” Melissa’s throat tightens suddenly, her eyes slipping shut. Only a warm hand gripping her own urges her to open them again. 

“You’re my daughter and I will always worry about you,” Margaret says fiercely. “But I admit someone has recently reminded me that the only risks in life are the ones that you don’t take.”

Melissa’s watery eyes widen. She knows exactly who her mother means. She had felt the electric energy between Dana’s partner and her sister’s soul tear through the spiritual veil the moment she’d met the man. Only a risk-taking passionate person with emotions as intense as a roaring storm could influence Margaret Scully this way.

The comforting sound of Dana’s heart beat slows suddenly. Both women gasp before Dr. Daly slips through the privacy curtain, his round face frowning. 

“She’s weakening,” he says. It's a medical fact, she knows. A scientific certainty. Dana would appreciate such straightforward delivery, but Melissa does not. “It shouldn’t be long now.”

Her hands hover above Dana once again, feeling her spirit, searching eagerly for her little sister’s familiar warmth under her fingertips. She wants so badly to believe Dr. Daly is wrong.

Minutes pass before Melissa realizes the man is gone. Her mother is closer to Dana’s face now, her hands trembling as she strokes her baby girl’s cheek with her thumbs. 

Desperation takes hold. 

“You know him well,” Melissa blurts. “Fo-Mulder. You trust him.”

It’s not a question, but her mother doesn’t blink. 

“Dana trusts him. That’s good enough for me.”

“Mom,” she starts slowly, carefully. “You invited him with us to remove her life support.”

“Melissa…”

“You practically named him family,” she prods. Melissa recalls the way he looked at her sister with such fondness and raw despair that his presence might have been the only act truly anchoring Dana to Earth. “That wasn’t just for Dana.”

“He’s been there for your sister, fought for her the way family does.” Margaret swallows hard while watching Dana’s chest slowly rise and fall. The sight of her mother’s trembling chin urges Melissa to lean over and caress her arm, encouraging her to continue. “You didn’t see him while she was gone. He never gave up. He held the hope I’d lost sleep praying for.”

This is what Melissa needs to know, what Dana needs to hear. This is the key to saving her sister’s soul. Despite his palpable anger and fear, Mulder is the answer. 

Mulder is family.

“You haven’t given up… Wait, you mean when you got Dana’s headstone?” She sees the truth of it in the gleam of her mother’s brimming eyes. “Oh Mom-”

“Her cross,” Margaret quickly adds as she rocks her forehead along Dana’s. “He found it… a sign. It was the piece of hope we both needed.”

Melissa stands and blinks away the tears burning beneath her lashes. Something else has been churning in her stomach. Something she needs to confirm for her own peace of mind. 

“You dreamed it, Mom. Envisioned this with Dana, didn’t you? You saw the way I see .”

Margaret Scully, the strongest woman she has ever known, nods her head and weeps.

Melissa’s heart clenches painfully. 

Now is a time for family.

And Fox Mulder should be here.

Slowly backing out of the room, Melissa grabs her mother’s car keys and leaves in search of the only person left who can brighten her sister’s fading light.

Chapter Text

You still believe you can petition Heaven and get some penetrating answer. If you found that answer, what would you do with it?

Daniel Trepkos remembers the moment he’d found his answer with absolute clarity; the moment he knew the world had changed. A silicon-based life form trapped in the depths of the Earth, something only he could find.

This is what he’s wanted his entire life: to make a discovery as seismic as the faults shifting beneath his feet. To be remembered and respected, his name etched in history, dropped in countless conversations for centuries to come. 

Einstein. Galileo. Trepkos.

Jessie said it once, back at CalTech. He’d scoffed, trailing a finger along the curve of her hip, disbelieving. Their affair had begun quickly, building in intensity, an effusive eruption. She was young and brilliant and eager and he never really knew for certain whether it was him she loved or just his brain. But he liked the attention.

It was that very day he’d invited her to come along on the expedition, to test Firewalker and be there with him when his hard work finally paid off. She’d barely considered his proposition for five seconds before she’d agreed to give up a year of her life and live at the edge of a fucking caldera.

Maybe it was this very specific guilt – of robbing a promising young scientist of her future – that caused him to behave the way he did, to make the choices he’d made. But even standing here now, attempting to explain all of this to a goddamn FBI agent, he knows he would make the same choices all over again.

“No one can leave,” he says to this Agent Mulder, whoever he is. 

Even Jessie , he thinks to himself with a pang. Some part of her has to understand this is the only way. His confidence in his own abilities had made him reckless. He’d been so focused on finding something that it hadn’t occurred to him he might not like what he found.

Albert Einstein was known for changing the world, he would say to her if he could. Daniel Trepkos would only be known for destroying it.

“I have a colleague – a friend – who’s with O’ Neil right now. Let me go to her,” Agent Mulder pleads. But he doesn’t realize it’s too late. Trepkos has to finish what he started, he has to make sure all of this stays buried, including himself.

“She may already be infected. I can’t let you leave.” He cocks the hammer, points his weapon at the agent. 

“Then you’re going to have to shoot me. Because I’m walking out of here.”

Trepkos holds the gun steady, inches from the other man’s face. “You don’t think I’ll do it? Look around, Agent Mulder. You’ve never met anyone in your life with less to lose.”

“That’s not true. You’ve made an amazing discovery. You’re not infected. You can still walk out of here.”

Trepkos shakes his head, unsure exactly if it’s grief or anger he’s feeling. Even if he could make it out of here, his “amazing discovery” is far too dangerous to leave with him. And he’s a murderer. Whether he had a real choice or not, he’ll live with that. 

He doesn’t know if he wants to.

“You asked me what I’d do if I found the answer?” Mulder says, a bit gentler. “You said… that your intense desire to find the truth has eclipsed the truth itself. Maybe it’s happening again, Trepkos. It doesn’t have to end this way.”

He knows how this will end, he knows what he will find when he goes back to the base. He’s known it from the moment the spore scattered into the air. Only death. This is why he stopped taking his meds; if he was bound to descend into madness alone, he may as well be the most honest version of himself.

“Yes, it does.” 

Mulder looks at him with an intensity he hasn’t seen thus far. “I’m getting my partner out of here alive,” he says, setting his jaw. 

He lowers the weapon, lazily aiming it at his own head, then back at the ground. He lives, he dies. What difference does any of it make anymore?

“I’m never leaving here, Agent Mulder. No one’s ever gonna know what I know. And it doesn’t matter what you tell them. No one will believe you, anyway.” He looks down at the gun in his hand. “I know I wouldn’t.”

Mulder can’t help himself. He glances over Trepkos’ shoulder at Firewalker, its spindly steel form hulking over both of them. The proverbial elephant in the room, guarding his secret.

He means what he says. This discovery will die with him. 

Before Mulder can object, Trepkos fires at his invention over and over until the chamber of his gun is empty, effectively killing it. After a moment the cavern is quiet again, and Mulder looks at him with a piteous sort of understanding.

If you found that answer, what would you do with it?

Mulder says nothing more, just turns and runs, on a mission to find his partner alive and well. And although he knows he won’t find the same, Trepkos follows.

Chapter Text

He finds silence comforting. There isn’t enough of it anymore. Televisions are always on, kids walk around wearing headphones. There’s more traffic and more noise in this sleepy town than ever before.

He can tell the silence in the cab of his truck makes the FBI agents uncomfortable, but he doesn’t do anything about that. Just because he has something to show them doesn’t mean he’s willing to go out of his way to make them feel more settled.

He drives the familiar roads, turns off onto a dirt patch, and cuts the engine. He can smell the clean air before they even open the rusty doors of his pick-up. Oh sure, it smells like wet manure from the previous day’s rain, but that smell is normal. Natural. Comforting.

Not like the exhaust fumes and processed food smells that fill the town.

The FBI agents look out of place in their suits, but the woman leans on the fence like she’s not unfamiliar with farm life. The male agent keeps a little more distance.

“This pastureland belonged to my granddad. He bought it in 1890,” he says, looking over the farm. He imagines what it must have looked like 100 years before when everything was small and simple and straightforward.

He tells the agents about his grandad and the sale while trying to keep the wistfulness and grief he feels out of his voice. “Business changed. People changed too.”

And ain’t that the truth. He can barely recognize the world they are living in. Meat farms with hundreds of cows, but empty fields. Streets filled with cars, but half the amount of people out on the sidewalks.

Violence ran rampant. Their little corner of the world isn’t safe anymore.

“You said you wanted to show us something,” the woman says.

“You’re looking at it,” he tells her and points to the lone cow visible on the entire plot of land. “See those men over there? Well, they’re injecting the cattle with something called B.S.T. Bovine somatotropin.”

“A genetically-engineered growth hormone,” the female agent says, and he’s impressed that she understood. Sometimes he feels like no one gives a damn about any of this. They just keep on eating and demanding more without a single consideration of what they are putting in their bodies.

The male agent walks around him to get a better look at the men injecting one of the cows.

“Shoot them up and the cow will produce ten percent more milk. Feed it to beef cattle, more meat on the hoof. Changed the business. Changed a whole lot of things.”

He watches their reactions as he talks. He can tell that he’d piqued the curiosity of the male agent, but it is the woman who suddenly looks a little nervous about what he was telling her, who asks him what he meant.

“Well, that, uh, fracas in town this afternoon,” he says, looking into the female agent’s eyes before he lets his gaze fall off, thinking about everything that had happened. “Ten, even five years ago, never would have happened. People around here have changed, gotten mean, spiteful... dog-eat-dog.”

He turns to face the man, feeling his eyebrows furrow as he considers the horrors that the community had been through. “We had seven rapes here last year by high school boys. Well, that, um... this, this business of the kids being found in the woods... well, I think that you're going to find it all comes from the same root source.”

He may have been the only person in town who was making such a connection, but maybe these FBI agents had open minds and might consider it. Something had gone wrong in this sleepy little town and no one, not the townspeople or the sheriff, was doing a goddamn thing to fix it.

Now their kids are being brutalized and left in the woods and for what? A bigger piece of steak on your table? An extra glass of milk at dinner? A taller kid in your home?

“But these hormones have been proven safe,” the woman says. “They've been cleared by the F.D.A.”

And here he’d thought she seemed smart.

“Says who?” he asks, looking at the small federal employee standing before him, wondering if she is just another cog in the machine. “The government?”

He walks back to his truck, leaving the agents looking out over the pasture. He gets in the driver’s seat and watches the agents turn to look at each other. They are young and probably more accustomed to this modern world than he is, but he hopes that they understand. Things didn’t have to be this way. People are going off course and it is only going to get worse if no one tries to stop it.

The agents don’t say anything to each other, even when the man walks closer to his partner. He thinks surely they will discuss what he’d said now that he is out of earshot, but with a single look between them, they turn and walk back to the truck.

Maybe they aren’t as uncomfortable with silence as he’d thought.

Chapter Text

They’re back. 

Mabel, Ben, Eddie. All of them, right here with her again — her old friends, long since passed. These are the people she wants to see. It’s other residents whose beds have been empty for years that Dorothy wishes to never see again. 

Her hands grip the smooth metal of her wheelchair with ease this time. She barely notices the persistent ache in her knuckles as she zooms herself swiftly around the common room, the gray curls of her hair fluttering around her face while she chats excitedly with her friends that Dr. Grago can’t seem to see.

Dorothy smiles widely when Mabel’s faded frame appears at her side. “Hello, Mabel, don’t you look lovely,” she cheerfully praises. 

No one pays any attention to poor Mabel. No one ever did, so of course Dorothy jumps at the chance to make her friend feel good. Compliments are her favorite gifts to give. Besides, Dorothy is happy today. Energetic and alive, like she’s in her early 60’s again, chasing her grandbabies around the house. She had been sad and quiet after friends had died alone in their beds. So, so quiet. 

Dorothy has been too quiet for far too long.

She pushes herself over to the special spot she shares with Leo everyday, until the images of Mabel, Ben, and Eddie flicker and disappear. Their silver figures are replaced by a tall, handsome man in a suit with an interesting tie, and a very pretty redheaded woman in a beige suit. Official looking pair, she muses, but their eyes are kind. 

Dorothy places a hand on Leo’s forearm as he sketches. His strokes are short and dark. Desperate, even. Leo draws the same thing every time: an image of Hell, he says. Dorothy thinks the pictures look a lot like Excelsis Dei. 

The tall man with dark green eyes leans down and gives Leo and then her a soft smile. “Can I sit down, Leo?”

Leo won’t respond. He’s too focused. But the pretty young lady with bright blue eyes that blot out the beige places her hand on the arm of the dark haired man’s chair, moving in close. “Leo, we’re with the FBI. We have some questions we’d like to ask you.”

Leo continues to draw, his brow furrowed. 

“Leo’s a brilliant artist, you know,” Dorothy pipes up. Leo sighs; she just can’t help herself. “Don’t be so modest, Leo. President Kennedy has one of his paintings in the White House.”

The FBI look impressed, but of course Leo rolls his eyes. He’s never painted for prestige. 

“Dr. Grago tells us that you haven’t been able to work in years,” the pretty woman says. “That the medicine has improved-”

“It ain’t the medication,” Leo blurts. 

Dorothy fidgets nervously with her pink bathrobe. Dr. Grago doesn’t know how to help them. He knows a lot, but not everything. Many of the orderlies here are mean and treat residents like children. But not Mr. Gung. No, never him. If Leo tells these nice people that orderly Gung gives them special pills he makes to help them feel alive again, then maybe Gung will get in trouble. Maybe he won’t be able to free any of them from the confines of their minds like this anymore.

The thought of being sad and quiet again makes Dorothy’s stomach twist. 

The FBI woman tilts her head at Leo. “What is it then?”

Dorothy’s heart skips a beat. Oh Leo, be careful. She can’t go back to the sadness, the quiet. She can’t watch Leo go back, either.

Leo opens his mouth to say something before two mean orderlies rudely interrupt. Dorothy had decided months ago how little she cared to learn their names. They aren’t Mr. Gung, after all.

“Okay, Rembrandt. 6:00. Dinner time,” a mean man says, putting a firm hand on Leo’s arm.  

“Come on, Dorothy,” the other mean man tells her as he grabs Dorothy’s wheelchair and tugs her away from the table. Away from Leo. “Legs up and straight ahead. Don’t want you getting a flat tire.”

“W-wait, Leo’s not finished with us.” 

She’s panicking. Being pushed around and pulled away from the nice FBI people, being separated from Leo, upsets her.

“Leo can finish with you later.”

As she’s whisked away, Leo gives her a reassuring glance. As if to tell her she will be all right — they will be all right.

Dorothy believes him. 

***

The television fans out a rainbow of color from the corner of her eye. She doesn’t bother to look. Her gaze is locked onto the intricate black and white painting of sad faces, living skeletons with bony fingers pulling at flesh, and she can’t look away. It’s hauntingly beautiful. The art sparks a moment of recognition she can’t quite place. Like most of her thoughts lately, the memory she so desperately searches for is too hard to hold onto, slipping through her aching fingers and falling far from her reach.

A warm hand finds hers hanging limply from the arm of her wheelchair, squeezing softly. “Dorothy, dear? Are you with me today?”

The voice is calm, gentle, and her heart flutters when she hears it. 

“Yes,” she says simply, still awed at the massive painting on the wall. 

The moon swallows the sun while someone pushes her half asleep in her wheelchair down the hall. She’s tired now, so very tired. The wheels come to a squeaky stop by a bedroom door. Dorothy’s bedroom. Her heavy eyes catch a pair of kind brown ones hovering above her. Ones so familiar she’d know them anywhere. 

A smile pulls at her lips.

“Leo, dear? Are you with me tonight?”

Chapter Text

Danny knew he wasn’t supposed to prioritize his work based on favoritism, and he really tried not to. 

Tried being the operative word.

It brought him a little comfort knowing he wasn’t alone; every department would pay extra attention when the work on their desks was assigned by Special Agents Mulder and Scully. Hell, even the rookie pathologist they just hired in the forensics lab was putting in overtime so he could impress them with his quick turnaround. Last week he caught the young redhead poring over Scully’s field report as if it was a love letter addressed to him.

The Spookys’ cases were the highlight of everyone’s work week. Even if the results were inconclusive, their cases often entailed exploring areas of research the pathologists seldom had an opportunity to. It could be frustrating when they felt like they didn’t get an answer that the Spookys were looking for, but usually, it was those phone calls where the agents seemed the most excited, much to everyone else's confusion. Sometimes the labs felt like an underground betting ring trying to figure out why they asked for a given report. 

Usually all types of cases followed routine procedures. The lab would analyze evidence found at the home and scene of the abduction, then they would run background reports on people affiliated with the victim and known criminals who fit a stereotypical m.o., etcetera, etcetera. It was interesting work, but quickly became repetitive after the thousandth fiber analysis.

With the X-Files, no one knew what to expect. One day they’d ask for DNA to be run on a suspect only for it to come back as a dead person, the next they’d ask for data on the 1818 census in a completely different state. Working in the lab felt like helping them put together a puzzle while blindfolded. The catch was, you never got to see the end picture until their case reports were finalized, and even then, the final image was abstract beyond recognition.

For the other agents, at least.

Danny could say that this was the only time in his life being a little spooky paid off; birds of a feather and all. Back when Mulder was in the VCU, the first time they met, Danny talked his ear off about the rumors he’d heard about what’s really inside Mount Rushmore. 

He’d gone home thinking he’d yet again scared another person off by talking too much about his unique interests, but the next day, Mulder stopped by and told him some pretty interesting things about what tourists have seen at Rosewell. It continued like that back and forth for years until Mulder began requesting Danny almost exclusively.

They’d been through a lot of changes together in a short amount of time. Mulder went from the VCU to the X-Files, his original partner fled for Germany or something and it took years for him to get a new one, and Danny got married to his husband. Well, as married as you could be without legal papers. When he told Mulder he and his partner swapped last names and he was now Valladeo instead of Bernstein, the immediate acceptance and congratulatory pat on the back only further cemented Danny’s admiration of the agent.

Mulder even tried to get him Redskin tickets as a wedding present a few months ago. He’d been sick recently, and ended up having to return the tickets to Mulder, but it still meant a lot. He didn’t pry, but Mulder made it sound like he’d go to the game instead with a date. Danny didn’t know if it was romantic or not, but he had a feeling he was going to ask Agent Scully to go. He’d been so worried about her ever since she came back to work after she went missing, it made sense that he’d try to do something nice for her. It wasn’t for another week, but he hoped it worked. They both deserved a bit of a break.

Agent Scully was still pretty reserved around him, but he got the impression that’s how she was with everyone. Typically he heard Scully’s requests for him through Mulder acting as a middleman, which is why hearing her voice coming from the end of the line on this particular day came as such a surprise.

“Yeah, Danny Valladeo, it's Agent Scully.”

“Just got the info you requested, hang on a sec,” he replied, masking his shock.

He’d liked her before, but hearing her use his married name when so many others refused made him appreciate her even more. In this environment, the gals and gays needed to support each other. 

Danny pulled up the file they requested which, yet again, contextually didn’t make sense. As far as he was aware, they were investigating some brutal murders, but yet they’d asked him to look up adoption records relating to a Mrs. Linda Thibedeaux. 

“Agent Scully?”

He heard the sound of hair brushing against the receiver and the tail end of Mulder talking about sunflower seeds followed by, “Yeah, Danny?”

“I found the adoption records you were looking for. It appears Mrs. Linda Thibedeaux gave birth to Raymond Morrow, a policeman. The files don’t say much else, seems like she really wanted to separate herself from this.”

“Yeah, thanks, I'll tell him,” she stated. He could tell from her tone alone that his finding had come as a surprise.

“No problem, anytime Agent Scully,” he replied to the dial tone.

Usually only Mulder hung up without saying goodbye. He really must be rubbing off on her.

Chapter Text

Strength was prized above all else at the FBI. Dr. Karen Kosseff saw it in the agents who were referred to her and in those who sought her out on their own. They came to her office with their walls up, putting on a brave face while keeping their weaknesses hidden, as if they were the only ones in the building with doubts and fears.

Dana Scully was no different. She had endured several major upheavals and disruptions in her life, many of which occurred in a relatively short period of time. And from what Karen had heard, the cases she took with her partner were not of a particularly safe variety, resulting in injury and trauma to both.

It was a wonder she hadn’t come to her sooner.

As Agent Scully explained that she’d made the appointment because of a difficult case that had rattled her, Karen watched her demeanor, listened to her choice of words. She was petite and soft spoken, but there was a fierce determination that Karen could sense even in her fragile state.

Despite the fact that Agent Scully was quick to open up, her eyes held unshed tears. She spoke professionally, but attempted to keep herself detached from what she was feeling. She rationalized her emotions with a level of self-awareness that Karen rarely saw.

“You're a strong person,” Karen told her truthfully, knowing it was also what she needed to hear. “You've probably always felt you can handle any problem yourself. But you feel vulnerable now. Do you know why that is?”

Karen had her theories, but she wanted to encourage the other woman to come to them on her own. When Agent Scully said no, she pushed her further. “Is it your partner? Is there a problem with trust?”

“No,” she answered almost immediately. “I trust him as much as anyone. I trust him with my life.”

Karen noted the way she’d frozen when asked about her partner, but a small smile had crossed her face. She knew she’d hit on something.

Karen had spoken to Agent Mulder a few times when he’d been sent to her, most recently after he’d killed a suspect. She could tell that he had a tight bond with Agent Scully. Speaking with her only sharpened that observation. Karen suspected that they were likely becoming the most important people in each other’s lives.

“Can you talk to him about the way you're feeling?” she asked, though she was pretty sure what the answer would be.

“No,” the other woman answered, pausing to look down at her lap.

In all her years working as a therapist for the FBI, Karen had learned that partnerships, be they successful or not, were integral in how an agent functioned, both inside and out of work. An open and trusting partnership could make an agent feel secure and safe, leading them to a successful career and a well balanced life. Without trust, accidents happened, careers ended, and lives could be lost.

But partnerships, even those with the strongest connection, ebbed and flowed. There were times when they fell out of sync, questioned their trust in each other. It was normal, but something that couldn’t go unaddressed.

“I know it sounds crazy,” Agent Scully continued, “but I don't want him to know how much this is bothering me. I don't want him to think he has to protect me.”

“I know you lost your father last year. And I read in your file that you were very ill recently. That your life was threatened. Exposures like these can leave you extremely vulnerable.”

As the other woman explained her commitment to her job and protecting those around her, Karen watched her body language, paid attention to the tone of her voice, her conviction. She was scared and wasn’t sure how to move forward.

“You say you have lost your faith in your ability to protect people,” Karen said, “but you also expressed a concern about your partner wanting to protect you. When you are the one protecting people, how do you think that affects them?”

Agent Scully looked off for a moment while considering the question. “Um, well I suppose it would give them strength, knowing that they are safe. That someone has their back.”

She avoided eye contact until Karen let the silence stretch and she finally looked up. “Sometimes in an attempt to overcome our vulnerability,” Karen said, “we retreat within ourselves, attempting to manage everything on our own, but that’s not the only way to be strong.”

“I guess… I worry about what he’d think of me.”

Her eyes were pleading, as if she was hoping to receive all the answers in a single therapy session.

“Do you believe he would think less of you? If you told him the truth about how this case is affecting you?”

Agent Scully smiled and looked down at her hands. “No. I know he would never think that way.”

“If what you say is true, and you trust Agent Mulder, then I recommend you open up to him, but on your own time. I have no doubt that you’re committed to your job, but I do believe that there is greater strength in allowing people in than there is in standing on our own.”

Agent Scully nodded her head and briefly closed her eyes. Karen wasn’t sure how this agent’s case would play out, but she looked as if at least some of the weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She hoped that their talk would be enough to return some confidence back to her work.

A sudden trill of a cell phone made them both jump and Agent Scully reached for her pocket.

“It’s my partner,” she said, looking apologetic, but standing from the couch. “I have to… Thank you. I’ll think about what you said.”

Karen watched as the agent left the room, her phone pressed firmly to her ear while a small smile played across her lips.

Chapter Text

There’s a presence here, they say. A consistent darkness that lingers like the gray haze coating Milford New Hampshire before sunrise. It’s an old story, whispered about in covert corners of community potlucks and PTA meetings. “Nothing but rumors,” her mom always says with a cluck of her tongue and a swift sign of the cross drawn over her chest. 

Andrea knows this. Even as stray branches snap beneath her shoes and rain water soaks the bottom of her jeans, she knows the woods that Jerry and Dave have convinced her and Kate to enter tonight aren’t safe. 

Kate leans in closer, their umbrellas bumping. “You think the guys know what they’re doing?”

Andrea scoffs. “Oh I think they know exactly what they’re doing.”

“What, that they dragged us all the way out here to get in our pants?” Kate whispers, rolling her eyes. “They could’ve done that on the car ride here.”

“Speak for yourself.” 

“I meant the black magic,” Kate hisses. “You think they can really call up spirits like the rumors say?”

“I don’t know.” Andrea shivers at the thought. “It’s only rumors after all. Right?”

Minutes later, a candle burns bright, and she’s staring into Jerry’s smiling brown eyes just inches away from hers as Dave chants words that send chills down her spine. 

“…In the name of the Lords of Darkness, rulers of the Earth, kings of the Underworld, rise, rise to this place. Ah... Azazal,” Dave says triumphantly.

Then the candle burns out. 

Andrea clutches at her cross necklace hidden beneath her shirt.

A groaning sound sweeps through the trees and hollow voices fill the loamy air. Dave has the audacity to be startled by it all. Kate looks scared, and even Jerry gasps beside her. 

Andrea whimpers against Jerry’s chest. She squeezes the cross that’s suddenly burning the hollow of her throat, watching Dave and Kate looking around, wide-eyed and worried. A gust of wind whips Andrea’s wet blonde hair around her head, and when she looks down, dozens of squeaking rats scurry across her shoes.

“AHHH!” Andrea screams, again and again. 

She thinks she hears the others yelling her name, but Andrea isn’t sticking around another second to find out. She shakes off a rat trying to claw its way up the pant leg of her favorite Guess jeans, shoves Jerry out of her way, and runs like hell through the forest. 

“Forget this!” Jerry starts running after her, hollering, “Andrea!”

Andrea’s shoes squelch as her feet pound against the moist earth. The only thing she hears now is the blood rushing through her ears and the sound of her frantic voice reciting the Lord’s Prayer. 

“...blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus! Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our deaths…”

Her mother would be proud.

“Andrea! Wait!” Jerry cries, before a fireball explodes in his face. 

“Amen!” she cries as hot tears stream down her cheeks. 

Andrea turns, running past low hanging branches and leaping over fallen tree trunks, sprinting through darkness all the way home. 

***

She sees Kate enter the science lab and sighs, both relieved she’s okay and fucking pissed she’d let her friend talk her into doing whatever the hell that was last night. 

“Hey,” Kate says, grabbing Andrea’s elbow and steering her toward their assigned table. “Shit, are you okay? I wanted to find you before Dave and I ran like you did, but-”

“Am I okay?” Andrea retorts angrily. “Are you on drugs or something? Because last night was not okay , okay?” 

“I know,” Kate agrees, whispering now as the substitute teacher they’ve never seen before stares intensely at them from across the room. “Have you talked to Jerry? Dave couldn’t find him last night and he’s not here today.”

Andrea’s heart races. “Oh God, you don’t think he’s-”

“Don’t say it,” Kate winces. “I’m scared as it is.”

“There’s Dave! He looks nervous.” Andrea chews her lip, rubbing away the sudden goose flesh stippling her skin. “Oh God, Kate, what the hell happened in those woods?”

“Okay people… People, may I have your attention please,” the nosy teacher announces. “Mr Kingary is off sick today, so I'll be substituting. My name is Mrs. Paddock. I'm going to take the roll-”

There's a knock at the door. Two people dressed in suits looking like fancy cops step in, flashing their badges, their eyes scanning the room. Andrea’s stomach twists. 

Then all hell breaks loose.

***

Twenty minutes after Dave tried diving head first out of the science lab’s window, they all find out exactly why Jerry Stevens is absent today. 

“He’s… dead?” Dave asks again, his head in hands. “He’s really dead?”

“Yes, Dave, he is,” Agent Mulder says calmly. The two FBI agents had introduced themselves after Agent Mulder yanked Dave from the window before Agent Scully pinned him to the floor with her knee to his back. The whole thing looked like a scene from the new movie Speed. 

“I can’t believe it,” Dave mutters to his shoes. “He was right there with us, and then… he just wasn’t, man. The whole thing was messed up.”

Andrea’s watery eyes sting. Jerry’s dead, and the one thing she can’t quit thinking about is how easily it could’ve been her. She hugs herself tight. 

“Jerry was my best friend,” Dave says desperately. “Look, I swear, I've never done anything like that.”

“What made you go to a place you heard was a witches' altar?” Agent Scully asks, and Andrea can’t help but glare at Dave when he glances over at where she and Kate are standing. 

“We were just trying to get some.”

Andrea huffs to Kate, “I told you.”

“Why did you take the book?” Agent Scully presses.

“Because I don't know a thing about witchcraft, and we wanted to make it sound good... but I never thought…”

“You never thought, what?”

“That it would work.”

Nothing but rumors, Andrea frowns, Is nothing but bullshit.

Chapter Text

In times like these, he wished he was Cuban. He’s heard the older men in the camp say that they’re the only ones Mr. Clinton cares about. He wonders if Mr. Clinton has ever been to Haiti. If he ever saw how beautiful the coral is, or if he ever knew how nice it felt to take a swim in the afternoon, then surely he’d realize that no one ever truly wanted to leave Haiti. They had to. At least, that’s what he was told.

It seemed like everyone got sick at the first camp they were taken to. People would get a fever, then they would lose a lot of weight. Some of the men would even get red splotches all over their bodies. Mama didn’t get the red splotches, but she lost the big belly she earned from years of plantains. People were dying so much at the camp that the guards would do rounds at night to take the corpses away. It was customary to wake up and notice the bodies had been removed during the night, never to be seen again. When he went to sleep in his Mama’s arms and woke up tangled in the bedsheets, he knew what that meant.

In voodoo, it’s believed that the dead will come back again, that we should not be afraid of death. He’d always heard that, after death, you go underwater for a year before passing on to the next life. In times when he was sad, that’s how he would imagine Mama, suspended in the sun-warmed shores of the Haitian beaches, waiting for her next life to begin.

But that was not Chester’s experience. 

He remembered pain. A cacophony of voices shouting and pushing in every direction. He reached out for his mama’s hand before remembering she wasn’t there. He was smart, but he still didn’t know all of the English words yet, and sometimes he got them confused. Riot? Mutiny? He didn’t understand. All he knew was that there were too many people in the lunch hall, and they were backing everyone into a corner.

“Get away from me!” he screamed, pushing the sweaty bodies around him to no avail. No one could hear him over the sounds of the alarm blaring. He was too short for anyone to really see him, so he kept getting elbowed in the head while struggling to take in a full breath of air. 

The bulbous guy next to him stepped on his shoelace and it sent him toppling to the floor, only there was nowhere for him to go. “Stop!” he yelled, clawing at the tattered pantleg of one of the men. Suddenly, he felt water spraying from the sky, and he realized the guards were using the hose on them which only served to agitate everyone around him.

The man he was clinging on to shook him off his leg, sending Chester toppling to the damp concrete. The man’s full weight came down on Chester’s shin, and he could feel his bone snap. He knew he was screaming, but he couldn’t hear himself. Someone above him was pushed, and he felt another man step on his hand, another kicked his belly. 

He tried to pull his hand out from under the man’s foot, Chester even tried punching his leg with his good hand, but it only caused the man to adjust his footing, crushing Chester’s fingers against the gritty pavement. It went on like that for what felt like hours, every time one person’s foot left his body, another would step down on a new area.

He knew he shouldn’t be afraid of death, but no one told him that dying would be so scary.

“Mama!” he sobbed, curling his broken limbs close to his chest. His tears felt hot against his cheeks compared to the cool spray of the water hose. He wanted to go home. The last thing he really remembered about that day was how the grooves of a guard’s boot felt pressing into the skin of his temple.

He didn’t go underwater, and it wasn’t a year. 

Chester blinked and he was lying on the ground, Bauvais standing above him.

“Little boy,” he whispered, eyes roaming Chester’s face. “Are you in pain?”

He tentatively closed his fists and noted his fingers were no longer broken. Easing himself up on his elbow, he looked down and noticed that Bauvais had painted something on his chest. A shape. “Drink this,” Bauvais instructed, lifting a broken cup to Chester’s lips.

There was something odd about a man as big as Bauvais being so gentle. It made Chester feel honored to be on the receiving end of the intimidating man’s attention, so he acquiesced and drank the odd-smelling liquid until Bauvais pulled away. He felt something brush his tongue, so he reached into his mouth until his finger grazed something slimy. Upon pulling it out, Chester saw a mangled frog’s leg.

“Ack!” Chester coughed, scrambling backward into a sitting position while the man overhead let out a raucous laugh.

He was embarrassed to be acting so childish in front of Bauvais, but thinking he’d just swallowed frog guts grossed him out. Chester twisted onto his hands and knees as he coughed and sputtered, squinting his eyes shut as he vomited on the ground beneath him. 

When his eyes opened, he noted that his vomit was hairy and clumped together. He didn’t have long to think about it before he felt Bauvais’ hands wrap around his waist, hoisting him effortlessly into the air.

“Hey! Put me down!” Chester yelled.

“It will be easier to control your form once you’ve gotten used to it,” the man stated as he held Chester against his chest.

“You’re talking nonsense,” he snapped, placing his hands against Bauvais' shirt in an effort to push him away.

Only, he didn’t see his hand. All he saw was the paw of a black cat.

“Chester,” Bauvais cooed, scratching behind Chester’s ears. “I need your help.”

Chapter Text

First, it’s just a phone call. He hears a disjointed voice on the other end of the line that he somehow recognizes, although he knows it’s impossible. I’ll be there in an hour, says the voice, so he waits.

After that, the minutes pass in shifts, like the way dreams bleed seamlessly, one after the other, and everything that came before the one being experienced right now is rendered meaningless. Maybe this is why he drinks: to forget every terrible thing he’s done, each horrible choice he’s made. A slow but certain death is the only thing he has to look forward to.

That certainty becomes a comfort: the only thing that allows him to move on.

He calls Teena, unsure of what to tell her, but unable to hide this from her. He’s told so many lies, kept so many secrets. He’s full up, hit his quota. She has a right to know. He owes her that much.

When his daughter arrives on his front porch, she’s no longer just a voice; she’s a real, breathing entity bringing the past along with her like an avalanche. Her eyes show no recognition of him, her father, although he recognizes hers. They’re exactly the same as they were all those years ago when he last saw them; the night he left her in Fox’s care, knowing he’d most likely never see her again. It’s unfathomable, what they’ve done; the science of it. Remarkable.

The colonists had promised one day their family members – the merchandise – would be returned to them, safe and sound. Protected. He never believed it, not for a second. Which is why he looks at this… person, this someone now with a degree of skepticism he’d never before experienced on the job. Doing the things he’s done, seeing the things he’s seen… skepticism is a luxury none of them could afford.

Bill Mulder stands stock still, emotionless. He’s not sure of the proper way to react. Teena, on the other hand, lurches forward toward their daughter, propelled by some unknowable force he can only chalk up to the love of a mother for her child. 

He wishes this were really Samantha. He wishes it were true, if only for her sake.

But all Bill can think of is his own guilt. His shame, his regret. He’s never stopped, after all these years, and he shouldn’t. He deserves to feel all of it.

He spent the first decade or so focused on his daughter, and the series of choices he made that led to her tragic fate. That he held her writhing, screaming newborn body in his hands, only to become the agent of her destruction was something he struggles living with daily. He’d been so busy lamenting her loss that he’d barely noticed the rest of his family falling apart. 

After that, he thought of his wife; how years of pent up resentment had manifested into downright rage. Learning of her betrayal and living with it, too, for the sake of their children.

Oh, the irony.

And now, he can only think of Fox. 

Fox: the fatherless boy he called his son. The one who shouldered the blame. The one who dedicated his life to finding a child Bill knew he would never, ever find.

His boy – yes, he will always be his boy – is so much braver than Bill ever was, or could be. He tried to be, he really did. But saving the world seems to be a task suited for only one Mulder in the family.

Bill hangs up the phone, the receiver heavy in his hand. “He’s on his way,” he says simply to his ex-wife. She glances at him briefly with barely veiled disdain, then averts her eyes, looking back at Samantha. 

Samantha . That’s the name this creature has given them, that’s the story she’s sticking with. But Bill knows better. He worries if he stays inside he’ll say something he regrets, so he grabs a pack of Morleys and heads out to the porch to fill his lungs with more shame.

The sun has long since disappeared by the time Fox arrives, the dutiful (if not prodigal) son returning. There’s a wall between them that must remain. Teena would never understand; the love between a mother and her son would always be unconditional. But Bill’s relationship with his son has been a winding road paved with conditions, none of them Fox’s fault or burden.

It isn’t that Bill doesn't love his son. It’s that he doesn't feel he deserves to be a father.

“Your mother needs some time,” he tells Fox, who startles at his presence. He puffs on his cigarette, feeling more and more like the bad guy every single day.

“You said it was an emergency.”

Bill stands and approaches Fox, whose arms open in a welcoming gesture. But Bill does not deserve to feel his son’s warm embrace. He extends his hand, keeping him at arm’s length, quite literally. Fox seems to expect this.

“She wanted you to come. It's a difficult time. I appreciate your coming on such short notice.”

“What is it, Dad?”

Fox’s eyes glint with the sparkle of curiosity Bill still remembers from when he was a boy; way back when they watched their first episode of Star Trek together. Back before he knew he wasn’t his boy.

Spender would never admit it, but he’d love to claim Fox for his own. To bring him into the fold, to carve him into the man’s legacy. Officially. But if Bill Mulder can accomplish anything before he dies, if he can bring just one bit of good into the world before it no longer belongs to the human race, it’s to make damn sure that doesn’t happen. 

If there’s a future left to be fought for, his son will do the fighting.

Chapter Text

He taps the loaded gun against the phone booth’s glass.

“…He's got my gun, Mulder,” the woman called Scully says into the payphone. “He says he's going to kill me if you don't give him what he wants.”

Her partner has what he wants. The entire survival of his race depends on getting it. The clone pretending to be the long-lost sister of Fox Mulder knows too much. She knows how to kill his kind, how to deplete the masses before colonization begins. 

This cannot be. 

There is an extraterrestrial race war rising within his world: a rebellion in the making. A faction of clones and shapeshifters rallying against the oil that made them. Fools, all them. Hybridization cannot be tolerated. Purity of the alien race must be maintained.

“…A woman who's with you. He says you'll know what I'm talking about. He says he wants to make a trade,” she continues to relay his message. “Be at Memorial Bridge at Bethesda in one hour.”

He grows impatient. 

“Mulder-”

He reaches out and ends the call. “Let’s go.”

Stepping foot on this forsaken planet and forced to blend with the human race to protect his own is never his choice, but it is his task. A task of utmost importance. 

“Don’t hurt him,” she says suddenly. “Mulder. Don’t hurt him.”

His large hand wraps easily around her slender arm, squeezing until she winces. “I said, let’s go.”

He yanks her out of the phone booth and shoves her into the passenger seat of the stolen Taurus.

“What the hell do you want?” she sneers as he climbs in and slams his foot on the gas. “What’s your endgame?”

The colonization of planet Earth, consumption of its resources, eventual deletion of mankind… There are plenty to choose from.

“It is greater than me,” he states. 

Experiments performed by the clones on humans were never sanctioned. It is a dilution of his species, a pollution of the race. So he has been dispatched by fellow Grays to destroy the clones and terminate the colony. 

“ What is greater?”

“Many men have asked that question before,” he admits. “Men in suits who trade their own for secrets not of this world. Many men have lost their lives seeking them.”

She scoffs, “I’m not a man.”`

He tears his gaze away from the road to stare at this bold woman, getting a good look at her upturned chin and blue eyes narrowing in the moonlight. 

She stares right back.

“No, you are a means to an end.”

He is careful to avoid shifting his features in front of humans. His real face is only to be shown to other Grays at the moment of their execution, and the last time he had shown his true self as a Gray was on a baseball diamond in Roswell, 1947. Earlier, when he had shifted from the face of Fox Mulder to morph back into his Earth-assigned bounty hunter one, Agent Scully was unconscious at the time. For a moment, he had wondered if he killed this tiny human by tossing her across the motel room. She is worthless to him if her heart is no longer beating. 

“Your partner has the means,” he says confidently. “Fox Mulder has what I need.”

“The woman,” she whispers. “You need her?”

He says nothing, and she does not question him further about the female clone born of illegitimate hybridization and unearthly science as they approach the meeting place. He can tell she has no clue what other questions to ask or how to ask them. Ignorance is what will save her in the future. He looks at her again as he slows the car to a stop at the center of the bridge and is confident she is the only one that can ensure his success tonight. 

“He needs you .”’

Breath hitches within her chest. He can tell she wants to cry now. Humans are so fragile. Her glossy eyes lock onto her partner’s tall form as he unfolds himself from the front seat. 

He has a bounty to collect. He must succeed. Failure is unacceptable.

“Get out,” the hunter tells her, grabbing her arm, pulling through the driver’s side door after him. 

He makes a show of using her as a shield and aims the gun at her head. He can practically feel the adrenaline pumping wildly through her veins. 

Mulder freezes. “Scully?”

His hunter eyes are on the female clone inside the car. “Bring her out.”

The clone exits the car cautiously and approaches. His grip on the gun tightens. 

“Step close,” he orders. “Right up close.”

Breaths are held as the one he needs steps forward. He makes his move, swiftly swapping the human for the clone. 

He squeezes the clone close, tucking the gun away as Mulder rushes toward his partner. 

“Scully, you all right?”

“Yeah,” she nods before moving to the car. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

Mulder pulls a gun from behind his back and aims it across the bridge. The hunter does not blink. Fox Mulder is not stupid, he must now know what his cloned sister already does: that green blood of a Gray hunter is deadly to a human’s weak immune system. Shooting one will do nothing but kill himself and his precious Scully in the end.

“There’s no way out!” Mulder yells. “We've got both sides of the bridge covered! There’s no way out!” 

The hunter backs away, tugging the clone along with him. This is it, the beginning of the end. 

The clone struggles and Mulder lunges forward. 

“Let her go!”

He has a bounty to collect , the hunter thinks, as a gunshot sounds and a bullet pierces his back. He must succeed , he knows, as he tumbles over the bridge’s edge, clinging to the clone and sliding a sharp stiletto through the back of her neck before rushing water swallows them whole.

Eyes opening once again within murky water, he swims for shore alone.

Failure is unacceptable.  

Chapter Text

Light take animals, animals come home, baby in belly. Light take animals again, take baby, animals no come home. Where baby?

Sophie want baby.

Willa not understand. Sophie scared. Baby go flying light.

Tall man and red hair woman want help. Not understand.

Man and woman no hurt Sophie. Man and woman not know, baby go flying light soon.

Sophie knows.

Mouth hurt. 

Belly hurt. 

Head hurt.

Body feel bad.

Sophie scared.

Sophie hear light. Light come take Sophie. Sophie baby go flying light. Willa no understand. Help Sophie, please! Help Sophie, please!

Light coming.

Please no baby go flying light.

Please no. Please no.

Sophie want love baby. Baby need Sophie milk! Baby need Sophie hug! Baby need Sophie kiss!

Sophie need baby.

Please no baby go flying light.

Heart hurt.

Man and woman want help.

Want help, no help give.

Light take babies.

Tiger baby.

Elephant baby.

Red hair woman baby.

Woman not know light took baby. Woman belly no baby. Woman need baby. Baby alone. Baby scared. Light have baby. Baby no safe.

Mouth hurt.

Belly hurt.

Head hurt.

Sophie hear, Sophie feel, Sophie know… light come here now.

Light know Sophie home! Safe where?

Please no baby go flying light!

Please no hurt Sophie!

Sophie leave! Sophie not safe! Door open please! Door open please! Door open please! 

Sophie need run! Sophie hide baby!

I’m not going to hurt you.

No! 

Sophie hit! Sophie scream! 

Wait…Willa friend. Man want help.

Sophie sorry hit man.

Man sorry no help.

Too late.

Light here.

Man no save Sophie.

Man save man.

Sophie go flying light.

Baby go flying light.

Cold.

Sophie fall.

Hurt. Light hurt Sophie. 

Sophie where now? 

Sophie need sleep. Sophie hurt. Sophie belly empty.

Where baby?

Sophie mommy no baby.

Sophie feel wet. Sophie eyes heavy. Sophie so tired.

Maybe baby in dreams.

Chapter Text

It began with a light.

A dozen men abandoning ship at the 65th parallel, abandoning their posts… all because of a light. Captain Peter Barclay doesn’t know what else to call that besides mutiny. He was born to follow orders, he’s been raised to follow orders. Like his father before him. 

Their intuition had been better than his, as it turns out.

He wonders if they made it, if they’d found rescue. If their bones are brittle and their muscles are as weak as his.

“We’re FBI,” the man, Agent Mulder, says. The flashlight he’s aiming directly into Barclay’s eyes is brighter than the one they all saw on the surface of the sea, before everything went to hell. Barclay isn’t afraid of him; he’s afraid of only one thing now. And that one thing is something he won’t be able to escape. He doesn’t know how or why but he knows what’s happening, like a road map for his mortality is written on his insides. He can see the end, and it’s close.

Cold. Everything is cold. They don’t tell you that part, he thinks. Barclay shivers, clutching the bottle of Jack Daniels close to his chest like a talisman, as if it could somehow ward off the beyond. At least the whiskey has been keeping him warmer than he’d be without it.  

“Time got lost,” he tries to explain to the agents. The woman, Agent Scully, looks at him like he’s crazy, which he expects. Exchanges a skeptical glance with her partner. None of it matters anyway; he feels like his insides are wasting away, corroding just like the hull of the Ardent. His cough sounds like a death rattle.

They want to help. But there’s nothing they can do.

The agents huddle in the corner and he wants to laugh at the futility of it all. Searching for murderous men onboard when there’s a mysterious force far more heinous, far more insidious that will kill them all anyway. Eventually. 

They only have to wait. And not for long.

The men leave Agent Scully behind, which provides a welcome source of company. Three months at sea surrounded by loud, boisterous men can take its toll. He misses Kathleen, he misses his girls.

“It’s okay, I’m a medical doctor,” she says, guiding him over to the nearest flat surface. “Let’s move abaft, back here. You should lie down, catch your breath.”

He listens, does what she says, because he doesn’t have an ounce of fight left in him anyway.

“You have family in the Navy?” he rasps. Her casual use of nautical language is surprising.

“Oh,” she says, huffing a quick chuckle. “Actually, yes. My father was a Navy captain as well. And my brother is… well, not a captain yet, but well on his way.”

Feels like fate, Barclay thinks, and smiles. He didn’t think he could do that anymore.

“Can you tell me how you started experiencing your symptoms?” she then asks, helping him up and gently guiding his head down until he’s supine on the table.

He’s so, so tired. It seems like his brain is aging along with everything else; some things he can barely remember, even though it can only have been a couple of days since it started.

“At first, it was… aches. Just felt weak. It was hard to walk, then to stand. Skin got dry, and…” he held out his wrinkled hand above him, slowly wiggling his knobby knuckles. “I do remember this… I looked at my fingers… and I could actually see the nails growing.”

Agent Scully makes a face, and he isn’t sure if it’s disgust or pity. Either way, the message is clear. I’m sorry I can’t help you.

“Just rest,” she says. Her voice is soothing. She reminds him of Kathleen, although at this point any woman with a pulse would probably remind him of her. Not for the first time, he resigns himself to the fact he’ll never see her again.

Minutes pass, although to his body, it feels like years. The end is drawing near, and he’s afraid.

“What do you think happens… when you die?” he asks her haltingly. “I mean, do you think there’s some kind of afterlife?” He’s never given it much thought, but suddenly facing the possibility of nothing has him desperate. 

She shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she says softly. “But… I want to believe in one.”

There’s a smile on her face now, just barely– like she’s trying to hide it. He wonders what that’s about.

“Stay with me,” he croaks out. He barely has any voice left. “Please?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Captain Barclay’s hands are clammy and cold, but hers is warm as she takes one of his. He closes his eyes.

It ends with a light.

Chapter Text

Whoever invented polybutylene should be bludgeoned to death with a rusty pipe wrench. If Mr. George Nutt had a dollar for every time he had to crawl under a trailer in the middle of the night to tape up a corroded polybutylene pipe, he’d have… well, enough to install new pipes at the Gulf Breeze Trailer Court.

He’d never thought he would turn out to be a plumber, among many other things. When he was young, he’d dreamed of being a Supreme Court Justice, but tonight he was covered in the shit-tainted water leaking from the pipe that was preventing the red-haired FBI agent’s toilet from flushing.

He didn’t really mind, though. At least she’d been nice about it when she called the front desk, unlike that tall, privileged white male partner of hers. Barging into his office, making assumptions that all little people must be sideshow freaks. It must be nice to view the world from six feet up where the grass is always greener and everything is black and white.

Nutt could have had any career he wanted, had he chosen a different one. He was at the top of his class in the fourth grade. He took a high school class in junior high and balanced his mother’s checkbook by the time he was 15. He knew he was going to be something one day because he sure as shit wasn’t going to exploit himself for the benefit of small-minded people who wanted a laugh on their weekends.

Despite what the FBI agent thought of him, he worked hard to get to where he was. He left home and headed straight to Tallahassee. He got his degree from Dedman College of Hospitality and look at him now. He was the proprietor of a successful, fully relocatable, short-term lodging establishment. People needed a place to stay, then he was their guy.

He did it all. Kept the books, fixed the leaks, washed the sheets. His size didn’t matter. Some might say he was larger than life, really.

He didn’t need a suit and a hideous tie to make him matter. He wasn’t a caricature of a man, all handsome features, strapping physique, and perfectly placed sarcastic remarks. No siree.

The female agent had treated him with respect, at least. She was polite, apologetic for calling him out of his home in the middle of the night. She’d even called him sir… or at least he thought he’d heard her say that.

He doubted she would be there long, but if she were…

As he worked, Nutt thought about how the woman’s hair might have felt if he were able to touch it, wondered how soft her skin may have been if he were permitted into her trailer.

His daydreams and the clanking of his tools blocked out the sound of footsteps until they were close enough to scare him, if he were someone who was easily startled, which he was not.

“Does Agent Scully know that you're under her crawlspace?”

Nutt slid out from the undercarriage and looked up at the FBI agent’s cocky face. He wouldn’t mind punching it if he’d only brought his step stool outside with him.

“I was merely repairing the plumbing on this unit. I know what you're thinking, my friend,” he said, hoping to sound condescending, “but you are grossly mistaken.”

They both stood and Nutt didn’t give a shit how far he had to tip his head back to look in this man’s eyes to let him know what an asshole he was. “Just because I am not of so-called ‘average’ height does not mean I must receive my thrills vicariously,” he said before wondering if Agent Scully, as he now knew she was called, could hear them. “Not all women are attracted to overly tall, lanky men such as yourself. You'd be surprised how many women find my size intriguingly alluring.”

“And you'd be surprised how many men do as well,” the other man quipped.

Nutt looked at him in stunned silence before he felt his face change to shock and then disgust. He thought about telling him how sexual stereotypes about non-traditionally statured people furthered the stigma against people who were not dissimilar to those with more height. Or how a mere genetic mutation had been passed down from one of both of their parents, marking the only difference between them and six-foot-tall, basketball-playing, hot-shot know-it-alls.

But as the FBI agent stood in front of him, unmoving and unashamed of his comment, Nutt realized there was no way to change the mind of a sexually depraved, bigoted, suit with a gun. So he left.

Because he was bigger than that.

Chapter Text

Golda had been looking forward to becoming a grandmother for so long. It was the biggest honor to help her daughter transition into the next chapter of her life. Motherhood was so fulfilling, she couldn’t wait for her little Maggie to know the joys of having a child.

For months she prayed as her daughter’s belly grew. She diligently made the fertility and growth teas from the herbs of her ancestors while waiting in eager anticipation for the day she’d hear the sounds of children laughing and playing in the halls.

Instead, her ears rang with the sounds of her daughter’s cries as only half of her babies came home. Her daughter had given birth to a screaming baby boy named Charlie, and thirteen minutes later he was followed by a still, blue boy named Michael.

Even after the burial, Michael never stopped following Charlie.

Golda begged and pleaded with her daughter to do the ritual of separation, but her insipid son-in-law didn’t listen. He never listened.

Maggie, wanting to be a dutiful wife, sided with her husband. They thought they had done what was for the best by sparing the child the knowledge he’d grown alongside the corpse of his brother, that his amniotic fluid was tainted with death.

Charlie suffered for his parents' obstinance; the Devil that took his brother followed in his shadow, lurking in wait to claim the boy’s soul. For years, he kept getting sick, the doctors struggled to find a name to the flush that would paint the boy’s skin as evil tried to make a home in his flesh.

She tried everything she could to keep the devil at bay. She tied little red strings around his wrist to ward off evil, put protection symbols on his skin and the house, tried to imbue holistic remedies in his meals. Her son-in-law, Steve, said she was crazy, but everything she did, she did for that boy.

It was foolish of her to think she could protect him from something that already lived inside of him.

Soon after Teddy came home from the hospital, she’d caught Charlie holding the boy over the window pane. The newborn’s head was unsupported, his neck careening backwards in a way that made her heart catch in her throat as the newborn screamed, confusion and fear overwhelming his senses. Charlie was too short to reach the window, so he was standing on the rocking chair her daughter used to nurse the infant.

When she pulled her eyes from the baby, she caught the stare of the boy, only to see he wasn’t there. Not really.

“Give him to me,” she demanded, taking a few steps towards him with outstretched arms.

“He wants to go back,” Charlie replied. A shiver ran through her as a deep, menacing voice spoke in unison with her grandson.

“Back to where?” 

He smiled, the smile of a cruel devil who had spent centuries taking away innocents to the land of the dead. “The same place you’ll end up, crone.”

Golda stood frozen in terror, watching the same child she’d just sang a nursery rhyme to threaten the life of an infant. “I’ll tell your mother.”

Then, her grandson, no longer looking anything like a boy, coldly stated: “No one will ever believe you. You’re nothing but a stupid old woman.”

In some part of her brain, she registered the sound of the front door opening as rushed footsteps crossed over the threshold. 

“Teddy?!” voices called out in unison.

“Nana! Stop!” the thing cried, sounding like a distressed Charlie.

“Mother? Charlie?” 

“Charlie, don’t you dare!” Golda roared, watching the infant squirm, his limbs desperately seeking comfort the air wouldn’t provide.

The sound of the doorknob rattling pulled her attention away from the boy, looking over her shoulder just in time to see Maggie barge into the room.

“What’s going on?” she asked breathlessly.

“He-“ Golda began, turning to point at the window, only to see it was sealed shut. 

Her daughter brushed past her shell-shocked form to pick up the baby, stopping only for a moment to brush her fingers through Charlie’s hair while the boy looked at Golda with a mischievous smirk.

“Golda, what happened?” Steve barked.

“ El este diavolul ,” she rasped, pointing to the boy.

“Mother!” Maggie snapped, kissing Teddy as she rocked him.

Golda felt a tug on her shawl and glanced down to see Charlie standing next to her, looking up at her with big doe eyes. “Nana, can we color?” he asked sweetly, just as he had been before she walked into this room.

She never heard Charlie sound like that again, but she knew the owner of that voice lived inside the boy. Occasionally she’d catch his eye and feel like her breath was taken away; there would be moments when the air felt thick and she knew something else was with them.

Golda just wanted to protect her family, but it seemed the more she tried, the less her family trusted her. The red strings were cut off the children’s wrists, the protection seals were washed away, and her words were all cut off by the shushes of the very people she wanted to save.

They should’ve listened. Maybe then Teddy and Steve would still be with them, but they just acted like she was crazy. Even the government people looked at her with contempt. But she couldn’t lose her daughter. Golda knew what had to be done.

The Calusari had been apprehensive to perform the ritual. Full grown men struggled to tolerate the pain of the spiritual purging and cleansing, but it had to be done. Golda knew it was a matter of time before the Devil caught up to her. She’d looked into his eyes. 

He knows her now.

Chapter Text

These busts are always the same; a dozen shouting men, doors getting kicked in. Shrieking women and crying children. The sounds are so ubiquitous at this point he hears them at night sometimes when he’s falling asleep. 

Not the most soothing of lullabies.

U.S. Marshal Deke Tapia watches the FBI agent pick up the small toddler and remove him from the invaded house. He holsters his weapon and follows them out into the yard. As the child is carefully loaded into a nearby SUV, his mother is hauled screaming into a cop car. The little boy is confused and crying, and as Tapia hears the woman’s desperate pleas, he isn’t surprised, but it’s heartbreaking nonetheless. Separating kids from their parents isn’t exactly his favorite part of the job.

Mulder speaks to the boy gently, not quite paternally but in a way that exudes familial comfort. Maybe almost like an older sibling. Tapia steps closer to the vehicle, not to intrude, but close enough to overhear. 

“It’s okay,” Mulder says to the little boy quietly. “You’re gonna see your mom again soon, okay? They just have to take her to the hospital and make sure she’s not sick.”

The kid can’t be more than two or three – no older than his own son, Tapia thinks – and probably doesn’t understand what the agent is telling him. But something about the man’s voice soothes the child, who heaves a couple snotty breaths and calms down. It’s kind of magical. Agent Mulder doesn’t slam the door shut until he’s satisfied.

“You got kids?” Tapia asks the agent curiously.

“No,” Mulder replies. “You?”

“A boy, Henry. Well, Hank. Almost three.” He nods his head in the general direction of the car as it whisks away the child. “Don’t mean to pry, you just… you did good.”

Mulder nods appreciatively. “I see quite a few in my field. Not all of them speak. But when they do, usually they just want to be heard.”

Tapia’s first instinct is to take offense, but the man has a point. In his own line of work, the kids are typically nothing more than collateral damage. Getting them away from the crime scene is priority one; actually talking to them isn’t really his job. 

They pile into their car, Mulder sitting shotgun, and Tapia follows the police cruiser transporting the female witness. They’ve so few leads on this thing; questioning her is their only hope at the moment. They sit in silence for a few minutes, Tapia drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel. He wants to talk more to this Mulder character, but he feels a little guilty. Ever since this morning, Tapia hasn’t exactly been the most welcoming bearer of jurisdiction. 

Finally, he has to ask. Twenty years on the job and he’s seen his share of shit, but nothing could have prepared him for whatever was happening with that dead prisoner’s face.

“What the hell is going on here?” he asks. “With this… contagion, or whatever. Mysterious helicopters flying in, folks in hazmat suits. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Mulder looks out the window distractedly. “I’m not sure. But I’ll see what I can find out.” He pulls out his cell phone, hits a speed dial. “Scully,” he says immediately. Ah. His partner. Tapia had been so busy turfing the agents, he didn’t really remember their names. “We've tracked down one of the prisoners, but the other one is still MIA. The one left behind seems to have died from the infection. We’re quarantining the witnesses, I’m on the way to interview one of them.”

He glances at Tapia briefly, then turns his attention back to the phone, listening. After a minute or so, Mulder thanks his partner and hangs up the phone. 

“My partner tells me that whatever is infecting these people, it seems to spread by… well, there’s really no pleasant way to say this.” He holds his hand up to his cheek and opens it, making a pfft sound, like a tiny explosion.

Tapia grimaces. “You mean… ew.”

“Yeah," Mulder replies. "Ew.”

“This kind of thing… normal for you?” Tapia asks. “What’s the Bureau’s interest in this case anyway?”

“Well, at first it was a manhunt. Now, I don’t know. And I guess the I don’t know is why we’re here.”

Tapia blinks. “The hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Have you heard of the X-Files?”

“The what files?”

Mulder smiles, as if accustomed to this particular spiel. “It’s a department at the Bureau focused on unsolved cases, the ones science and logic can’t seem to explain.”

“And you think science and logic can’t explain this?” His boss had mentioned the FBI agents sent in might be oddballs but didn’t really elaborate.

Mulder shakes his head. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

Tapia stares ahead at the road. “Lucky break that none of us were around when that prisoner….” he reaches for a word, but instead opts for the same hand gesture. “ Pfft.”

Mulder appears thoughtful, and then his demeanor changes. “Yeah. real lucky break.” He sounds annoyed now, angry even. “Turn around. Change of plans.”

“What about the witness?” 

“We’ll get her contained. Have your guys interview her for now. I need to go somewhere.”

Tapia doesn’t understand, but there’s a time and place for arguing, and this is not it. Besides, this Mulder seems to know more about what the hell is going on here than he does, anyway. He pulls a U-turn while Mulder dials again.

“Where we headed?” Tapia asks.

Mulder heaves a sigh. “D.C.,” he answers. “I need to have a little chat with my boss.”

Chapter Text

Agent Mulder was nothing like she’d imagined. For starters, he was much taller than she’d expected him to be, but beyond that, he brought a presence to the room, a sort of air of comfort and disregard for what other people thought of him. Kelly watched as he circled the crime scene, surprised at the level of interest he seemed to have for the smallest details around the room. He looked at the curtains, the pictures hanging on the walls, and bent at the waist to hover his nose far closer to the untouched glass of scotch that she would have felt comfortable with.

This was Kelly’s first case as a detective, and seeing Agents Mulder and Scully assess the scene made her realize how much she still had to learn. She tried to file everything away– the questions they asked, the things that seemed important to them, the way that they seemed to be able to converse without words.

Watching them made her feel like a novice, but at the same time, made her excited for her future as a detective.

She knew that this case was a throwaway that no one else in the department wanted, but Agent Mulder seemed to think it was something more than just a missing person. From what she understood of his role at the FBI, his theories were… a little unique, but if he could help shed light on this case, Kelly might be able to make a name for herself here.

Even though this was the first time she’d met Agent Mulder, she knew a decent amount about him. She’d kept in touch with Agent Scully after her class had ended. Women in law enforcement weren’t necessarily hard to come by, but they were still in the minority. Kelly respected the other woman and how far she had gone in her career in a relatively short time. She wanted to follow in her footsteps. She saw her as a mentor of sorts and because of that, she made sure to call from time to time so she wouldn’t lose that connection.

The first time Agent Scully had mentioned her partner, it was in passing. Kelly had called to check in when she heard rumors about a gruesome case in Minnesota. She’d been worried about her former instructor and even more so when she realized that medical intervention wasn’t actually that uncommon for Agent Scully.

“I hope you have someone watching your back,” she’d said, feeling nervous for her friend, and for herself in this career path she’d chosen.

“I do,” Agent Scully answered, her voice soft. “My partner, Agent Mulder. Our cases are just… complex. But he keeps me as safe as he can.”

She paused for a moment before adding, “And I, him.”

After that, he’d come up in their conversations. A mention here, an anecdote there. They didn’t spend a lot of time talking about him, but Kelly could tell from the way Agent Scully spoke, the smile and fondness in her voice, that she had a great deal of respect for her partner. She stood by his side and supported his work.

Kelly suspected that they had built a strong friendship within their partnership as well. She hoped that one day she would get to experience something similar.

Seeing them together solidified her theories almost immediately. Agent Scully watched her partner as he walked around the room, as if there were an invisible thread connecting them. When he suggested the burn mark on the carpet looked like an arm–an unusual observation by any outside perspective–Agent Scully didn’t balk. She simply considered what he said and filed it away as another detail on this case.

Kelly was fascinated by their dynamic and even more interested in what his theory may have been on this case. They’d moved to the hallway and she sensed their time together at the scene was coming to a close. He asked her about the case, but as he talked, all she could think was how desperately she wanted his theory on what had happened here. What had he put together from a class of scotch, a burn mark, and a poorly-functioning lightbulb?

“Can I ask what you think may have happened?” she asked him as Agent Scully stood closely behind him.

“At first blush?” Agent Mulder asked. “Spontaneous human combustion.”

For a brief moment, Kelly thought he was kidding, but then she saw Agent Scully’s face and knew he meant every word. A smile started to play across her lips, not that Agent Mulder saw it. He’d said his piece and had turned to walk down the hall. Kelly kept her reaction in check, unsure how what he said was supposed to be received.

“You’re doing just fine,” Agent Scully reassured before turning to catch up with her partner, leaving Kelly in her wake trying to process the past few minutes.

She watched them enter the elevator before walking back into the hotel room. She let the smile she’d been holding back crawl across her face, feeling the joy of a puzzle laid out in front of her, ready to be solved.

She wasn’t sure if Agent Mulder was on to something, but she knew she would solve this case. And she already couldn’t wait for the next one.

Chapter Text

Heat warms Jess Harold’s cheeks as he leads the two FBI Agents through the winding assembly lines. The hum of machinery and the sharp scent of raw chicken suddenly seems more intense with outsiders walking amongst his workers. He’s been here before, of course: on the spot and questioned by authority, his proficiency and professionalism on the line — his neck, even — and has always come out of the hot pot as smooth as boiled bones. 

Jess Harold’s loyalties lie in Dudley. 

Or else.

“So George Kearns really did threaten to shut the plant down,” Agent Scully prods him for more.

“Oh, he tried.” He hands her the FDA approval sheets. “The only problem this plant ever had was George.”

“Problem enough to do something about?”

He feels Sheriff Aren’s eyes glued to him, following his every move. He shrugs it off to spout his usual spiel: nonchalance, nothing out of the ordinary here, folks. 

Jess excuses himself when the shift horn blows, but Agent Scully seems contemplative, her blue eyes glancing up at her partner’s overly curious ones. He is a problem, Jess knows. In fact, they both are. 

But Jess can handle them like he handles everyone else, exactly like he plans on handling Mr. Chaco if—

Suddenly Paula lunges from her station with a crazed look in her eye, grabbing Jess and whirling him around, pressing something cold, and razor-like against his throat. 

“What the hell—”

“Shut up,” she hisses frantically from behind him, squeezing his back tightly to her chest, the boning knife digging deeper into his neck.

“Let him go! We’re Federal Agents,” Agent Mulder announces, and Jess holds his breath.

“Everyone stay calm. Don't hurt him,” Agent Scully says. “Just tell us what you want. We don’t want anyone to get hurt… Why don’t you give me the knife?”

The moment Paula’s hand shakes and the sharp sting of the knife sends blood rolling down Jess’s throat, a loud bang stuns them both, and Paula slowly sinks lifelessly into the vat of bone and tissue. 

***

“Fuck,” Jess whispers to Dr. Randolph as he dabs the fresh wound on his neck. “Fucking Paula. What the hell was wrong with her? Mr. Chaco will have our heads if this incident isn’t spun the way it should be.” 

“I know,” Randolph ominously agrees. “This isn’t good.”

Jess leans back further to eavesdrop on the agents speaking behind him.

“Sheriff Aren’s making his statement and the deputies are fishing Paula Gray from the… pool of chicken parts,” Agent Mulder explains, audibly grimacing as Paula’s body soaked in ground-up chicken litter is slowly pulled from the feathery water. “Some tour, huh?”

“Well, now we know what our next step should be.”

“No rush on lunch, Scully. I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.” 

She ignores his sarcasm. “I’ll speak with the county M.E.”

Then Jess hears them discussing doing an autopsy to find out more.

Shit. Fuck. 

This changes everything.  

***

Doris Kearns had to go. 

Jess brings the wooden bowl up to his lips again, tipping the last few drops of warm stew onto his tongue and moans, savoring the tang of fresh flesh. Doris couldn’t wait to get rid of her cheating husband, and the town needed a new sacrifice, so no skin off his nose. But if George could’ve just kept his pain in the ass citations out of Chaco’s chicken and his prick in his pants, the FBI wouldn’t be here poking holes in their rituals. Mr. Chaco was furious after his granddaughter was killed by the sheriff, but Jess couldn’t be happier about the sudden loss of life. With Paula gone, that’s one less person on Chaco’s side to worry about. 

Jess smirks. Chaco has no idea just how close he is to being the entrée in the same stew he’s so eagerly served the residents of Dudley for decades. 

“What have you done here?” Chaco’s voice cuts through the crowd. “I warned you. I said not to touch her. Doris Kearns was one of us!”

The foxfire pyre flares as the masses gather for the main event. 

“Who’s behind this?” he continues hollering as Jess steps in front of Chaco and a bound Agent Scully at his side. “It’s the outsiders we have to deal with, not our own.”

“We'll deal with them all.”

“Look at what you've become. This isn't faith anymore, it's just fear! They've turned us into an abomination!”

“You brought in the outsider who made us sick!” Jess spits.

“Once you turn on yourselves it's over! How long before it's any one of us? Any one of you?” 

Now it’s Chaco who’s fearful. This isn’t his town anymore.

Jess grins. “That's not your problem anymore, Mr. Chaco.”

Heart racing, Jess gives the signal for the others to grab Chaco and force his head into the metal pillory, exposing his neck. The crowd is eager as the masked executioner swings the massive ax down with a thunk, sending Chaco’s head rolling.

Walter Chaco had to go.

Adrenaline pumping, Jess nods at the trembling FBI agent. “Bring her over.”

She tries resisting but restraints and terror control her small frame as his people, his town, shoves her pretty red head onto death’s surface. 

The next few moments whip by in a whirlwind of chaos. 

The ax rises, gunshots reverberate, and Aren falls dead to the ground. Screams sound as the good people of Dudley run. 

“Shit!” Jess aims Chaco’s gun at Agent Mulder as the man wildly shoves his way to his partner…

And Jess hits the ground, dozens of shoes trampling his body, crushing his chest with a sickening crunch. Jess coughs as he watches the agent pull the tape from Agent Scully’s face, fingers tenderly tucking strands of messy hair behind her ear. 

Fuck, his chest hurts. Oh god, it’s hard to breathe. He can’t breathe! 

Jess’s eyes roll and vision blurs, but the last thing he sees is the relieved look on Agent Mulder’s face turn into the tell-tale expression of lo—

Chapter Text

The world is littered with so many secrets and lies they become heavy, their weight pressing down upon the earth’s surface until it cracks. When the earth shakes beneath our feet, the truth wants to make itself known. 

This is what happened one early morning, while I slept in my bed. These quakes are frequent reminders that I too have carried such a burden; there are many secrets I must keep to protect my family. To protect my people. 

I have always known that one day these secrets would seek the light of day. So when my grandson Eric discovered the creature buried within the earth (but not born of this earth), I was prepared. 

“It should be returned,” I told him. “They will be coming.”

They are the men who are responsible for this creature, and the others. There was a part of me that feared what was to come, but another part that smiled at the thought of these men, shaking just like the snakes after the quake: angry and afraid of exposure.

Éí 'Aaníígóó 'Áhoot'é.

I have never told my family the things I know: what is past, and what is yet to pass. I kept my secret for years, unsure of the proper time to reveal it. But when this creature arrived directly at my doorstep, I knew that time had come.

***

When the FBI woman arrived in New Mexico, she was afraid. Her partner was unconscious and needed the help of the young men to carry him inside the motel room. Afterwards, with her permission, I prayed over him; his body was healing, but his heart was weak.

“He has experienced a loss recently,” I told her.

She looked at me in surprise. “Yes, actually… his father. He was murdered.”

“I see.”

I could tell she wanted to ask me how I knew this, but she kept silent, as if afraid to hear the answer. 

I watched her tend to him with care as he drifted in and out of consciousness. From the way she comforted him, the way she talked to him, the respect and love she had for him was very clear. There is a saying in Navajo tradition: that true love is like the wind; you cannot see it, but you can feel it. 

There was true love between the FBI man and woman. I could feel it.

While he slept, I worked to uncover the secrets inside the documents that, so many years ago, I helped to encrypt. With every word, with every phrase, I felt freedom from my burden, but also fear for the future. 

Vaccine. Merchandise. I had almost forgotten these words; modern words that did not feel like they belonged with the rest of the text. Much like the great silver box that emerged from the desert, they were contradictory to nature. 

Memories came flooding back of these atrocities, of the terrible things these men had done. But there was a moment when my fear was only for the FBI woman and her partner.

I turned to summon her over my shoulder. “There’s something here you must see.” 

She begrudgingly left her partner’s side to see what I meant, and when I pointed to the name Dana Scully in the files, I saw the same fear appear on her face.

“That’s me,” she breathed. This seemed to shock her, but the very nature of fate deemed it absolutely necessary in my eyes. “Why is my name on this file?”

“I’m afraid I do not know.”

Her hands trembled as she again read the words I had translated, and it brought me great pain to know my efforts had caused it.  

“What about Mulder?” she then asked. “Is he in here, too?”

Her eyes were wet and terrified as she looked into mine, and in them I could see there were great depths to her feelings for her partner: layers upon layers of secrets she too had not yet unburdened. 

In a way, we were the same.

I shook my head and she closed her eyes, steadying her breath. The FBI woman was not prepared to unearth these secrets. There was much work to be done first, a higher calling for them both. 

She turned to glance at his sleeping form, and there was great worry etched upon her face.

“Your partner is not ready to leave this world,” I said. “He has much to do.”

“How can you be so sure?” Her eyes flickered with skepticism, with suspicion. I expected this.

“I had a vision,” I explained. “It came to me in a dream. An omen of a white buffalo. This is a very powerful symbol to our people. It means great change is coming.”

“I, um…” she shook her head. “I’m sorry, I’m not a big believer in visions.”

“Yes,” I smiled. “I know this, too.” 

She let out a little breath, perhaps relieved she had not offended me. The FBI woman spoke the language of science, but with time and trust, I knew that one day this too would change.

“Thank you,” she said. “For helping us.”

She went to sit next to her partner, gently placing a cold cloth across his forehead. When he awoke, I knew he would have great difficulty convincing her to believe. But I also knew great change was coming, for them both. 

I got up from my seat and made my way over to her, and she looked up into my eyes.

“I know it is hard to believe, to sacrifice yourself to the truth,” I said. “But one day you will understand.”

“What will I understand?”

She was lost and afraid. I just wanted to help her. I placed my hand on her shoulder, gently, offering her one final thought I hoped she would remember.

“That there are more worlds than the one you can hold in your hand.”

Chapter Text

He’d watched the funeral from a distance, paying his respects to a man whom he had once considered a friend. The years had been unkind, with a rift forming between them, spread to a width that was no longer crossable. So he kept out of sight, away from the mourners who knew nothing of who Bill Mulder had once been.

Teena, he’d known well. At one point in time, anyway. As he watched her speaking with Agent Mulder’s partner, he remembered the warmth she’d had all those years before. He and his colleagues had been young, idealistic, and motivated by their cause. They’d had wives and small children, lives that were full of love, partnership, joy even.

How far they had all fallen.

He pushed his reverie aside as Agent Scully stepped away from Teena and walked toward him. While her pale skin and bright hair caught what little light filtered through the clouds, he found her to be small and unassuming, drowning in an overcoat that was much too large for her frame. When she noticed him, her gaze became sharp and fixed, and he knew there was more to her than meets the eye.

“Hello,” he said cautiously, in an attempt to earn her trust. “I see you’re a friend of the family. So am I. Do you think we might find a moment to speak?”

“About?”

Her expression stayed the same: curious without giving anything away. Had he been new to this game, he may have been concerned that she wouldn’t hear what he had to say. But years of persuading those at the highest levels of power had assured him that she would listen.

“A very serious matter,” he told her truthfully. “Please, can we find someplace away from the others?”

He took a few steps and she followed. As they walked, she kept her distance, listening intently while maintaining an air of distrust.

She asked him who he was, what he wanted, and that was the question, wasn’t it? Looking at this FBI agent, who was no older than his own youngest child, reminded him how much of the world their generation didn’t understand. They’d been untouched by the war, lived with technology he’d only dreamed of when he was a boy. In their eyes, the concept of alien races, colonization, and annihilation were nothing more than a Hollywood scheme to sell movie tickets.

This woman, her partner. His children and his grandchildren. They were all living on the precipice of the end of the human race, but they were only concerned with jobs, school assignments, and playdates.

Life, as it should be.

That’s why he was there. The balance had shifted and it was time he made an attempt to right the scales. For the sake of all the people on this planet, yes, but it was his grandchildren’s futures that kept him up at night.

“What are you here for?” she asked. He could tell by her demeanor that she was ready for their conversation to come to a close.

“To tell you your life is in danger too.”

Agent Scully watched him for a moment, eyebrows pinched together, before turning to walk away. “Leave me alone.”

She needed to believe it. He needed her to believe it.

“They'll kill you one of two ways,” he said, making her turn to face him. He closed the gap between them. “They'll send someone, possibly two men. They'll kill you in your home or in the garage with an unregistered weapon which will be left at the scene. Using false documents supplied by associates of mine, they'll be out of the country in less than two hours.”

He’d made her nervous. The strong exterior she’d held was gone, replaced by heavy breaths that caused her shoulders to rise and fall. Her face told him that he’d succeeded.

She believed every word of what he was telling her.

“You said there were two ways.”

“Yes,” he said, luring her in further. “He or she will be someone close to you. Someone you trust. They'll arrange a meeting or come to your house unexpectedly. Do you have someplace else you might stay?

“Why, why kill me?”

“You want something they don't. Justice. And because they are now quite certain you don't have the computer copy of the files they're looking for.

“Why are you protecting me?” she asked, her words strong as fire started to burn within her.

“I feel my colleagues are acting... impulsively,” he said. “and your death will draw unnecessary attention to our group.”

Her gaze dropped as she considered what he’d said. “You're not protecting me, you're protecting yourself.”

She was as smart as he hoped she’d be. He knew that her belief in the validity of Mulder’s work was precarious, but he could see now how she was the perfect counterpart for their work.They’d taken steps in the past to remove her from the game, but he was starting to realize that, like himself, his organization had grossly underestimated this woman.

“Why should that surprise you?” he asked her, comfortably. “Motives are rarely unselfish.”

“What kind of business are you in?”

“We predict the future,” he said, feeling his lips turn into something close to a smile. “And the best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

Agent Scully continued to stare at him, unsure if what he said was true. He’d done what he’d intended, and it had gone better than he’d expected.

“Good day, young lady,” he said in parting as he turned to walk back to his car. The cemetery was quiet now that the funeral had ended. The air was crisp from a previous rain. He took a deep breath and held it in his lungs as he hoped things would go as planned.

He opened the car door and slipped inside, taking out his phone, and pressing speed dial. The line connected after two rings.

“Daddy, it’s so good to hear from you.”

Chapter Text

When anyone asks him his name nowadays, Victor Klemper heeds caution in his response. A lifetime of killing and conspiring have left him a well-guarded man.

“Your name is Mulder?”

A tall, lanky man with brown hair and familiar green eyes walks closer, brushing against the shoulder of a pretty red-headed woman standing resolute beside him. “I think you knew my father.”

Victor freezes. “What's this about?”

“When you came to this country, you did some work for our government,” this young Mulder says with confidence. 

“I'm an old man now. History bores me.”

The Scully woman juts out her chin. “Because it escaped you or because you escaped it?” 

Victor nearly laughs. This post-war safe haven he’s been forced into will never be an escape when the covert government pulls the strings. There is no escaping Project Paperclip.

“Freud, Salk, Crick, Watson... These will be the names they celebrate at the end of the millennium. Great scientists. And Klemper? He will be remembered only as a butcher,” he comments caustically. 

“History may be the only justice you'll ever know,” she retorts.

Victor arches a brow. She is right. This skeptical, fierce little thing may actually survive the dangerous secrets and lies that surely follow Bill Mulder’s son like the Grim Reaper. 

“Progress demands sacrifice,” he shoots back, repeating an old mantra, an indoctrination. “And I... I have confronted my demons. And soon I will die too.”

The offspring of a rebel syndicate member unearthing truths Victor has spent decades trying to bury beneath buttercups and begonias has marked him for certain death.

“Like my father,” Mulder states. “They killed him, and I believe you know why.” 

“I believe they would kill anyone if it is in the best interest of the work.” 

Offering up family members as merchandise to uphold the syndicate’s stronghold is but one example of the lengths they take to further the project. He should know; he’s done the same. Victor turns away, plucking a dead leaf from a potted plant, though he knows the raw scent of soil warring with the sweetness of his flowers will not distract these two from leaving with more information than which they came.

“Well, what is this work that my father was involved in?”

He could tell this Mulder everything. Tell him how his father was right about so many things. About how his colleagues turned on him as soon as they’d collected enough scientific research for themselves, cutting him out like cancer. Victor could finally unburden the horrors left unspoken. But he cannot, not now. There is too much already in motion, too much to risk with only one Mulder left who can do anything about it. 

“I have no answer for you.”

“Well, you knew him!” Mulder shoves a photograph into Victor’s hand. “Was he a murderer too?”

Victor stares at the black and white image of ambitious young men submerged within beckoning waves of conspiratorial abyss. 

“There are some things you don't have to know.” Yet so many that deserve to, Victor admits, trying to convey this through his hardened stare.

“No, I need to know! I need to know the truth!” Mulder pleads. “Isn't that what you want? For the truth to be known?”

Many years ago he would have denied such truths. He has killed countless innocents to do so. But now, exposing a singular sliver of truth behind his life’s work is not something he will deny this young Mulder. Though to expose the project is to bare his neck to the wolves.

Victor smirks. How furious his former colleagues will be.

“Do you know the formula of Napier's constant…?”

As the tenacious Dana Scully tosses him a lingering look of disdain before following her desperate friend through the greenhouse doors, Victor realizes the time has come to make one final phone call to an old friend. 

***

The sunset through the sheer white walls turns his greenhouse a brilliant orange. The most stunning one he’s seen in a long time. When a door creaks open and a gun cocks loudly within the calm behind him, he knows it will be his last.

Victor sighs, lifting an orchid to his nose and inhales. 

“Victor…”

“Charles,” he says in mock shock, turning to face the most venal man he’s ever known. “What a surprise.”

“Your flowers are beautiful,” Charles comments as he steps closer, his finely crafted British-made handgun held loosely at his side. “Especially the hybrids.”

“Yes, Fox Mulder seemed to think so as well,” Victor counters, brazen and bold in his last moments.

Charles stiffens. “He will return, you know. He and his partner.”

“They will.” He nods, resigned. “But I will have nothing more to say.”

Charles raises the gun. “No, you won’t.”

Progress demands sacrifice. 

Victor turns his head and bares his neck to the wolf.

Chapter Text

Sometimes durin’ the lightning storms, Darin liked to listen to his Walkman while sittin’ under the big oak tree out back. No one ever told him that was dangerous, but after he was struck, everyone sure liked to tell him it was his own fault. 

Darin didn’t understand how he was expected to know stuff like that if no one ever bothered to tell him. It felt like people enjoyed callin’ him stupid so much that they never wanted to teach him nothin’ and spoil their fun.

He might’ve been a slow learner, but that didn’t mean he didn’t pick up on things.

Darin could look at a car and know the name and model. If he spent enough time on a video game, he could usually get a high score. He could tell when electricity kept actin’ up wherever he went that it might’ve had something to do with him.

The first few times it happened, he just thought the wiring in the house was goin’ to shit. But after several ‘power surges’ and ‘freak accidents’ happened in the span of a month, he saw a pattern. Something would set him off, then the electricity would act up.

He spent weeks practicing. Darin was pickin’ on his Ma there for a while, gettin’ her riled up so that she’d say somethin’ mean and make him mad. That never took long, but after a while, Darin realized it was better when he didn’t really get upset. When he did that, he couldn’t control the electricity very well. Instead, if he just let his emotions build up inside, and if he concentrated real hard, he could make stuff happen. He could make flashlights with no batteries turn on, he could start a car from twenty feet away, he could change the TV station like he was a human remote — he could do anything he wanted.

His power was too awesome to keep to himself, but Darin knew he needed to practice before showin’ it to Zero. If he performed a bunch of magic tricks or hocus pocus mind games like the Stupendous Yappi, Zero would think he was lame. 

It had to be somethin’ cool.

After a while of tinkerin’ with his powers, Darin stayed after closing time at the video arcade and said he had a surprise. Zero was disappointed when the surprise wasn’t beer or bud, but after seein’ his name spelled out across all the machines, watchin’ a bolt of lightnin’ strike right outside the windows, and hearin’ any song he named come outta the jukebox — he was impressed.

“So… this was from you getting zapped in the field?” Zero asked, in between swigs of his soda.

“Yup,” Darin nodded. 

“That’s sick.”

“I’m like that fast guy from the Justice League,” Darin chuckled.

“Barry Allen became The Flash because he huffed too many fumes, dumbass,” Zero replied, always feelin’ the need to correct him.

“Still was lightning wasn’t it?” he spat back.

“Sure, dude.”

It was times like these he couldn’t tell when someone was just agreein’ with him ‘cause they didn’t wanna hear him talk no more or if they actually thought he was right. It made him feel stupid he couldn’t tell the difference, but he didn’t wanna feel even more stupid by asking and lettin’ someone else know he couldn’t tell.

“Whatever, man. My powers are way cooler than the Flash’s anyway. If I needed to go fast, I’d get a McLaren F1,” he shrugged.

“Well technically, the Flash has more than just super speed. He has super strength, time travel-”

Darin’s frustration built as Zero kept rambling. He hated feelin’ like an idiot. If he had the comic collection Zero did, he would’ve known all that too. His Ma refused to get him any when she realized he was mostly just lookin’ at the pictures. They wouldn’t have pictures in them if they didn’t want ya to look at ‘em.

Darin felt a surge of indignation burn through his body, and at the same time, the power in the arcade shut off. The suddenness of it all caused Zero to stop talking. When he realized what he’d done, he felt embarrassed for lashin’ out like that and quickly turned the machines back on.

“Hey, I’m real sor-” 

Darin faltered when he looked over at Zero. He was starin’ at Darin with a funny look on his face. It was the same face Zero made when their homeroom teacher caught them lookin’ at the March ‘93 Playboy. It was the same look he got whenever his Mama knocked on the door while they were smokin’ reefers. 

His friend was scared of him, and it made Darin feel powerful.

“Bet the Flash can’t do that, can he?” Darin laughed, every hair on his body standing straight.

It took Zero a moment to respond while he waited for his balls to drop, but when they did, he shook his head firmly, “N-no, dude. No way.”

Darin was grateful that his powers made him run hot, ‘cause Zero’s hands were trembling as they checked on the machines throughout the arcade. “S-so, are you going to show anyone else what you can do? I bet you could get a special on Jerry Springer.”

That brought a smile to his face. His Ma would probably keel over if she saw him standin’ next to Jerry. “I think I need to tell Mrs. Kiveat. I keep callin’ her every time I pick up the phone. I think I’m scarin’ her.”

“Have you tried maybe not doing that?”

“No shit!” he snapped, causing Frogger to hurl himself into the road. “It’s like the phone knows when I’m was thinkin’ about her.” Probably because he was always thinking about her. Maybe he couldn’t stop it because his love for her was the one thing he couldn’t really control.

With his new powers, he could have anything, but all Darin wanted was Mrs. Kiveat.

Chapter Text

When you see death everywhere you go, you learn to focus on the small things. How the sun pokes through the clouds after a storm. The feel of a rough velvet curtain in your great aunt’s living room. The smell of the bouquet of flowers held in the hands of the little old woman at the grocery store who will die next week from cardiac arrest.

It probably should have been scary to see my mother’s death on a random day in early September, but I’d started to get used to that sort of thing by that point. Learning that she would go peacefully in her sleep at the ripe old age of 84 was actually a comfort. She wasn’t going to get in a car accident or maimed by an angry dog. She could eat as much of that Entenmann’s crumb cake as she liked and her arteries would be just fine.

And so it went. I saw the deaths of the bank teller downtown, the dog walker who never picked up shit his charges left on everyone’s lawn, and my kindergarten teacher who sat across from me at the diner ordering the early bird special with a slice of black forest cake for dessert. I guess it was some sort of super power, but after nearly a half century of being “special,” it all just felt… normal.

I can’t remember exactly when I saw my own death, but it wasn’t too long after I started being aware of people’s endings. A funny thing happens when you see your own death. At first you try to make sense of it– what could it mean, why the tears, why her? Then you try to change it– maybe I’ll take the subway today. What if I eat at McDonald’s every day for a month?

Turns out nothing makes any difference. Maybe it did for some people, for some deaths, but for me? It was always the same. A bed, tears, and the young red-headed woman with freckles across her pale, porcelain skin.

Agent Scully, it turns out. Agent Dana Scully. I didn’t recognize her at first, because it’s not like one is used to seeing someone from the future at the time of their inevitable demise knocking on your apartment door. But there was a moment when her eyes locked on mine, blue like ice, that it clicked and I didn’t need to wonder anymore.

I’d been seeing the changes in myself– less hair, larger belly. Age spots. I could tell I was getting closer to that moment in the bed, but it was seeing Dana, standing there asking questions while glancing back over her shoulder at the bean pole of a man she called her partner, that made me realize how near it actually was.

And there was relief, knowing that the time had almost come. I’ve been on this Earth for long enough. Music has gone to shit, milk costs $2.60 a gallon, and Jerry Garcia is dead. What’s the point anymore?

So I tried to play it cool, as the kids say. I pretended like I didn’t know her. I helped with their investigation. Well, to some extent. I didn’t want to ruffle feathers, veer off course, cause a rift in the space time continuum that would shift the future of all mankind.

But now as I’m laying here in this hotel room, on a bed that has more lumps and ridges than an Olympic moguls course, I realize that I have to take the risk.

She really is cute, this Dana Scully. If I weren’t an old man, not exactly on his deathbed, but close enough, I might have made a move. Something about the way she tucked her legs up under herself and asked me about my death just warmed my heart.

I realize now that she deserves to know, because it is just as much her moment as it is mine. (Though really it will be my death, so it’s more mine than hers. All things considered.)

“We end up in bed together,” I tell her, and the shock on her face tells me I should have thought before saying it. I’ve always seemed to have a problem with that. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that, I… I don't mean to offend you or scare you, but, uh, not here, not this bed.”

I pause for a moment because this is important, maybe more important than anything I’ve ever told anyone in my life. I want her to understand.

“I, I just mean I, I see us quite clearly in bed together. You're holding my hand, very tenderly…” I can see it in my mind’s eye– her fingers, her eyes– but I pull myself back from the her in my vision to the her in this room. “And then you're looking at me with such compassion and I feel... tears are streaming down my face. I feel so grateful.”

And I do. “It's just a very special moment neither of us will ever forget.”

She’s looking down at her lap, but there’s a small smile on her lips. “Mr. Bruckman, there are hits and there are misses. And then there are misses.”

Her smile grows and I can’t help but return it. She may be humoring me, but I know how our story will end, and it’s a beautiful ending. For now, I’m just honored to be in her presence, to get to know the woman who has followed me in my mind for at least the past twenty years. Maybe more.

“I just call 'em as I see 'em,” I tell her, and she keeps smiling as she buries her eyes back in her lap, almost flirting, or as close to flirting as an old man could hope for.

I can’t remember the last time I was so happy.

Chapter Text

Dr. Juan Ullrich’s tired sigh echoes within the cold, metal-filled room. He sets aside the clipboard containing another stack of autopsy forms assigned to the correction officers dropping like flies, and slowly rolls out the tension forming around his C3-C6 vertebrae. The satisfying pops down his spine make him moan. 

“Is this a good time?” A feminine voice from the doorway startles him. Heels click across the tiled floor as a woman enters. 

“Yes, yes.” Juan sidesteps around the embalming table to meet the pretty, petite redhead halfway. “Special Agent…?”

“Dana Scully,” she adds, smiling as they shake hands. “I’m the Bureau Pathologist here to view the remains.”

“Of course.” He’d been informed the FBI is now involved in the mysterious prison murders case. But for Juan, death is never a mystery. It’s “how” life ends that provides intrigue. “I’m glad you’re here. Now, I’ve seen my fair share of creativity when it comes to C.O.D., but this one…” 

Juan grabs a pair of latex gloves and slides them on as he walks over to the mortuary drawer that holds what’s left of the latest victim. “It’s pretty brutal.”

“I’m sure, considering the six foot two officer’s remains were found inside a paint can,” Agent Scully says with a wince. “A small one.”

“ Part of him was.” He nods, her blue eyes fixed intently on his hands as he removes Officer Fornier’s head wrapped in plastic from cold storage and places it gently on the metal examination table. “I guess they haven't recovered the body yet so it's going to be difficult to establish an exact cause of death.”

She nods. “What did your preliminary exam turn up?”

“Well, it looks like the head was severed just below the jawline with repeated stabbing blows from a putty knife,” Juan says, reluctantly impressed at the originality. The cranium certainly looks like Swiss cheese, but not from the stab wounds that caused decapitation. “There were no other indications of trauma to the head.”

Agent Scully catches on immediately. “From the eyewitness reports, there were already fly larvae infesting the flesh. That seems unusual considering the short time-of-death window.”

“Not altogether. Here, let me show you this.” He walks over and holds up a green-tinted jar full of dead fly larvae he’d just spent hours plucking from every orifice of Rick Fornier’s head.

Juan excitedly explains in detail the larvae’s life cycle as it pertains to feasting on decaying flesh. And to his utter delight, this intelligent, gorgeous woman looks impressed. 

“In the anaerobic environment inside the paint can?” 

“On my autopsy on the first victim, the lungs were absolutely alive with infestation,” he adds eagerly. 

“Hmm.” She brings the specimen jar closer to her face. Her faint rust-colored freckles pop under the fluorescent light.

Juan sucks in a breath.

Maybe he should ask her out to dinner at that new restaurant tonight. Maybe, if he’s lucky, she likes to talk science over seafood and Salcheto, too. 

“Not to sound unprofessional, but-”

The door flings open, ushering in a tall man with green eyes, almost as bright as his own, that instantly latch onto Agent Scully. 

“Hey, Scully,” the man says. “Done slicing and dicing?”

“For now. This is Agent Mulder, my partner,” she swiftly introduces before excusing herself, leading the two of them into a corner of the morgue.

“You sure you’re okay?” Juan hears Agent Mulder softly ask, tenderly touching her arm when her chin dips. “You left death row in a hurry. I know how… uncomfortable-”

“I’m fine, Mulder.” Their voices are hushed, but a morgue’s acoustics are unmatched. “What’s next?” she prods. 

Juan looks down at the severed head staring up at him. It’s a damn good question. 

“We need to interview the blockmate named Roque.” Agent Mulder tilts his head, still trying to snag his partner’s eyes with his. “Or… I can do it…” 

Juan tries not to eavesdrop. Tries hard not to analyze and dissect others like his career so aptly demands, but the underlying meaning in Agent Mulder’s words are hard not to hear: Men walking the row are less likely to be objectified or assaulted than women. He’s certainly not wrong. And with the way he reaches out to supportively squeeze her hand, implies this isn’t the first time she’s been treated as prey amongst predators.

“Okay. I have more work to do here anyway,” she airily dismisses, though Juan senses by the relief in her breathy tone that she’s grateful for the offer. “Maybe physical evidence will arise that eliminates Neech.”

“Good, we’ll always benefit from your expertise.”

Her pale cheeks pinken. 

Neech.

They’re referring to convicted murderer Neech Manley. Juan represses a shiver. He’d examined Manley’s body post-execution, and for the first time since med school, chills had run down Juan’s spine. Something about that man’s lifeless, wild-eyed expression was truly frightening.

“You’re curious about this list Neech left behind?” she asks.

“Safe to say it’s not the Nice one,” Agent Mulder quips. “And he definitely checked it twice.”

Juan fidgets with an evidence bag, trying not to blatantly stare at the agents holding an entire conversation with their eyes while systematically categorizing every sway of their bodies, every touch of her hands. 

“Someone is facilitating Neech’s grievances as debt on the inside, Mulder. I just don’t believe it’s Neech.” 

“It’s plausible,” he agrees.

“It’s probable.”

The sterile room is silent as the duo unblinkingly stare at one another. Agent Scully finally glances back at the remnants of the mutilated victim and frowns. 

Juan watches her turn to search her partner’s eyes for something only she can see. “Transmigration of the soul. Really?”

He shrugs. “Human knowledge isn’t linear, Scully.”

“But scientific evidence is, Mulder,” she replies evenly. There is no malice. She’s pleased, almost, and Juan is struck by the amused way her eyes crinkle at the corners. 

She enjoys an intellectual repartee. 

He just wishes it was with him.

Maybe seafood and Salcheto isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Chapter Text

Her sister told her that happy people didn’t seek out companionship over the internet. Lauren was pretty sure the insinuation was that she shouldn’t be doing it, but that was based on the misguided assumption she was a happy person. 

She wanted to be happy, but what she wanted never seemed to matter.

Lauren wanted to be loved. She wanted to be pretty. She wanted to be skinny.

No— she wanted to be those things without having to be skinny.

Her weight had fluctuated her whole life, and she’d done everything she could to manage it. The Ornish Diet, Atkins, South Beach, Sugar Busters, FenPhen, shoving her fingers down her throat, substituting food for nicotine, for air… she’d tried everything.

When she thought of significant moments in her life, the first thing she thought of was her weight. She couldn’t recall what songs played at homecoming, but she could remember she felt like she was going to faint. She wasn’t sure if she told Grandma she loved her during the final visit; she could only remember her embarrassment when Grandma’s hands touched her back fat while they hugged.

At her lowest, she was miserable because of all the restrictions she was putting herself through. At her highest, she was miserable because she’d let herself down.

Sometimes she thought it would be easier to just accept her bigger body. She saw the feminists in her undergrad classes brandish their armpit hair and makeup-less faces like badges of honor, and she wanted to be that confident too. She wanted to hold all the parts of herself that took up extra room, the parts adorned with stretchmarks and dimples, and say “take it or leave it!”

Only, she couldn’t bear the hurt that came when everyone chose to ‘leave it’.

She didn’t want that to be the truth. Every body is created differently, and hers didn’t deserve to be loved any less because she carried her mom’s cooking with her or because the wine she enjoyed with her friends stayed on her thighs. Jennifer said there was more of her to love, but it seemed most men saw the extra weight as a burden they’d have to carry. 

Lauren joined the Big and Beautiful chat room because the men who instigated a conversation with her there already knew she was bigger. She couldn’t handle the idea of putting herself out there only to be met with stares of disgust when they saw her body. Well, if they saw her at all, that is. The last few dates she went on, she watched the men walk in and scan the crowd for their date, their gazes passing over her like a chill. It was as if their minds couldn’t even see her as an option, she was just a large body in the periphery. 

A pretty face doesn’t mean much when the rest of you is invisible.

Unfortunately, for a while, it seemed joining Big and Beautiful was a bit of an… overcorrection in the wrong direction.

SITONME > How big r u? 

LOOKING4BBW > Hey, did u open the image attachment? Like what u see?

SPRINGSTEENFAN > ASL?

The messages made her feel dirty. She wanted the men to appreciate her body, not fetishize it. Lauren was used to her personality being her redeeming factor, but these men didn’t seem to care to know her. 

Well, until 2SHY.

2SHY > Hello, Friend. What brings you to the Big and Beautiful chatroom? (35, M, Cleveland.)

After a few days, she began logging in only for him. His words were kind, and she desperately wanted to believe they were true. She felt torn between the desire to stay positive and her need for self-preservation. She could never quite tune out the voice in her head that screamed he was lying. Sometimes she felt like if she approached these things on the defense, when they inevitably found her repulsive, it would hurt less because she knew it was coming — they felt the same way about her that she did. 

What did it say about her that if a man showed interest in her, she couldn’t help but wonder what was wrong with him? Why was someone liking her a flaw?

Why was she so focused on protecting herself from other people when it was her own thoughts that hurt the most?

Despite her fears, he was perfect. For the first time in her life, Lauren felt what it was like to really be wanted. Not wanted for a body she had to kill herself to maintain, but for what she had to offer. It meant so much to her that she’d been putting off meeting with him out of fear she’d disappoint him.

2SHY > You have no idea how beautiful I think you are. I must confess… I feel inextricably drawn to you. I can’t stop thinking about what you said the other day… You don’t deserve to feel lonely, Lauren.

2SHY > I don’t want you to feel pressured. The company of your words alone warms me like an embrace. You’ve made me feel more worthy of love than I’ve ever felt before… to ask for more seems an insult to the immeasurable joy you’ve given me these past three months. But, I’d be lying to you if I denied how much my arms ache from the desire to hold you… and I could never lie to you, Lauren. Give me a chance. The Watermark Restaurant on Old River Road. 6 o’clock on Friday. I’ll be wearing a denim button-up and a hopeful expression.

FRIEND > _

Lauren exhaled slowly as she stared at the blinking space, anxiety creeping up her neck as she whispered her affirmations to herself. I am worthy of love. I am a nice person. I deserve to be happy. She gripped the four-leaf clover pendant on her necklace, indulging in the moment as she wished for the charm to imbue her with luck. Things will be different this time.

FRIEND > Sounds like a date.

Chapter Text

In group, he mocks the other amputees and their “dreams.” It’s ridiculous, he tells them, all of it. Meaningless, futile, trite. They do what they need to do, believe what they need to believe to survive, to carry on in this hellscape prison they all now call a body.

But Rappo has dreams, too. Simple things, like the journey from his bed to the bathroom, from the barracks to the mess hall. It doesn’t matter where he’s doing it. Every night, he walks again. And every morning he wakes in the same bed with the same phantom pain, again and again and again. Every day he wishes he’d just died; that explosion that didn’t quite kill him cost him his life, anyway.

All he wants is to die, to escape. But he can’t pick up a gun, can’t throw himself off a bridge. Can’t even swallow pills on his own. So here he stays, trapped, for the rest of this sorry excuse of a life.

He doesn’t remember when or how his abilities began, exactly, but he knows they started around the same time the dreams did. One night he’d dreamt he was walking again; this time in the desert, Lieutenant Colonel Stans at his side, that familiar blast of an IED taking out yet another comrade-in-arms. The LC should have stayed, he should have had his back, but instead Stans had abandoned him and Roach all alone in the desert.

Service medals, television interviews, the whole shebang. Stans got everything, that coward. Rappo got nothing. 

Rappo has nothing.

When he’d dreamed that night, his anger flickered and grew, a tiny flame into a raging inferno. And the next morning, the news spread quickly throughout Fort Evanson that Stans’ entire family had perished in a house fire.

Killing innocent civilians wasn’t something Rappo had signed up for, but it was one of the costs of war. These were the things the news didn’t tell the public about. And knowing he’d caused unmitigated pain to a person who’d carelessly allowed the same to be inflicted upon him made him feel… powerful. Potent.

It was his anger that made it happen; somehow he knew it was the source of that power. So Rappo clung to it, nurtured it like a prized pet. 

Come on, killer! Do it! Fire at will…

Stans was the first. After that, it was easier.

Dead civilians on American soil, however, have a way of drawing attention.

Rappo sneers as he looks into the eyes of this Fed, here to catch a killer with the perfect alibi. It doesn’t matter what kinds of crazy theories this asshole has; no one will believe him anyway. 

“You're a soldier,” the male Fed says, his female partner hanging back by the door. Doesn’t surprise him; most women keep their distance unless they’re getting paid to be near him. “You knew what you were getting into when you enlisted. Why do you want to blame your COs?”

“I blame 'em for what happened to all of us!” Rappo shouts. 

Maybe he shouldn’t let on, maybe he shouldn’t reveal too much, but what the fuck does it even matter anymore, anyway? If they come to arrest him, lock him up, who cares? There is no prison worse than the one he’s already in.

“You don't know what it was like. You sat at home and watched the war on cable TV like it was a damn video game. You had no idea about the guys that died, about the blood… and the sand. What it feels like when a hit comes.”

The Fed looks at him and listens, really listens. It’s disarming, actually. Rappo’s forgotten what that feels like.

“The thing is, you just don't care, do ya? You got your crude oil. Just change that station, right? Killer got his prime time, LC got his fancy little medals. Now take a good look at me. What did I get?! Nobody knows how I feel. They took my life away.”

The Fed stares him down. It’s unnerving how close he is, how invasive of his own personal space he’s gotten. And Rappo can’t do a damn thing about it.

“Yeah. So you took theirs,” he says softly.

Rappo almost admits it, almost. Now is his chance to be acknowledged for something he did, when everyone else in this damn place just sits around day after day, forgotten. He won’t get any medals for it, that’s for sure, but he will be remembered.  

But… No. This guy, this fucking guy sitting practically in his lap with his clean suit, no military experience… he doesn’t deserve the satisfaction.

“If I only could.” 

It’s a strange feeling to be seen and heard and understood, and then to realize you don’t want to be. It doesn’t feel the way he’d expected. Maybe the anger is just too powerful… maybe he’s just too far gone to care.

“Now, if you're through questioning me, I'd like to get a little shuteye,” Rappo says, just wanting this guy to leave.

“No sleepwalking,” the Fed says with a smirk.

“ That's good. I haven't heard that one yet. Hardy-har-har.”

The Feds depart, and Rappo gets what he wants: that familiar but unbearable cloak of solitude, the rage simmering silently beneath.

He welcomes it; does what he needs to do, believes what he needs to believe to survive, to carry on. He didn’t choose this particular prison, but he can choose every day how he wants to live in it.

Chapter Text

She watches him sitting on the edge of her bed as he patiently waits for her to be ready to look at the photograph hidden in his pocket. Her eyes close as the sun from the window warms her face. In the light of day is the only way she can do this, she realizes: see a face she’s so desperately tried to forget in the dark. 

“I can only imagine how difficult this has been for you,” Agent Mulder admits. “It’s understandable you want to forget. But Lucy, sometimes remembering can help too.”

Lucy scoffs. “Remembering has never helped me before…”

She’s seven, laughing while playing Duck Duck Goose outside in the sun with her neighborhood friends. 

She’s eight, sleeping peacefully in her bed when a stranger slaps a sweaty hand over her mouth and whispers, “no one’s gonna spoil us.”

She’s nine, hiding in a corner when he blinds her with the camera’s flash. 

She’s ten, sobbing on the floor as he steals her innocence for the first time.

She’s eleven, falling to pieces when her cries for her mama continue to go unanswered. 

She’s twelve, clenching her fists in anger until her palms bleed.

She’s thirteen, hitting him over the head with a coffee mug and kicking him in the crotch, before climbing the ladder and finally, finally escaping. 

She’s fourteen, sixteen, eighteen… and she is numb.

She’s twenty, slinging rock and selling her body for money—

“Lucy?”

She gasps as her eyes snap open. 

She’s thirty, falling to pieces all over again.

“Lucy, do you need a minute?”

“I’m fine,” she manages to say around the lump in her throat. “You can show him to me now.”

“He’s probably changed a lot over the last seventeen years. Did you even know his name?” Agent Mulder carefully asks as he slides the 8x10 across her blanket. 

Lucy shakes her head. His name never mattered, only how unsafe his presence made her feel. 

“Carl Wade,” the agent continues “He worked as a photographer’s assistant. School pictures mostly. That’s where he saw Amy Jacobs.”

She’s shaking as she stares at the photo of the man who turned her childhood dreams into nightmares. Earlier, she’d told Agent Mulder not to touch her. That she doesn’t like to be touched, because she rarely trusts anyone not to hurt her. But she regrets that now. This man is kind, caring. Somehow she trusts he would never hurt her. 

“So what do you want from me?” 

Her voice cracks alongside her resolve. She hates being vulnerable; it makes her weak. That’s why drugs and sex work felt freeing to Lucy. She got to choose her john, held the power to give them permission before they used her, then got high to forget it.

She’s clean now and has worked really damn hard to turn her life around. Figures her past would fuck it up somehow. 

“I want you to tell me what you’re going through,” he suggests gently. “It might feel good to tell somebody.”

Her eyes flick up to meet his. “I feel like it’s happening all over again.”

She barely survived this Carl Wade the first time.

“You can actually feel what she’s going through, can’t you?” 

Lucy wants to laugh at how crazy that sounds, but the pleading look in the agent’s green eyes urges her to admit the truth. 

“I don’t want to go through this again.” 

“Lucy, she needs your help.”

“There’s nothing I can do,” she says automatically, but as soon as the words leave her lips, it dawns on her that it might not be true anymore.

Because she feels her again: Amy, invading her body, filling her up with a familiar fear so strong she nearly chokes on it. 

“Lucy…”

Car doors slamming outside the halfway house send Agent Mulder down the stairs, leaving Lucy alone with that goddamn picture.

She wasn’t lying to him before when she’d said she didn’t know where Amy was, or that she couldn’t help her. She can barely help herself. But she can’t ignore the overwhelming weight of remembering the evil of Wade pressing down on her. The same weight Amy is feeling right now.

A sudden urge to flee pulls her to her feet. Like an invisible string, Amy’s panic wraps itself around Lucy’s chest and tugs.

She has to go. It’s all so clear now. She has to go back. Through the woods, through the house — into the dark. Maybe she was never meant to leave it at all.

Lucy hears the other Feds arguing with Agent Mulder downstairs. Something about how her blood from her nose bleed at work was mixed with Amy’s blood. They think she’s working with Wade. That she’s done something awful to the girl. But they don’t know, have no fucking idea what unspeakable things she’d do to Wade now if she could. They don’t know what it’s like to feel fear so intense for so long it becomes part of you. 

Like how she has become part of Amy.

Lucy’s heart races. Agent Mulder is right. She and Amy share a special connection through their kidnapper: the fucking monster who ruined her life and forced her to waste half of it rotting away in darkness.  

She walks around her bed, slowly picks up the glossy image of Wade’s face, and rips it in half.

Tears blur her vision as she opens the window and climbs down the fire escape. Lucy has accepted the dark is where she’s been forced to fight for survival, ever since the night that bastard crept into her pretty pink bedroom and stole her from her bed. But no one else should have to. Her feet hit pavement and she’s instantly transported back there, stuck in that pitch-black hellhole, trembling with bone deep chills and never ending terror. 

Maybe thirteen-year-old Lucy never actually escaped after all. 

But maybe Amy Jacobs can. 

Maybe, the only way to end a nightmare is to dream it all over again. 

Chapter Text

For years Penny tried to ignore the flashes. It seemed like out of nowhere, she’d be blinded by a bright, white light she couldn’t blink away. Sometimes during intimacy with her husband, his loving face would be momentarily replaced by a familiar stranger looming over her, causing her to cry and pull away. Other times, all she could hear was the whirring sound of a drill.

These flashes would only last a moment, and for years she told herself it was probably just a side effect of the stress her unexplained disappearances caused. A drug habit, fugue state, an affair, everyone had their theories about where she was when she went missing. All Penny knew was that, cumulatively, there were nine months of her life that she didn’t get to live.

But then something happened, and she couldn’t ignore the flashes anymore. Penny had been to the gynecologist plenty of times in her life, but this time she was filled with a sense of impending dread. It was a perfect storm of triggers, being so exposed, her legs spread in the stirrups, the smell of anesthetic, the sharp snap of plastic gloves, the cold metal-

They were strapping her down to the table, injecting her with something that made her vision blur. Her stomach felt like it was going to burst. She could feel the metal rod impaling her.

The next thing she knew, she was in the corner of the room screaming while her OBGYN looked on in horror.

After that, she recognized the flashes for what they were: memories.

* * *

After joining the MUFON group, Penny learned there were some memories all the women in the group shared — the light, the men, the pain. 

But, usually, everyone remembered something that was unique to their experience. Lottie remembered one of her doctors sardonically humming America the Beautiful as he arranged the drill bit. Betsy remembered hearing an Asian language being spoken above her. Quite a few women fervently remembered someone smoking a cigarette.

For Penny, she remembered comforting a young woman with auburn hair. But, just like all the memories, it came back in vague bits, vignettes that were difficult to discern. 

Someone screaming, “Stop! Get away from me!”

The distant sounds of beeping getting faster.

A sense of empathetic dread.

A trembling, red-headed woman who reminded Penny of her sister.

The warmth of holding someone in her arms.

Bright blue eyes filled with tears .

Today, she finally got to put a name with a face.

Dana Scully.

* * *

There was something surreal about knowing the ins and outs of a stranger’s body language.

Dana’s tendency to blink back emotions, the anxious swipe of her tongue across her lips, her need to shield her vulnerability by hiding her face in her hands — Penny knew it all. She had been at Dana’s side during some of the darkest times of their lives, yet she had to resist the urge to pull her into her arms like she’d done a thousand times before. The younger woman didn’t remember her.

Even though Penny found comfort in knowing these other women knew what she’d gone through, she understood why it could make someone uncomfortable. The intimate violations they’d all endured were dehumanizing, cruel, and seemingly senseless. Dana seemed to be a private person, having a room full of people she didn’t recognize talk about her trauma so openly seemed to be too much.

She said she wasn’t ready to discuss her experience, and Penny respected that. Trying to figure out what words felt accurate to the violation was a personal experience for everyone. 

Penny wishes she could take away her pain. The first time is always the worst, and this woman thinks they’re going to kill her. She doesn’t realize they aren’t that merciful. She isn’t sure why they keep allowing her to approach the young woman, let alone hold her for so long, but she isn’t going to question it. Physical touch that didn’t come with pain was rare here.

* * *

There were women just like them all over the globe, women who came together after their abduction experiences to offer support to each other. The people in their day-to-day lives might not have been willing to listen to them, but according to Betsy, some of the women from the European chapters of MUFON said they had caught the attention of people who hadn’t been abducted. There was even a woman who was interested in their stories, who cared enough to document their experiences and accompany the women to their doctor’s appointments.

Getting other people to listen was the first step to being taken seriously, to finding out who was behind this.

There weren’t many of them in Allentown, but they had each other. It was the strength of these women that got her through those experiences, and it was the strength of these women that would help her embark on this dark path they were all destined to walk.

Penny’s hand covers the back of Dana’s neck where an adhesive bandage covers the mark that will tie them together forever.

Dana doesn’t say much anymore, but when she does, it’s usually the same reassurance to herself.

“He’ll find me.”

“My partner, he-uh,” Dana stammered, turning away from the window when Betsy struggled to climb down from the MRI machine, clearly exhausted from the new rounds of tests she was forced to undergo. “He’s waiting for me.”

“I know this is hard, Dana,” Penny whispered, clasping the woman’s hands in her own for the first time in over a year. “But I hope you know you’re not alone.”

Dana offered a small smile and squeezed Penny’s hand before stepping out of the room.

“Do you think we’ll be seeing her again?” Lottie asked from beside her.

“We’re going to get out of here,” the red-headed woman whispers against Penny’s temple, wiping away tears Penny didn’t realize had fallen. “You can’t give up hope.”

With a smile, Penny nodded. “Yes.”

Chapter Text

He sits back as comfortably as possible into the vinyl seat of the helicopter, waiting for landing. The roar of the propellers is loud and irksome, the tops of the vast expanse of West Virginia trees drift below him. It’s nauseating. He doesn’t generally enjoy flying, nor doing any sort of dirty work himself, really, but this one he must champion. He is the one who makes decisions, after all. And the problem that is Fox Mulder has been a perpetual thorn in his side for years.

He’d been told by Spender time and time again that “the Mulder problem” wasn’t actually a problem; that every time the young agent involved himself or inched closer to the truth, it would only help their cause. For a while, they all believed this to be true, himself included. 

But ever since Mulder found himself a new partner, they’ve come much too close for comfort. In more ways than one.

The Elder readjusts himself in the uncomfortable seat, quietly seething. His intelligence has informed him Dana Scully is down there somewhere at the Hansen’s Disease Research Facility poking around, having stumbled upon a secret that should have been kept better hidden. And now he needs to sell her a story; one she will believe, one she will then tell her partner. 

One that will put them off the Syndicate’s trail for good.

He goes over it in his mind: all the information they’ve gathered about Dana Katherine Scully since they’d hardwired her thoughts back during her abduction. What can he use, what memory can he manipulate to make her believe his lies?

Her fear of clowns, her fear of failure. Her fear of rejection.

Her love for Agent Mulder.

No… it’s too soon for that card to be played, much too soon. The one thing that can be manipulated more effectively than any other, is her fear of the unknown… of what happened to her last year. And perhaps if he can put that to rest in her mind, she will be satisfied that they've arrived at a dead end.

Neither Mulder nor Scully need to know that the dead end they’ve reached is very much alive.

He lands, a bit unbalanced, and pulls the Dramamine from his pocket. Then he waits for Dana Scully to be brought to him. When she is, they regard each other with a dubious mutual respect, but offer no pleasantries.

“Who are you? What is this place?” she asks.

“This was one of the most frightening places on the earth,” the Elder tells her, spinning his tale. “A place where society sent its monsters to live in shame and isolation. Now their disease is all but conquered. Science has eliminated thousands of years of misery.”

“I've seen your methods of elimination,” Dana Scully spits. There’s a fire in her that he’s always liked. It will be a shame when, one day, they will find a need to extinguish it. “What happened to the man who was with me? What about the people who were in this room?”

“They had been exposed,” the Elder replies.

“Exposed to what?”

Alien technology.

“The same thing all these people have been exposed to. Victims of an inhuman project run by a man named Zama.” He keeps it vague. It’s a lucky thing she does not have the power over her thoughts that he has over hers.

“You mean Ishimaru. You hid him here after the war.”

“He stayed here and he continued his experiments,” he explains. And then he eyes her meaningfully. “The ruler of the world isn't the country with the greatest soldiers, but the greatest scientists.” 

Her expression drops at this, and he knows he has her. If there’s one thing he’s learned about Dana Scully over the years, it’s that science will always win her over.

“Unfortunately, Ishimaru began to conduct his work in secret, not sharing with those who'd risked much in giving him his asylum.”

“What was he exposing these people to?” 

“Terrible things.” He doesn’t have to say it for her to believe the lie. She’s already halfway there herself.

“What kinds of things?”

The Elder looks down, knowing what he plans to tell her will be false, a lie they have carefully chosen: hemorrhagic fever. She will believe it, because when someone isn’t willing to believe the truth, they will inevitably stop searching when they arrive at an acceptable lie.

“Have I been exposed?” she asks.

“I don't know.”

Fear of the unknown.

“Who knows?”

“Please, I'd like to show you something that will give you your answers.”

He will be required to show her the boxcar, the one in which she was experimented upon. He will be required to inform her of the consequences of allowing that bomb to detonate in a populated area.

But he will not tell her everything. She will not get all of her answers.

A lie is most convincingly hidden between two truths.

Just as they use Mulder to spread the stories needed to cover up their atrocities, they will use Scully to convince him those stories are fiction. To keep the lie alive.

“Follow me, Miss Scully,” he gestures, leading the way. But she pierces him with a stare that unnerves him, something he is not used to. Perhaps he’s sold this one short. 

The motion sickness resurfaces as they walk. He is unsteady on his feet.

Chapter Text

All he wanted was to go to Heaven.

Owen never went to church when he was young. He didn’t have that kind of family. He barely had any family at all. It was just him, his mother, and his grandmother, and neither of them paid him much attention anyway. They never said it, but he knew it was because of how he looked.

He was bullied at school and stared at on the street, but he was used to it. He didn’t know life any different. He looked weird and people knew it. End of story.

And when you look weird, your options are few. Nobody wants a big bald freak opening them up and taking out their appendix. He would never stand in a courtroom or in front of a classroom. He thought maybe he could be a cop, but he was too scary to be a good guy. So he stayed out of sight. He kept his head down, did his work, paid the bills.

He dropped out of school and worked odd jobs for most of his life. He eventually found himself working at a church, cleaning toilets and mopping floors. At first it was just another paycheck, but one day he started listening.

He noticed how happy the music from the organ at the altar made him, how calm he felt when the voices of the singing congregation washed over him. He would close his eyes and take a break from washing windows or dusting statues to soak it in. His body would fill with peace in a way he’d never experienced before.

He learned a lot while keeping the church clean– the stories of Jesus, the teachings and beliefs, but he also discovered the many sides of religion. He saw the greed, the envy, the pride. The priests who looked tired and spread thin. The volunteers who bragged and showed off. The kids who cried, the elderly who wept.

He saw weddings and funerals, those who believed and those who were there for nothing but the wrong reasons.

He watched people pretend to be godly churchgoers only to step outside the doors and yell at their spouses as they got in their Volvos and BMWs.

He took it all in, not sure where his place was in the big picture of all these people coming to worship. Until one day, long after moving on from his job at the church, God spoke to him.

Standing stock still in the garden of his employer’s house, he heard His voice.

Protect him. Keep him safe.

He should have been scared; it wasn’t normal to hear a voice in your head when there was no one around. But he wasn’t. He was filled with a sort of light. A purpose. The words felt like an embrace, more comforting than any hug he’d received from his mother, more assuring than any words ever spoken to him.

For those brief moments, as that love surrounded him, he knew everything would be all right. God was with him. He was meant for someplace better than this. But first, he had a job to do.

The only thing that mattered was the boy, Kevin. Whatever it took, whatever he had to do, Kevin was his priority now. He kept the family’s lawn perfectly mowed, no longer to pay his bills, but to stay close and protect their child. Everything he did– what he ate, how he dressed, how he arranged his day– was with the intent of doing God’s will.

He gave of himself, abandoning what little life he’d had, to honor God’s words and do as he had been called.

As he sat with his arms tied behind his back, he watched the FBI agents. The man only wanted answers, but he assumed the woman with the cross would understand.

“You believe me, don’t you?” he asked her. “I mean, you must wear that as a reminder.”

She looked down towards her cross. He knew deep in his soul that she wanted to believe– he could feel it surrounding her– but she locked her faith inside. If only she could trust, in herself and in Him.

“Mr. Jarvis,” she said, and he could tell she was shaken. “My religious convictions are hardly the issue here.”

“But they are.” He was angry because he now understood that nothing was more important than one’s faith in God. “How can you help Kevin, if you don't believe? Even the killer, he believes.”

Her partner made some sort of joke that Owen chose to ignore.

“Mass on Christmas, fish on Friday,” he said, remembering the things he’d learned from his years at the church, aware that she would know them too. He wanted his words to hurt, to make her see how wrong she was.

“You think that makes you a good Christian,” he continued. “Just because you don't understand the sacrifice, because you're unwilling, don't think for a moment that you set the rules for me. I don't question His word. Whatever He asks of me, I'll do.”

He jumped to his feet and then male agent turned towards him. “Sit down, Mr. Jarvis.”

It was so simple, if they only understood what He wanted. He needed to keep Kevin safe. It was the only thing he had to do.

“I just want to go to Heaven.”

He needed to get to Kevin. They were wasting time.

He could hear the voice.

He’s near. He’ll kill him. Protect the child.

He didn’t think; he simply did what was needed. He barely felt the glass against his skin or the hard ground under his body. The strength of something more powerful than himself brought him to his feet and propelled him forward.

He needed to get to Kevin. He would protect him until the moment his life ended. He would do God’s will, and as he left this earth, he would enter His kingdom, greeting Him with open arms and a smile across his lips.

Chapter Text

“What’s a woman like you doing in a place like this?”

Bambi had heard that sentence more times in her life than she cared to count, and it always managed to strike her as odd. 

She had a doctorate in Entomology from the University of Illinois, but the family members of her cohort couldn’t believe a “woman like her” was in the graduating class. Her collaborative work on the molecular mechanisms of metabolic resistance to synthetic and natural xenobiotics won awards, but people always assumed she was lost when they saw a “woman like her” in the lab working. She had spent her whole life around insects, but people seemed shocked whenever they saw a “woman like her” digging through foliage to find the perfect specimens for a study.

It seemed that “a place like this” applied to every location that wasn’t in a male fantasy, and “a woman like her” never actually reflected who she was or wanted to be.

This is probably why Fox Mulder had gotten on her nerves earlier.

She tried to hide her frustration at the man’s presence introducing an uncontrolled variable to the roaches’ environment, but his exaggerated, feigned interest in what she was talking about got under her skin.

It was one thing for men to ignore asking her anything of substance, but it was another for them to use her special interest in insects to try and get in her pants. If they were just honest about their intentions, maybe she would even let them. Like she said before, her human needs weren’t any different from an insect’s: eat, sleep, defecate, procreate.

To Bambi, all that mattered was the person. She was attracted to anyone who was honest, intelligent, and passionate. While Fox was undeniably handsome, he was lying when he said he found bugs fascinating. If he was really interested, she wouldn’t have caught him fearing for his life after having a few little roaches crawl on him.

It was obvious that whatever really brought him here became sidelined after seeing her.

A woman like her in a place like this.

A doctor in a U.S.D.A. Agricultural research facility.

The person he’d been on the phone with earlier was rudely dismissed and his line of questioning was the type of propaganda that just further perpetuated misconceptions about cockroaches. Besides, Bambi could hear the disappointment in his voice when she’d told him about her UFO theory, not that his over-exaggerated nodding told her otherwise. He obviously wasn’t willing to believe in something so unconventional.

Or so she had thought.

She was surprised when he returned to the lab, and she was impressed when he followed up with her tip about Dr. Ivanov. Plus, she couldn’t deny that she found it endearing that he kept bringing her insects to examine.

The thrill of his phone disrupted their conversation, but instead of dismissing the person on the other end, he started partaking in a sort of theoretical back and forth. To be honest, she found it quite sexy.

She wasn’t trying to listen in on his phone conversation but, for how secretive he was trying to be, he sure had his phone volume on the loudest setting.

A distant, feminine voice filled the space of the lab while they sat at the table, “He has an import license to bring in animal dung samples from outside the country. Now, maybe you can confirm this with your Doctor Bambi-”

Her ears perked up despite herself, not only at the mention of her name but the inclusion of her credentials alongside it.

“Scully, if an alien civilization were technologically advanced enough to build and send artificially intelligent robotic probes to the farthest reaches of space, might they not have also been able to perfect the extraction of methane fuel from manure?”

Bambi felt a flush spread across her chest as his hypothesis brought a smile to her face. Hearing that he hadn’t been merely indulging her earlier was a refreshing change of pace. There were so many interesting phenomena that could be explained by looking at the unusual activities of the creatures in the Kingdom Animalia. She’d heard of so many fascinating cases: the mutated Trematoda in New Jersey, ancient, parasitic annelids in the Alaskan Ice, unusual swarming activity from phosphorescent insects in Washington — the truths of the world were hidden in plain sight if people were willing to look. 

“Alright, I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Fox replied, easing himself out of his chair. Then, in a soft tone she hadn’t heard from him before, he murmured, “If things are as crazy out there as you say, please be careful, okay?”

Bambi was struck by a slight pang of jealousy. She wished she had a partner who respected her intelligence and cared for her like Fox seemed to regard his partner.

She wondered what type of woman could inspire such open honesty in a man like him.

Chapter Text

“I was hoping you could help me solve the mystery of the horny beast.”

Special Agent Fox Mulder leans against the wall, tucked behind the edge of the door jamb. She’d thought him attractive when he first showed up in Comity, accompanied by his rather surly partner, but it’s the first time all day she feels like the attraction is mutual. His actions indicate shyness, but his words…

“Pardon me?” she asks, unsure if she’d misheard him.

He blinks, shaking his head a couple times, as if coming out of a trance. “I’m sorry, I meant to say ‘horned’ beast. I, uh… I’m not exactly sure where that came from.”

Detective Angela White smiles, just a bit. “It’s fine, I was actually thinking earlier today I felt a bit… off. Something in the air, I guess.”

“Yeah. Something in the air.” He grins back at her. Definitely mutual. “Anyway, since you and I both seemed to see something my partner didn’t, I was wondering what you think it means.”

“What I think it means?” Detective White is taken aback. Comity is a small town; she’s the only female police officer in her department. Despite how hard she’s worked to climb the ranks, there’s always an air of dismissiveness from her male counterparts. 

Agent Mulder looks at her inquisitively, however, like he actually cares what she has to say. “Yeah. It could be a goat, or a ram, maybe. These types of animals have some significance in the occult, or even in astrology.”

“Astrology?” 

“When I said I had an open mind, I suppose I should have specified how open.”

She raises a brow. “Well, your partner has pretty much ruled out the occult. I wouldn’t want to step on anyone’s toes.”

“You’re not. I just want to solve this case, Detective White. And it would be remiss of us to leave any possible avenue unexplored.”

There’s a soft nudge on her ankle: Frankie, trying to escape again. She gently pushes the tawny feline back into the house with her foot and steps out onto the porch, closing the door. 

Detective White regards Agent Mulder carefully. Surely his partner doesn’t even know he’s here. She doesn’t want to cause any waves. Perfect harmony ; it’s their town’s slogan, but there’s nothing harmonious about the way they’ve been together. And yet…

Rigid in a wonderful way, he’d said . He clearly has respect for Agent Scully, despite her apparent lack of social prowess. 

Agent Mulder smiles again, almost expectantly. God, he’s cute. He’s here, after all, on her doorstep and not Agent Scully’s. She decides she’ll indulge him, maybe just for tonight. Nothing wrong with a little harmless flirtation. 

It would be remiss of us to leave any possible avenue unexplored.

“There’s an astrologist downtown we could talk to,” she suggests, knowing full well this particular avenue will probably lead to a dead end. It’s a start, though. And maybe this thing between herself and the handsome FBI agent could be a start, too.

***

What the hell was that?

She climbs into Agent Scully’s car, silent and awkward. The taste of vodka stings her lips and she can still smell Agent Mulder’s laundry detergent on her disheveled clothes. From the look on his partner’s face, the other woman can, too. Her brain is buzzing and her nerves are on fire… are those period cramps? Nothing in her body feels at all like it should.

They ride in silence for a good two miles, Agent Scully fuming, her hands white-knuckling the steering wheel, until Detective White has no choice but to say something.

“Look, I’m not sure if you’re upset about what happened back there or something else, but I just…” she trails off, suddenly cognizant of the fact that she’d begun talking before knowing what she’d intended to say. What the hell had happened back there? She’d essentially thrown herself at Agent Mulder, and she doesn’t remember any of it. 

The prickly redheaded agent doesn’t make eye contact, instead continues staring out at the road. Other than obvious discomfort, her face reveals nothing.

“What you do on your off time is your business, Detective White,” Agent Scully spits through gritted teeth. White has the distinct impression, however, that she’s telling her what she would rather tell Agent Mulder. 

“Okay, but it was unprofessional, and I apologize. I swear I don’t usually act like that.”

“What are you apologizing to me for?”

“Because he’s…” 

Detective White stops as Agent Scully finally glances over at her, somewhat defensively. And then she gets it. Everything about the way she’s been treated since the agents arrived makes perfect sense.

“He’s your partner. I overstepped.”

Agent Scully is quiet for a moment, and Detective White can’t tell if she’s thinking or seething. But then:

“I’m not my partner’s keeper.”

There’s a brief flash in one of her eyes that, for just a moment, White thinks might be a tear she’s keeping at bay. Agent Scully isn’t angry or upset (or premenstrual, which had been her theory from the start). She’s hurt. 

White knows there’s something happening between these two, something unresolved. But there are murders to be solved, and her cat is missing, and getting in the middle of whatever is going on between Agents Mulder and Scully is something she isn’t sure is a good idea.

“Well, I just think–”

“Can we please stop talking about this?” Agent Scully says brusquely. “I really have no inclination to discuss my personal life with you.”

Detective White settles back into her seat, her goodwill towards Agent Scully’s rudeness having finally hit its limit. 

“Gladly.” 

They drive again in silence for what feels like forever, and White watches as they pass the outskirts of town; there are fields of beasts grazing, none of them horned. 

Suddenly, there’s a thunk on the windshield as a dead bird falls from the sky. Both women yelp, and White leans forward to look up at the watchful, solitary moon.

So much for perfect harmony.

Chapter Text

“So what is it, Mulder? Little green men, evil spirits, hounds of Hell?”

Patterson may have asked him to be here, but only because three years was too long to be searching for a killer. He needed to close this case, as much as he hated tucking his tail between his legs and admitting he needed help.

At least A.D. Skinner had been willing to keep all that from Mulder.

“Scully, this is Bill Patterson,” Mulder said to the small female agent at his side. His partner, he assumed. “He runs the Investigative Support Unit out of Quantico.”

“Yes, I know,” the woman, Scully, said. “Behavioral Science. You wrote the book. It's an honor, sir.”

It seemed his reputation preceded him, but he didn’t have time for pleasantries. Not with a killer on the loose.

“Is that what you think, too?” he asked, assuming that if someone were willing to work with Spooky Mulder, they must be fairly unhinged themselves. “That the suspect is possessed by some dark spirit?”

“No, not at all, sir.”

Surprising. He looked to Mulder as he answered her. “Funny company you keep, then.”

“To know an artist, you have to look at his art.” Patterson looked out at the room of students. They were eager, young. Every single one of them looking at him like the wisdom he would impart would turn them into the best agents the FBI had ever seen.

Little did they know, half of them wouldn’t even make it through the academy.

“In the same way that a student of the arts would visit museums and study the works of the masters,” he continued, “a criminal profiler must get into the mind of the suspect he is pursuing.”

A hand raised in the back of the room. He squinted until he could make out who it belonged to: Fox Mulder. Patterson braced himself as he pointed and nodded his head.

“What if the mind of the suspect defies the logic that we as humans have accepted to be true?”

Patterson heard some murmurs around the room, but asked the Mulder kid to continue, despite himself. As much as this student irked him, he also intrigued him.

“Humans operate under the pretense that our world has certain rules that are nonnegotiable. Gravity pulls things down, we need oxygen to breathe.” He paused, glancing around the room before continuing. “Part of our sense-making process is to accept these truths so we can live our lives. My question is, what if the suspect, the monster, that we seek doesn’t play by the rules that we have collectively agreed upon? How can we get in the mind of someone… or something, so foreign to us that they’re almost… otherworldly?”

Patterson kept his eyes locked on the student, before slowly turning his back to the class. There was some validity to his question, were it not for the peculiar interests Patterson had heard rumors about. Spooky Mulder, indeed. He had a sinking suspicion of what he was pushing at.

“Everyone can be profiled, Mr. Mulder,” he said, facing the class, “Be it Charles Manson, or a monster, as you said… Bigfoot, for example.”

The class laughed and Patterson continued his lecture, a smirk creeping across his face.

Asleep on a stack of library books. Patterson Nudged Mulder awake and found he had nothing useful to say. Mulder’s profiling skills were unmatched, if he actually put them to good use. He figured he might have a theory about the accomplice or a potential copycat killer, but no; he’d been researching gargoyles and goblins. Monsters recorded in dusty old tomes pulled from the library shelves.

Patterson grabbed a sketch from the table. “This is nothing but the scrawling of a mad man.”

“He said that this thing wants to see his own reflection.” Mulder pointed at the sketch and looked at him with naivete that someone with far fewer years under his belt than he actually had.

“Mostow has said everything but what I need to hear,” Patterson said, feeling frustrated. “The name of his accomplice.”

“Unless he's telling the truth.”

And there it was. The persistent flaw in Agent Fox Mulder. That belief in the paranormal.

“About being possessed?” he asked, waiting for an answer that he didn’t receive. “I have to tell you, I'm really disappointed in you.”

Mulder leaned back in his chair. “Well, I wouldn't want to disappoint you by not disappointing you.”

“After all this time I thought you finally put your feet back on the ground.” If not for his own betterment, then at least to help him close this case. “Clearly, I was mistaken.”

“Little green men,” Patterson said in complete disbelief. “You’re telling me that rather than work to catch real criminals, you are going to spend your time at the FBI looking for spaceships.”

“Unexplained cases,” Mulder corrected, though it was just splitting hairs to Patterson. “The cases that the rest of the bureau has given up on.”

“And how many of those cases are reports of mothman or the Loch Ness monster?”

Mulder pulled his mouth into a tight line and sighed. Patterson knew he wasn’t going to change his mind.

“You want to tank your career? Go right ahead,” Patterson said, turning to leave. “Hope you enjoy your days in the basement.”

Patterson shook his head and walked away. Mulder could have been something great. He could have made a name for himself in the FBI with the profiling mind he had, but couldn’t get his goddamned head out of the clouds long enough to put in the work.

Monsters. All that talent wasted on something that didn’t even exist.

Patterson clutched the bars of the jail cell, pressing his face against the cold metal. “Are you listening to me? For God's sakes! Is someone listening to me? I didn't do it!”

It was a monster. Not him. The monster was real. They had to believe him.

“It wasn't me! I didn't kill them! Please!”

Chapter Text

“…And I’ll fax copies of the reports to the Section Chief as soon as we’re finished.” Kim scans this week’s schedule again, dotting every “i” and crossing every “t”. When she looks up from where she’s seated across from her boss, she pauses. “Sir?”

“Hmm?” His broad shoulders are slumped, his tie askew, and his round glasses do little to hide the dark circles beneath his eyes. She frowns.

Kimberly Cook is good at her secretarial job. No, she’s pretty damn great at it, if she’s honest. So when the man she’s been working closely with for two years is troubled, she refuses to let him file the feeling away like some confidential case in his cabinet. 

“Sir, are you sure you don’t want me to clear your schedule until lunch? I can rearrange your day however you need.” 

“No thanks, Kimberly.” Assistant Director Walter Skinner pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s fine. I’m just a little tired this morning.”

“I would be too…” Kim eyes last night’s memo half-hidden beneath a familiar case file. Its edges are well-worn, the label’s ink faded and smudged from frequent touches of worried fingertips. “If I stayed up all night fretting.”

She takes the file that’s been haunting her boss for five months, slowly sliding it across his desk to face him. 

He grunts at it. “That’s my job.”

“Sir—” Kim hesitates, reaching out to still his hand tracing the letters of the name Scully, Melissa with her own . “Walter, you’ve been working hard on this one. Very hard. You can’t blame yourself for what the memo says.”

She wasn’t supposed to see the memo. It arrived late last night after Walter had suggested she go home. She didn’t, of course, reluctantly placing it on his desk, reading the words “URGENT: case cold. Refile as inactive until further notice” with Melissa Scully’s case number attached. 

“I’ll be appealing the decision,” he says tightly. Kim nods, sympathetically squeezing his hand, already guessing how that will go. She moves to stand, stopping when his hand finds hers again. “Thank you, Kim. I appreciate your concern.”

Kim smiles, flushing as their hands part. If she wasn’t married with a baby on the way…

Her eyes flick up, catching a flash of red hair bobbing by the office window. “There’s Agent Scully.”

Walter quickly moves into the door, beckoning Dana Scully into his office. Kim bites her lip, realizing he’s about to give an agent he respects news that will disappoint her. That will hurt her. 

“Kimberly, would you excuse us please?” 

“Certainly, sir,” she says, already in motion.

“A memo came across my desk last night…” Walter starts as Kim closes the side door behind her.

Her feet stay rooted where she stands. Fragments of the conversation creep through the cracks in the doorframe. She doesn’t usually eavesdrop, but something compels her to listen. The threatening conversation she’d overheard regarding her boss’s favorite agents just days ago leaves her mind racing…

Kim straightens piles of reports into stacks atop her desk when she smells it: cigarette smoke wafting through A.D. Skinner’s closed door. It’s him , the tall, older man who saunters in unannounced, his gray eyes cold, conniving. That’s when he wants to be seen. There are times, like now, where she knows he slips in through the side door like a snake stalking its prey. With concern creasing his brow, Walter had warned her to avoid the smoker, and Kim would never ignore his advice.

Muffled voices rise. 

Agents Mulder and Scully’s names are mentioned, along with the words “end this,” and “obey orders.”

Kim stiffens, worried. 

A door slams shut, followed by strings of obscenities. 

That chain-smoking jackass is bullying her boss again, her friend, into betraying his agents’ trust, and she hates it. Kim sneers at the door as a stream of smoke slithers its way out. An appropriate euphemism, she’s certain. 

The growing knot of concern for Walter only tightens further in her gut. 

Her fists clench at the memory. Then Agent Scully’s heels thunk along the floor of the office as she speaks, urging Kim to tilt her head to hear more.

“You know, it's strange. Men can blow up buildings, and they can be nowhere near the crime scene, but we can piece together the evidence and convict them beyond a doubt. Our labs can recreate out of the most microscopic detail the motivation and circumstance to almost any murder…” 

Kim’s eyes slip shut.

Agent Scully’s voice shakes, overflowing with emotion, and Kim instantly knows their A.D. will take it personally.

“But in a case of a woman, my sister, who was gunned down in cold blood in a well-lit apartment building by a shooter who left the weapon at the crime scene, we can't even put together enough to keep anybody interested,” the agent passionately continues. Defeat and frustration evident, even through walls. 

“I don't think this has anything to do with interest,” Walter placates.

“If I may say so, sir, it has everything to do with interest,” she retorts. “Just not yours, and not mine.”

Agent Scully marches out of the A.D.’s door and around the corner by the window where Kim stands, stunned in the office’s anteroom. 

Kim cares for her boss. He’s a good man and their friendship means more to her than she’d thought possible coming from a man of high ranking authority. But Agent Scully is right, the real interest that affects others lay with manipulative shadow men. 

The agent’s fierce stride slows to a stop. Her back is turned, but there’s no mistaking her swift intake of breath. Kim knows a stifled sob when she sees it. She wishes she could help. She wishes she could tell her she’s sorry without making her cry.

Then the formidable pathologist swipes at her eyes and walks determinedly towards the elevator, jabbing at the DOWN button, impatient to return to where Kim suspects she feels most comfortable. 

Down to the basement, at Agent Mulder’s side. 

Chapter Text

The ambulance doors fling open and for a split second, it's déjà vu for Luis Cardinal. A flash of red hair and those eyes, the same eyes … only these aren’t taken by surprise, barely registering death before they close. This time they are directed at him in anger.

Back in Nicaragua, death was a way of life. He’d spent most of his days chasing his older brothers, engaged in target practice, pretending they were Contras. His mother always called him cumiche, the baby. Her baby. 

But he doesn’t think about her anymore.

By the time he was in his mid-twenties he’d surpassed both of his brothers, having become exactly what he’d trained for. And when he arrived in the United States, having been enrolled in the School of the Americas, he’d required little training as a marksman. In fact, his skills in that area were exactly what had drawn the Smoker to him. He’d been the one to pluck him out of a lineup, take him under his wing, and erase his history. Just in time, too; it happened mere months before the feds required the human rights background checks he would certainly not pass.

He didn’t make mistakes back at Fort Moore. But here and now on his own as a mercenary, he has made far too many. First the Scully woman, then the Assistant Director. 

He’s come here to rectify his error in the restaurant; now is his chance to finish the job. Because the man he works for does not tolerate mistakes. And perhaps that’s what’s made him reckless now, as he fires wildly into the vehicle and misses. 

Luis flees, something he’s gotten used to doing. Working in the shadows as a cipher makes it a necessity. The redhead gives chase, and if not for an ill-timed car pulling out in front of him, he might very well have escaped on foot. But his legs ache, and his back… his back feels like it’s been stabbed with a thousand machetes.

“Federal Agent, stop right there!”

He collapses, unable to bear the pain. 

“Are you Luis Cardinal?!” she screams, her gun pointed directly into his face. Then, louder: “Are you Luis Cardinal?”

Luis Cardinal. His name sounds unfamiliar now. This is not who he is anymore, this is the name of the boy who chased his brothers through the streets, whose mother cradled him at night and kissed his head, calling him her cumiche.

No. He doesn’t think about his mother anymore.

“Are you the man who shot my sister?”

The Scully woman is not simply angry, she’s unhinged. A woman with a vendetta. And there’s a small part of him that understands;  it’s the part of him that, prior to working for the Smoker, had never been asked to shoot an innocent woman in cold blood before.

But the adrenaline is coursing through his veins, pushing towards the forefront of his mind the singular thought of a survivor: I don’t want to die.

The Smoker has made it clear he no longer trusts Alex Krycek. For years it seems Krycek was poised to be his right-hand man, but since that’s no longer the case, now is Luis’s chance to throw his counterpart to the wolves.

“You want Krycek,” he tells her. He was there, after all. It’s a last-ditch effort, and he’s not entirely sure it will even work. All she has to do is pull the trigger. But the Scully woman shows something he never does: restraint. It’s probably the only reason he’s still alive.

The officers arrive, slapping cuffs on his wrists, and he is caught. His third mistake. The Smoker will not be pleased.

Luis sits in a cold holding cell for what feels like an eternity, but most likely is only a couple of hours. It’s strange how time has no meaning when your death is imminent.

Eventually, the Smoker arrives, a carcinogenic cloud following him the way it always does. Luis crosses himself like a reflex; it’s something he has not done in years. He wonders how God will judge him, something he also has not done in years.

For the first time Luis notices Alex Krycek is standing behind the Smoker, unusually stiff, like a sentinel. Just as earlier, there’s something not quite right about him, but Luis has no time to worry about that. He has no time for anything, not anymore.

The Smoker comes up close to the bars, exhales a plume of smoke between them. “I have no use for men who make mistakes,” he says coldly. He unlocks and opens the cell door, and Krycek advances wordlessly. 

There is no time for pleas or arguments. A cord is wrapped around Luis’s throat, and he gasps wildly for air. All he sees is the Smoker standing back in the shadows, like Death himself. 

It’s not what he wants to see before he welcomes death. He closes his eyes and the last thing he sees is his mother. He waits for her to hold him close, to whisper cumiche .

She does not.

Chapter Text

Agent Frank Burst, the guy with the great name. Say, Frank, are Agents Mulder and Scully there?

Frank holds the phone to his ear, as the SWAT team sets up the trace. He hears Mulder’s voice come across the line from the other room. “Yeah, we’re here.”

Perfect. Frank, how much do you weigh?

He tightens his grasp on the phone, adding a second hand as if squeezing it against the side of his head would help him find this bastard once and for all. “Excuse me?”

About how much do you weigh?

He’s sick of this cat and mouse game. He doesn’t care if he has to tell him his mother’s maiden name and his favorite breakfast cereal if it means getting his location. 

“Anything to keep you on the line, you stupid piece of sh—” He looks at the computer that’s tracing the call. Another number pops up. “I don't know, about a hundred-ninety, hundred and ninety-five.”

Two-fifteen if you're a day, you're totally the wrong weight for your height. I mean, no offense, Frank, but you're built like a fireplug.

He’s so tired of this guy’s bullshit.

“Yeah, and I got stubby little legs that are gonna kick you right in the ass. You going somewhere with this, Modell?”

Yeah, it's just that it can't be healthy. And you look like maybe you're a smoker, you probably take a little drink now and then, eat greasy fried food... sausage, bacon, eggs-over-easy.

Frank’s stomach swirls as he thinks about the Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘N Fruity he’d eaten that morning. Nearly cleaned the plate and then chased it with burger and fries and a large coffee for lunch. 

“Frank.”

He breathes in, willing the food to stay in his gut. His skin feels too hot and his mouth feels too dry. 

Onion rings that soak those dark stains through the cardboard. And I'm guessing you shake on that salt like a maraca.

“Frank…”

How about it? Am I packing it up on this?

“Frank, hang up the phone.” 

He takes a deep breath, then another, but the air isn’t making it all the way in. His stomach feels full and there’s a sudden tightness in his chest, like an elephant is sitting on it. He remembers the asthma he’d outgrown from childhood, the pack of cigarettes he’d blown through that afternoon. He takes another deep breath but it barely helps. 

"What are you talking about, Modell?” Frank asked, looking at the computer screen. “What's your point?”

Frank, you know what that's doing to your arteries.

Another number pops up on the screen, slow as a slug in tar. Just a little longer. 

Terrible things, Frank. Terrible.

His breaths are only making it to the bottom of his throat and the tightness is turning into pain. He needs these numbers to fucking move faster. 

“Frank.”

There’s a cold sweat on his face.

Waxy yellow chunks of plaque are tumbling through your bloodstream…

He can’t get air in. His whole body is clenched, the pain spreading from his chest to his arms. 

Sticking like glue to your arterial walls…

A strangled sound escapes him as he squeezes the phone. 

One more number. 

“Hang up the phone, Frank!” 

He feels Mulder near him. 

Squeezing shut your aorta... can you feel it, Frank?

There’s nothing but pain and Modell’s voice. Breathing does nothing as the squeezing gets tighter, the elephant gets bigger, the pain gets sharper. 

“Come on, man, hang up the phone.”

He can’t. He needs the number. Jesus, he needs oxygen. 

But not as much as the number. 

Can you feel your aorta...

He can and it’s fucking closed. His blood feels like burning hot molasses backed up in his body as his entire chest compresses on top of itself. 

His knuckles scream in agony from his grip on the phone.  

“Frank, hang up the phone!”

…closing shut? 

“Back off!” He yells with every ounce of strength he has and pushes Mulder away. 

He can live through the pain. He’s been shot. Twice. He’s had his appendix removed. He survived two divorces. This isn’t real.

All those miles of aorta…

“Frank, hang up the phone!”

“I said back off!”

That sonofabitch almost hung up on Modell, but Frank stays on the line. His whole body is on fire. His jaw clenches as the pain radiates up his neck. 

“Hang up!”

The pressure…

“Finish the trace!” 

His throat is tight. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth making every word a struggle. 

Ever hear of pachyemia, Frank?

“Mulder?”

It’s Agent Scully, but Frank can’t focus on her. His whole world is knives and steel clamps. Ice picks stab down his left arm. 

“Somebody hang up the phone!”

He squeezes his eyes tight. Need to hold on. That number. Need the number. 

There’s this medical condition called pachyemia? It's when the blood thickens up in your veins like strawberry jam. 

The room fills with commotion but he’s blinded by the pain. He presses the phone to his ear and focuses on getting the tiniest bit of air into his lungs. Sweat drips off his nose. 

“Finish the trace!”

His hand is like lead as he points at the agent. His teeth grind together, the pain moving to his head and down into his legs. 

“Frank! Hang it up! Hang up!”

Your heart flatlines.

He takes a breath, sweet stale air finding its way to his lungs for one blissful moment of relief, before everything stops. The knife in his chest digs in deeper, twisting with a white hot fire. His mouth drops open as he freezes in place, unable to do anything but exist in the most horrible anguish he could ever imagine.

Beeeeeeeeeep….

The floor is falling out from beneath him, pitching him forward into darkness. 

“Frank!”

Darker and darker, numb and black. 

You die, Frank.

Chapter Text

Blue and red lights whirl past as the fourth Boston P.D. vehicle rolls onto the scene.

“Hey Donnie,” Officer Ezra Harris greets his friend with a nod. His fellow officer boldly using the medical examiner’s car as a table to log evidence is about as new on the job as he is, but Ezra wouldn’t dare markup Dr. Sara’s hood. She may be hot, but she is ruthless. “Where’s the good Doc?”

“When you gonna give up, man? She’s out of our league.” Donnie rolls his eyes. “She’s not here, anyway. She’s looking for the body.”

Ezra pauses on his way toward the crime scene. “Looking for it?” 

“Excuse me?” a pretty redheaded woman in a suit calls. “Can I get some help over here, please?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ezra hollers back.

“Ma’am,” Donnie teases. “She’s one of the Feds. Better hurry and kiss some ass, Rook.”

He would tell Donnie to kiss his rookie ass, but bites his tongue when the Fed promptly reminds him to bring an evidence bag with him. Ezra hurries his way to the victim’s car, its hood popped, the petite agent hunching over inside. 

He’s about to introduce himself before she mumbles something about “mutilation.” Ezra grimaces instead.

“Glove up,” she tells him nonchalantly, pulling a stray latex glove from her pocket. “Looks like we’ll need to.”

Ezra snaps on a pair of gloves and tries not to gag at the metallic mixture of blood and motor oil. The way the thick globs of blood spattered across the car’s engine matches the color of her hair perfectly makes his stomach churn. “Is that…”

“A rat?” She nods down at something sticking out of the alternator. “What’s left of it.”

He takes out the plastic evidence bag and holds it open as the agent drapes her unopened glove around her fingers and pulls out a rat tail attached to a bloody stump. 

Jesus.

She holds the remains of the rodent aloft and lets it fall heavily into the bag. “Label that.”

Ezra balks. “As what?

Her blue eyes blink up at him, incredulous, as if the answer is obvious.

“Partial rat body part,” she states matter of factly before walking away. 

Ezra sighs. Rats? 

When’s the last time he had a tetanus shot, anyway? Last year. When that stray dog bit him on the ass hard enough to tear through his favorite pair of Hanes. He shakes his head, setting what’s left of the rat inside the back of the squad car with the rest of the evidence. 

He doesn’t get paid enough for this shit.

***

It’s ten at night and he’s starving. He’d skipped dinner to search for more missing people and is now forced to play guard dog to a man who might be the next Jack the Ripper if the torn up bodies and eviscerated intestines tossed in trees are his doing. 

He really doesn’t get paid enough for this shit.

“Donnie?” he calls into his radio. Nothing but static. “Yo Donnie, what’s your location?” Still nothing. Ezra shakes his head at the thought of his friend too busy sucking up to the sexy medical examiner to respond. Lucky bastard.

He turns and pounds on the closed door he’s guarding. 

“Dr. Bilac? You good in there?” The guy did not look so hot when Agents Mulder and Scully were questioning him. In fact, he looked about as good as Ezra feels about this case. 

Silence.

He opens the door to an empty room. 

“Shit!”

***

Ezra rushes out to meet the voices he hears down the hall. 

“…Just don’t let yourself be so convinced of the extreme possibilities while ignoring the routine ones, Mulder.”

“Ah Scully, that’s what I've got you for.”

Man, he really does not want to tell the Feds and the museum man that Ripper Bilac is missing too. But he does, and it doesn’t go over well.

“You didn't hear anything?” Agent Scully asks, exasperated once again.

“Nothing,” Ezra insists. “I heard nothing.”

Agent Mulder swipes his fingers across something gross on the floor and blurts, “What about a rat?”

More rats? Oh, hell no! 

They all make their way over to a vent surrounded by scratch marks and spattered blood. The museum worker explains the vent leads to the sewers and Feds leave in a hurry, searching for a bleeding Bilac, or for whatever it was that dragged him off.

Ezra groans. “Man, I don’t get paid enough to deal with partial rat body parts, ancient curses, and missing bodies.”

“You? I’m just a museum night guard,” the man scoffs. “Hey, what’s that?”

“Not sure.” Ezra shines his flashlight on the orange clump sticking out of the vent. “Looks like… fur.” 

“Is that from a rat, you think?”

“You ever see an orange rat?”

“Well whatever it was, it ran through that opening fast enough to rip a chunk of—”

BANG!

“What the fu—”

“AH!” Something furry leaps from the busted out vent and clings to the back of Ezra’s uniform. His flashlight falls to the floor with a thump. “Get it off, get it off!”

“It’s a goddamn cat!” the guard hollers. 

The shorthair hisses as sharp claws slice through his skin. 

“Fuck!” Ezra reaches back and grabs the cat by the scruff of its neck, flinging the animal over his shoulder in panic. He blinks and the cat is gone. “God, I think it bit me!”

Time for another tetanus shot.

“Must be feral,” the guard huffs, as out of breath as Ezra feels. “Where’d it go?”

An ominous chorus of hissing and wailing mewls seep through the air vent. 

“Same place I’m about to be…” Ezra locks eyes with the worried guard. “The hell outta here!”

The two men race one another out of the room, leaving the flashlight illuminating the blood-tinged fur.

Because no, Ezra definitely doesn’t get paid enough for this shit. 

Chapter Text

Hsin Shuyang had never been a lucky man. Any and all moves he made would just pave the way for an opponent’s checkmate, his heads or tails flips always failed to land in his favor — it seemed that life dealt him a perpetually losing hand.

That is, until he met Mei.

He still couldn’t believe such a beautiful, kind woman fell in love with him. Shuyang was a simple man. He’d never been on the receiving end of a bow, and he did work that most people considered beneath them. For most of their relationship, Shuyang waited with bated breath for her to realize she’d made a mistake. But she never did. 

Mei married him, took his last name, and gave him a daughter. For a few years, he was foolish enough to think himself a fortunate man. After all, his daughter was the best thing he’d ever done with his life. It was impossible for him to think of his life as worthless anymore because she was part of him.

They were happy for a while, but when the political unrest became too much, he suggested they move to America. Mei was thrilled. She had always wanted to have more children, and when they got to America, they could finally give Kim a sibling. Their children would have access to resources and freedom they’d only dreamed of.

He always knew this process would be difficult, but he felt like oil that kept floating to the surface of the country’s melting pot. The Americans always spoke to him in English too fast for him to follow, their faces turning into something like pity, sometimes disdain, when he struggled to reply. When he heard laughter, he never knew what was funny but smiled anyway. After a few months here, he quickly realized they didn’t find him worth the hassle of navigating a language barrier, so he simply kept his head down and kept to himself.

But Shuyang didn’t listen to his family’s disapproval about coming to America, and he should have known he would pay the price. After all, his luck was bound to run out sooner or later. 

A year after they arrived, a month before Kim’s high school graduation, his wife died of a sudden heart attack. The next year, his daughter fell ill. 

He felt guilty. It was his family’s sickness he passed down. All his wife had wanted was a baby, and the idea of a little child with a blend of their features haunted his days more than he was proud to admit. But as he stood in her doorway, watching his precious daughter struggle to live, he cursed his own selfishness. Her mother gave her silken hair and an ineffable kindness and empathy that sometimes made him feel unworthy of being her father. He gave her a disease that threatened to shorten a life not yet lived.

Sometimes he wondered if his daughter was being punished for the sins of his past. Had he caused his family so much shame that his ancestors thought he wasn’t worthy of having any? If that was the case, would his wife be waiting in Heaven for a husband who would never join her? For a husband destined to burn for eternity because he could never quite figure out how to get a winning hand in this rigged game called life.

Other days it was too painful to imagine there was a god. He couldn’t reconcile a divine being that would cause someone as wonderful as her to live a life of pain and suffering.

He found himself sitting at her bedside often. He was too ashamed to let her look at him, but it was impossible for him to stay away from his reason for living. His kind, sweet girl. If she knew what he was doing, she would be so disappointed in him. 

Shuyang held his breath as Kim moved in her sleep, her thin pale arms drawing her thin blankets closer to her chin. It reminded him of when she was a little girl, and the knot in his throat tightened in time with his resolve.

The gods might not be listening, but the devil was waiting for him down the street, ready to play a game with all the men whose American dreams had turned into nightmares.

He closed the door to the apartment slowly, hoping he could avoid making any noise that might disturb Kim, but the back of his heel made contact with something. Looking down, he realized he’d accidentally kicked a bowl of white rice onto a small pile of brightly colored hell money.

A soft smile spread across his face at the sight. He’d been so preoccupied lately that he didn’t even realize this year’s festival was going on. Minding his aching knees, he bent down onto the welcome mat and cleaned up the offerings his daughter had so carefully laid out to keep the spirits at bay. He didn’t know if he believed in it himself, but if this made his daughter feel safe, he wanted to support her efforts. Anything for her.

The brisk evening air bit at Shuyang’s skin as he made his way out of the apartment building, and the pungent odor of sulfur lingered in the air as the festivities from the evening settled down. There was an uneasy tension looming in the streets, and he wondered if it was his dread of the impending game or the presence of ghosts walking alongside him.

He tried to ignore it as he walked across the debris of firecrackers, clutching the money in his pocket as he prayed for a little luck. Once she was healthy again, Kim was going to do so many great things. He knew gambling like this came with a lot of risks, but it would all be worth it if it meant she got a chance to live the life they’d sacrificed so much for. 

He just wanted to see her get better.

Chapter Text

He used to like his job. The paperwork was bleepin’ killer, but it came with the territory. What really got to him were the lies. The goddamn blank-holes who got their jollies out wasting police hours with false reports.

Teenagers. Bleeping teenagers who were getting frisky in their car and coming up with blankety-blank aliens so they don’t get in trouble. He could get them on indecent exposure, public lewdness… disorderly conduct. But no. They weren’t filing charges for a couple of kids knockin’ boots in a car. What they were doing was investigating a bleepin’ alien abduction.

Manners brought his coffee mug to his lips. It was empty, so he slammed it back down on the desk. He flipped through the files and notes in front of him. Lord Kinbote. Men in black. An alien smoking a cigarette. And who the blank ends up with a name like bleepin’ Dr. Fingers? Sounds like he should be doing a very different type of practice than blankety-blank hypnosis.

The phone on the desk let out a ring and Manners groaned before grabbing it from its cradle.

“Yeah!”

“Is this the Klass County Sheriff's Department?”

Manners swiped his hand over his face. He was fresh out of bleeps. “Isn’t that the number you called?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Then I guess it is,” Manners said, picking up the coffee cup again before remembering it was empty. “Whatta you want?”

“It’s an alien.”

Bleepin’ bleep, he was done with these goddamned blanking space travelers.

When he didn’t respond, the guy on the phone continued without taking a breath. “I was looking for UFOs because I heard there’s been UFOs so I went to the field where they said in the chatroom that people had seen them but there weren’t any UFOs, at least that I saw but… look. There's an alien. Right here on the ground.”

Manners rubbed his eyes as he tried to make sense of the rambling guy on the phone. He sounded young, and the last thing he needed was another bleepin’ over-excited teenage sci-fi fan.

“You sure it’s not roadkill?” Manners asked, in part because he didn’t believe it was a bleeping alien, and in part because he was in the mood to be difficult. “A deer, maybe? Raccoon?”

“A deer?” the kid asked, sounding flustered. “I know what I’m talking about. “

Was the whole bleepin’ universe on a mission to ruin his sad little blank excuse for a bleepin’ life?

“Gimme your location. And your name.”

The kid, Blaine, relayed the information and Manners scribbled it on a notepad and adjusted the phone on his ear. He picked up the mug again, upending to pour the last dribble of ice cold bleepin’ swill into his mouth and stood from his desk.

“Listen, don’t touch the… bleep… the thing, until we get there.”

All he wanted was a long-blank shower and a bleepin’ ice cold beer, but instead he had to go find those blankety-blank FBI agents so they could go look at an extraterrestrial in a goddamn field.

“I know what this is!” the bleepin’ kid practically yelled into the phone. “It’s gray with big black eyes and long fingers and… It’s a fucking alien!”

Bleep this job.

Chapter Text

The Chesapeake Lounge is bustling tonight. Men beg for her attention while their wives try stealing it back. But Carina Sayles only has eyes for one man at the bar, heartbreak weighing heavily on his broad shoulders. 

“Thanks,” she says, settling in her seat next to him. 

“For what?” He shrugs. “Ordering another drink?”

“There's a man behind me wearing a red tie. For some reason, he felt compelled to tell me half his life story. I was afraid if you got up, he might try to get in the other half.”

He smirks. “I guess some people think that you owe something, just 'cause you're out alone.”

She tilts her head, reading him. “Does it ever bother you?

“What?” he asks, and she can tell he doesn’t do this. Doesn’t drink alone in a bar, letting a stranger slowly seduce him. 

“Being alone.”

“Mm.” He looks her up and down, takes another drink. Then another. “It bothers me more than I wish it did.”

Three more glasses of whiskey drained, he says his name is Walter when he leans in and boldly places a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Sorry,” he whispers immediately. “That was… impulsive.”

Carina runs her fingers along his rough cheek. “But being impulsive can be a good thing , Walter. I keep a room upstairs. If you want to be impulsive in it together…?”

His eyes widen behind his rounded glasses and she thinks he’ll say no. That he will deny her the chance to change his night.

But then it happens: he smiles with a sultry uptick of his lips. In turn, she flirts with the pressure of her palm along his thigh. Then he touches her wrist, her arm, her hip. Carina smiles right back. 

She gives Sal — the bartender and part-time employee of her escort agency the signal that her date is interested in a transaction separate from his drink tab. She rubs a hand across Walter’s muscular shoulders and nods once at Sal. Sal nods back and swipes Walter’s Visa with a wink.

Walter never balks at his seemingly outrageous tab. Only looks her in the eye as he signs his name on the receipt and follows dutifully to her room.

“So uh, how do you want to do this?” he asks as they remove their shoes and jackets. 

“Preferably naked,” she teases, placing her hands on his shoulders and tiptoeing to reach his ear. “But I don’t need to tell a man like you how to touch a woman, do I?”

Some men like that, but Walter’s whole head blushes. In that moment she sees he’s in uncharted territory. Her heart swells with endearment. If he thinks this is real, that she isn’t here to do her job, make him come and move on, then she can play that part for him a little longer. 

“I want you, Walter. Let me make you feel good.”

“O-okay.” His voice is breathy and the bulge in his slacks is thick. “I want you, too.”

She smiles as she unbuckles his belt and very slowly sinks to her knees, dragging his underwear down with her. She’s good at this; very good. It’s her job to be this good, after all. But her sinful little secret, the one she’d never let slip through her glossy red lips, is that she loves doing it. Turns out getting fired for moonlighting as an escort is the best thing to happen to Carina in a long time. Getting paid to read desperate men’s lonely minds, revving them up, riding their cocks… all of it gives her a rush of power she’d never felt as a secretary. 

Carina rarely does this . Only for established clientele does she dare give oral, but she really, truly likes Walter. His shaft fills her mouth and his large hand smoothes her hair as she swallows the crown of his cock. He’s encouraging as she sucks, praising her efforts. 

“Jesus,” he grunts. She hums, popping him out of her mouth, watching him fight the urge to toss her on the bed and fuck her senseless. The thought thrills her. She swiftly stands, tugging at his shirt, then her own. His eyes flash with unabashed desire before his strong hands steadily strip her bare.

They frantically tumble into bed, mouths colliding. A condom wrapper is tossed to the floor, and the hot, flared head of him slips inside her in one smooth move. 

“Let go, Walter.” Carina wraps her legs around his thighs, pulls his hips flush with her own with a press of her heels. “Just let go.”

And he does. A fresh rush of lust surges between them when the warm hulk of him splays over her breasts. He starts thrusting into her, her nails scraping his back, his tongue swirling around hers. They don’t speak; only fuck and kiss. 

And God, he is a great kisser. 

Her thighs squeeze his waist as they roll as one, her on top, mouths devouring the other. He moans when their bodies bounce along the bed while the wood creaks against the onslaught of his hips pounding up to meet hers. She tosses her head back, eyes rolling shut as pure pleasure warms her from the inside out. 

Just as Carina’s orgasm rises and Walter shudders beneath her, a feminine voice thick with malice hisses, “he’s mine” in her ear. Suddenly, Carina can’t breathe. High-pitched wailing rings her ears. It feels like something foreign and ice-cold physically invades her body. 

Walter jerks himself free from under her before she can scream. Before Carina can even open her mouth to say what the fuck, two wrinkled hands mimicking her own reach up to frame her face and painfully twists her head until bones crack. 

And everything goes black. 

Chapter Text

She was leaving him, just like his last mommy.

There was a ringing noise followed by all the lights turning on as she ran around their home. His heart started pounding in his chest as she began grabbing all the stuff that she’d marked with her scent: her clothes, the brush with her fur, and even her shoes! What was he supposed to chew on now?!

“Don’t go!” he pled, trying to get her attention by walking in between her feet.

“Queequeg, no barking,” she chastised softly.

With a whine, he stepped back, bowing his head to the floor. He didn’t like being alone. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong. He never saw Mrs. Lowe again after he hurt her, but he’d been trying so hard to be a good boy for Scully.

He was just about to start begging again when she took his favorite toy and put it in the bag next to her favorite toy, perking him up immediately. “We’re going to go for a ride in the car, Queequeg,” she explained.

“Car!” he exclaimed, standing up so he could put his paws on her legs.

“Yep,” she nodded. “My friend Mulder is going to come get us. Remember him?”

His tail began to wag harder, almost knocking him off balance from the force. He loved Mulder! When Mulder came to visit or when he called, Scully was always so happy. If she had a tail, he knew it would be wagging too.

Mulder wouldn’t pet him if Scully was watching. He must be shy. When he was alone, Mulder would scratch his ears and rub his tummy and say how lucky Queequeg was. He was lucky! She always let him sit by her, even if she was in bed, and she always pet him and kissed him. Queequeg was loved.

* * *

“Scully… Do you really think bringing him is a good idea?” Mulder asked.

“Don’t start, Mulder,” she replied, using the same tone she used when something was in his mouth that shouldn’t have been. The command had a similar effect on Mulder as he raised his hands in surrender.

“I’ll be good!” Queequeg told him while pacing excitedly at Mulder’s feet. Scully sighed and walked back towards her room, leaving them alone at the front door.

“At least one of you is happy to see me,” Mulder grumbled, leaning down to scratch behind Queequeg’s ears.

If Scully was his mom, did that mean Mulder was his dad? Queequeg never had a dad before. When he was called Scout, Mrs. Lowe never had a Mulder. She had Bald Guy, but Bald Guy didn’t look at her like Mulder looked at Scully. Mulder looked at her like he wanted to sit in her lap and lick her face, and sometimes Scully looked at him the same way. It was weird they didn’t just groom each other.

* * *

Wow! This was the best day of Queequeg’s life! He got to spend all day with his favorite people. During his walk with Scully, he even found the thing Mulder had been whining about!

All day, he kept talking about “Big Blue.” Luckily for him, blue was one of the only colors Queequeg could see. And see he did. Right when he was about to take a poo, he noticed a big, blue animal crouching in the woods.

“Look! It’s Big Blue!” he yelled, lurching forward while ignoring the leash tugging on his neck.

“Come on, Queequeg,” she replied. 

She wasn’t taking him seriously, so he tried again. “It’s Mulder’s friend!”

“Queequeg, we're not going to go into the woods. Come on, do your business. I thought you had to go.” 

He kept pulling on the leash, begging her to come with him. Mulder would be so proud of him! “Queequeg! What is it?” she exclaimed, reluctantly following him.

She must’ve been scared, but she shouldn’t be. He was here to protect her. Big Blue bared his teeth at the pair, and Queequeg felt his tail stand straight up. With a surge of anger, he rushed towards the creature, breaking free of his leash. “Don’t look at her like that!” Queequeg yelled.

He heard her yelling at him, but Queequeg was on a mission. He had to defend his family.

* * *

He didn’t know when the man in the black robe picked him up, but he was relieved. For a second there, Queequeg thought he was about to be eaten! It’s amazing how much bigger the creature looked up close.

“Where am I?” he barked, looking around.

“Home,” the man said, his face obscured by the clothes he was wearing.

Queequeg whimpered and bowed his head in shame. He knew Scully didn’t like him wandering away from her. He’d scared her, and now he didn’t know how to find her again. She was going to be so mad at him.

“Scully thinks you’re a good boy,” the man in black said. Queequeg felt his heart thump excitedly in his chest. “You were always such a good boy.”

The man set him down, but when Queequeg tried to follow him, he tsked, adjusting his grip on the large scythe he was holding. “There’s someone here who’s been wanting to see you.”

Queequeg cocked his head to the side before he caught a whiff of a familiar scent. Then, a voice from far behind him called out his name, “Scout!”

His old Mom!! His legs couldn’t run fast enough, he kept tripping over his feet from the force of his tail wagging so hard.

“I missed you so much,” Mrs. Lowe beamed, holding him close to her chest while he licked the water off her face. “I’m so sorry I left you alone.”

He knows he did much worse to her, but he can tell by the way she’s kissing him that she forgives him. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to leave him after all. 

This really was the best day of his life.

Chapter Text

This wasn’t what was supposed to happen.

Dr. Stroman – well, ‘Doctor’ Stroman, since he hadn’t had an actual license in years – thought everything was going so well. The tests were proving effective; they’d slid under everyone’s radar. Even the boss had been impressed.

That was all before Agents Mulder and Scully caught wind of the case.

Stroman cursed at the windshield as he drove furiously back to the local motel, pissed at himself, mostly, for letting this happen. 

Who had told them? Someone must have known. Someone on the inside. 

But who?

There weren’t many things he knew about the boss, but one of them was that these two particular agents had been the proverbial thorn in his side for years. Even allowing them a whiff of what was going on meant systematic denial and swift cleanup were sure to follow. 

And he would be angry. Very, very angry.

Damn. They’d been so close to a breakthrough. The applications for the technology they’d been testing were staggering. Powerful. Terrifying, but in the best way. 

And now, surely, they would have to shut it all down.

The boss wasn’t easy to find; in fact, Stroman didn’t even know how to contact him. No one contacted the boss… they only waited for him to contact them. He could only hope he could get a message to him quickly through other means. However, as he parked in the lot and hurried to his motel room, throwing the door open, he realized he needn’t have been concerned.

The man was already here, sitting at the table in the kitchenette. All of the lights were off, leaving him surrounded by shadow, only the hazy cloud of smoke identifying him. Another town, another test, another shitty motel room… but always the same boss.

Stroman closed the door, glancing surreptitiously out the window to make sure he hadn’t been followed. It had become second nature to be paranoid.

“I take it you’ve heard,” Stroman said simply.

The boss just sat there silently. Stroman never knew if the man was thinking about his next move or simply demonstrating his best intimidation tactic. Maybe it was both. Finally, he spoke.

“I have.”

“Who was it? Who put them onto it?”

“I have my theories,” the boss said, putting the cigarette to his lips. “It will be handled. In due course.”

Stroman shook his head. “What do we do?”

A car door slammed outside in the parking lot, startling Stroman. He stepped over to the window, peeking between slivers of curtain to see the agents themselves walking to their own rooms, carrying armloads of video tapes. Agent Mulder attempted to lighten Agent Scully’s load, but she refused, and they briskly walked to their rooms and disappeared inside.

The boss exhaled a long plume. “Fortunately, as you can see, the problem might very well take care of itself.”

Stroman eyed him. “Do you mean…”

“I mean that perhaps Agent Mulder will once again fall victim to the very case he’s investigating.”

Stroman nodded, impressed. A chilling solution, sure, but effective. 

“Okay. And if he doesn’t?”

“Regardless, we’ll need to pull back on the experiments. For now. And make sure you secure one of those tapes from Agent Mulder’s room.”

“What do you need it for?”

The boss let out a final exhale and stubbed his Morley out in the ashtray. “Evidence.”

Stroman nodded. “Yes, sir.” 

The man stood. “You’ve done good work, Stroman. Rest assured it hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The boss approached, placing a hand on Stroman’s shoulder reassuringly. “I’ll be back tonight after dark to retrieve the cassette. After you’ve completed your tasks, we’ll meet tomorrow evening at the rendezvous point.” 

There was something deathly and final in his glare, but Stroman wasn’t aware of how final until nearly twenty four hours later. 

There was no time for negotiations, for pleas. The man suddenly appeared, like a phantom: tall, dark, hidden in shadow, a gun pointed directly at him. A cipher. Stroman didn’t even have time to determine how good of a shot he was.

He’d only turned his back for a moment. This couldn’t be real, could it?

“Who are you?” he asked.

Bang! Bang!

Stroman fell to the ground, throwing a panicked glance in the direction of the stairs, where the man had been. But he was gone. 

Was this real? Was any of it real?

The life seeped out of him faster than he could make sense of any of it. But one thing was certain.

This wasn’t what was supposed to happen.

Chapter Text

Teena Mulder enters the family summer house she’s sworn to never set foot in again. The scent of musty pine and decades-old furniture is as familiar as it is unsettling. Quonochautaug contains memories of betrayal she has spent far too long trying to forget.

February, 1961

“We can’t,” she husks into his neck as dinner cooks on the stove behind her. Her husband, none the wiser.

“Oh, my dear, we definitely can.”

Apron tossed to the floor and her button down blouse agape, she sighs. “You know I dislike you calling me that.”

“But you are dear to me, Teena.”

Her breath catches.

“This has to stop, Carl. Bill, he… he wants a family.”

Frowning, his tight hold around her hips loosens and his gray-green eyes stare out the window at the rolling Rhode Island tide. “I suppose it's true what they say,” he mumbles. “Everything changes but the sea.” 

Her eyes fall shut as she bends to his will one final time, sliding her palms up his chest, and giving the collar of his shirt a sharp tug. “Not everything,” she breathes.

Carl grins…

Nine months later, Fox William Mulder had come into the world, and Teena’s husband never looked at her quite the same way again. 

The floor creaks beneath her as she scans the plastic-covered rooms, searching. “We need to speak,” Carl had summoned over the phone. “Meet me at the place where it all started.” At first, she scoffed and said she had no desire to see him. But then… then he told her he’d speak to Fox instead, if she’d prefer. So, as coldly as possible, Teena agreed.

The stale scent of cigarettes assaults her as she walks out back.

“It struck me as I was sitting here,” Carl Spender says, still managing to startle her with his presence.

“What?” He looks the same. Still a cunning chain-smoker with ulterior motives and bad ties. It angers her that she was ever enthralled by the allure of him. 

“Everything changes but the sea.”

She nearly cringes at his reference to their intimacy. “What do you want from me?” 

“I thought we might at least allow ourselves to reminisce.”

Reminiscing is the last thing she plans to do. 

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“Really? We used to have so much to say to each other, so many good times at the Mulder's summer place.” He smiles that familiar sly smirk. Her stomach churns. “I remember water-skiing down there with Bill. He was a good water-skier, your husband. Not as good as I was but then that could be said about so many things… couldn't it?”

He’s prodding her. Egging her on, manipulating the conversation so he has the upper hand. Just like always, the bastard.

“I've repressed it all,” she lies.

“Well, I find that hard to believe, particularly since I came here today to ask you to remember something.” Fear grips her. “Something I'm going to have to ask you to try very hard to recollect. I’m looking for a small, silver cylinder Bill was known to have possession of. An artifact that could fit in the palm of your hand.” 

Teena shakes her head. Instantly, she knows exactly what he wants. 

Bill had warned her when he’d hidden it within the lamp all those years ago. He’d warned about its importance to his work, about its danger. About how one day, someone who knows of its significance would come looking for it. Someone whom she should never trust. If only Bill had known back then that the untrustworthy person he was referring to would sleep with his wife and father his son. 

She’s sickened with herself at the miasmic hole of secrets she’s inadvertently helped dig for decades. Yes, she holds a lifetime of regrets, but it seems her children have been paying the price for every single one of them.

“It’s important you remember, my dear,” Carl pushes. “For the good of the work.”

“The work,” she snaps, eyes ablaze with repressed rage. “I’m so sick of the work! Sick of the secrets and lies and pain it’s caused. And I’m sick of you most of all!”

“Calm down, Teena!” He glances across the wooded backyard for anyone watching. There’s no one there. Like no one was there thirty-six years ago when he’d hiked up her skirt under the low-hanging tree and made her forget all about the ring on her finger. “You will tell me.”

“I will not! You don’t tell me what to do anymore,” she yells as they pace the yard, her adrenaline rushing. She’d cared for him long ago, but that changed the moment her baby girl disappeared and he didn’t do a goddamn thing to stop it. “I don’t know anything!”

“I think you do!” His hand not cradling his precious cigarette reaches out to grab her arm. “It’s imperative you tell me where it is.”

“How dare you,” she sneers, yanking her arm free. “Go to Hell, Carl!”

After years of internally beating herself black and blue for her mistakes, she has finally accepted that not all her maternal failures are all her fault. Nefarious motives shrouded in half-truths and cover-ups by the men in her life have shaped her to fit a convenient, cowardice mold. To stay silent. To forget. 

And this son of a bitch wants her to remember now?   

She re-enters the house and rounds on him, seething. “Get. Out. Now!”

Reluctantly, he does as she says, but the plume of smoke he leaves behind makes her dizzy. 

Her head throbs intensely and vision blurs as the left side of her body suddenly numbs. Teena reaches out desperately toward the lamp that holds at least one secret she can out for the greater good, but she’s too weak. She collapses onto the dusty hardwood floor, her long limbs crumpling under her like tissue.

Lamp, she thinks, but the word that weakly leaves her lips before darkness claims her is “ Fox...”

Chapter Text

Through the dull roar of blood rushing to his ears, he can hear everything. The residents of Hegal Place are unwinding, kids are arguing with their parents about wanting to stay up later, the opening music to a show he never got to watch is playing through old speakers, couples in love are discussing their plans for the days ahead of them.

His knee slips in his own blood as he struggles to pull himself to the end of the hallway and he falls forward, his chin hitting the surface in front of him as his body throbs from the force. The smooth leather of his gloves makes it hard for him to find enough purchase on the floorboards to push himself forward. It’s starting to become hard to know what direction he’s facing, where he was trying to go in the first place.

He’d become the very thing he’d always admonished. There was no such thing as playing against these people; by the time you realized what game was being played, you’d already lost.

He might not have been there when they’d disposed of Ronald Pakula, but he’d taken out enough whistleblowers to know what would happen to himself in the next couple of hours. His body would go cold in Fox Mulder’s hallway, scaring the shit out of one of his hapless neighbors, then the syndicate would intercept the 911 call, and some men dressed as paramedics would take his body before driving off in an unmarked vehicle. The only reason that grey-haired bastard didn’t take his body immediately was to send a message to Mulder, but they’d be back. 

If he’s lucky, maybe they’d bury a dummy in a plot with the name his father gave him etched into the marble. Realistically, he would be thrown in a pit with the bodies of other people who were stupid enough to think they could go against men who thought themselves gods. 

No one would remember him, and if they did, they would struggle to remember a name they were never told. The memory of his existence would remain occluded by the shadows he lived in.

Someone once told me-

There was a man-

A friend in the FBI -

Somewhere along the way he’d lost himself, and these men would make sure there would be nothing left of him to be found.

The bitter taste of copper feels sharp on his tongue. A bead of sweat trails down his face, falling into the corner of his eye before sliding down his cheek in place of the tears he refuses to shed. He swallows. The corners of his vision are blurring, but Mulder’s door frame is crystal clear.

Being a part of this world meant making sacrifices. It was foolish to expect to gain something without giving something in return. Fox Mulder couldn’t get that through his thick skull. His loyalty to Agent Scully was an Achilles heel on his favored leg.

Give or take a few months and she’ll be dead; they said the tumor was likely the size of a golf ball by now. There was a betting pool on when she’d get her first nosebleed.

He could tell she didn’t even know she was dying. His wife hadn’t either, but then again, a bullet to the back of the head was a lot less noticeable than a cancerous growth, even if it was the same hand pulling the trigger.

Mulder would have to learn to live with it, just like he did.

His blood was seeping into the wood, staining the areas where the varnish had worn thin. It would be polished over, maybe replaced with tile by morning.

It wasn’t how he imagined his last act. His hair wasn’t gray, the lines on his face weren’t deep enough. His golden pond was empty and his swan song was out of tune. Unlike all those bastards, he didn’t have any children to live on in his memory — so he would just have to use one of theirs.

Dragging himself over the threshold of Mulder’s door frame felt like nails digging into his flesh. His hands shook as he raised his arm and struggled against the weight of this moment.

The old man didn’t get to choose his successor, but he would.

Their conversations hadn’t extended beyond the lies and half-truths they were trained to expound, but he was proficient in reading between the lines. Beyond the prim pantsuits and coiffed platinum hair was a woman who knew the men in charge were no better than children playing with matches.

She’ll know what to do.

S R S G

Chapter Text

He hangs up the phone, a weary sigh rattling his bones. It’s practically ingrained, this comfort he’s nursed for decades, this habitual safety he’s become so accustomed to. As the contents of Paster’s phone call linger in his ears, he can feel it: that security slipping through his grasp like silt through soil.

“You’re not gonna believe this one, Sheriff.”

The deputy had been the only one on duty when the report of the dead infant came in, a chilling call from the panicked mother of one of the local boys. “Just out there playin’ ball,'' she'd said, “without a care in the world.” The way it’s supposed to be.

The way it should have stayed.

Sheriff Andy Taylor slides open his desk drawer and appraises its contents: a single, metal box he’s never had to open. Not like this. He hasn’t seen it in years, but he knows exactly what lies within: an old revolver, the one his father gave him back before he retired. A six-shooter, he used to call it; fit for an old Western.

For protection, his father had said, as he pressed the unfamiliar cold metal into Taylor’s warm hand. To keep your family safe.

To keep your home safe.

He shuts the drawer. He isn’t ready for this reality, not now. Not yet.

Later, after he’s watched the excavation, Agents Mulder and Scully arrive from Washington. Taylor explains he’s recruited them for their particular expertise on the matter, but the truth is, he just doesn’t want to face any of this: doesn’t want to scrutinize what it means for his town. Doesn’t want to look it straight in the eyes. Doing so would mean the death of his home. 

After the agents’ examination, he places the tiny victim back into the refrigerator himself, this foul transgression, this abhorrent sin. Just sitting there next to the pickles and Spam. A memory stirs of his father: he used to eat Spam. He can still remember countless hot summer days when, as a child, he’d run down to the station to catch him on his lunch break. Dad and his Spam. Guess it runs in the family.

“Sheriff Taylor, I’m going to have to order DNA typing from the Bureau lab,” Agent Scully says as she removes her rubber gloves, surreptitiously looking around, presumably for some proper disposal bin, some protocol to follow. But there is no protocol for this. She settles on the office wastebasket.

“If you think it’s necessary,” he replies. Of course, it’s necessary. But he just wants all of this to be done and over with.

“I do,” she says firmly. “As much as you’d like to write this off as a simple burial, I’m afraid that isn’t the case.”

“That so?” he asks gently. 

“The evidence suggests the child was alive when it was buried. This will be ruled a homicide.”

Sheriff Taylor can feel his heart drop into his stomach, every word a punch to the gut. All of it only further demonstrates his worst fear: that everything around here will have to change.

Agent Mulder says nothing, merely stares at the closed door of the fridge as if it were Pandora’s Box; when opened, there would be no limit to the evil it let out into the world. 

“I know you’re not going to want to hear this, but I think the next step should be to question the Peacocks,” Agent Scully continues. He can see in her eyes that she is convinced they are involved; she’s seen it all before, he surmises. She’s seen things he doesn’t even want to imagine.

Taylor takes a deep breath and nods. What’s right is right. He’s been looking at this case with emotion, not pragmatism. Dad would have said the same, if he’d ever had to deal with something like this.

“I can take you out there,” Barney pipes up. He, perhaps unconsciously, places his hand on his weapon. The action reeks of raw truth: everyone is, on some level, wary of the Peacocks, but particularly the young kids like Barney. They'd grown up fearful of the unknown, kept in the dark about the true nature of that family. Like modern-day Boo Radleys.

“That won’t be necessary,” Agent Scully says.

Agent Mulder still says nothing, his face drawn into a pensive, mournful expression, locked onto the fridge. 

“And you’re sure this isn’t some outsider?” Taylor has to try one more time. “A vagrant, maybe someone passing through?”

“No, I’m not sure, but we can’t know until we get some more information, Sheriff.” Agent Scully forces a smile. She’s indulging his willful ignorance, treating him with kid gloves. Part of him hates it, but his own behavior certainly hasn’t done anything to dispel the notion that he’s simply not cut out for this.

“Well all right,” he concedes. “You know where to find me.” The agents depart, taking with them the last vestige of innocence.

Later that evening, before bed, Sheriff Taylor sits on his porch, in the quiet calm of his abode, watching the stars. The light flips on and Barbara pokes her head out.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Taking one good last look around before it all changes,” he says. He hopes she can’t hear the hitch in his throat.

“Come to bed, honey,” she says. “It will still be here in the morning.” Her gentle voice feels safe. It feels like home. 

They go back inside, the faint songs of crickets subsiding but still audible through the open windows of the house. As his wife begins to ascend the stairs, he glances towards his study, towards the desk, towards the place where he knows that gun lives.

For protection. To keep your family safe.

His family is safe. They will be. They have to be. 

All of us, he thinks, as Barbara’s hand moves protectively across her stomach.

He doesn’t get the gun. 

Chapter Text

He was a puzzle solver. He had been ever since he was a child. That’s how he spent his days– eyes glued to a microscope or a computer screen, finding patterns, making connections. At home he watched Wheel of Fortune, figuring out the words before the contestants had even had a chance to buy a vowel. It was what he was good at, piecing together the details and clues to answer life’s questions.

At the FBI, Sean mostly studied blood samples, prints from work boots left at crime scenes, and broken tech that may be significant to an investigation, but sometimes… sometimes he got to do something really fun. Agent Mulder—and Agent Scully— never failed to add excitement to his days.

There were so many computer programs and devices in the lab that went unused. Day in and day out, the team ran DNA samples, looked at strands of hair or pieces of fiber. But with his favorite agents, Sean got to play.

There was that one time he was able to reconstruct facial structures from an airbag deployment. He’d heard of things like that in peer-reviewed studies, but he never dreamed that he would get to it himself.

And the research! With them, it was never something simple. It was a computer chip so fragile he could barely study it. It was a complex string of numbers and letters tracking a smallpox vaccination program for reasons he couldn’t even begin to fathom.

This was what he went to school for.

Of course there were other perks to working on X-File cases. There were the perks of a petite stature, heels on the tile, and amazing red hair. A strong voice and a kind nature. Bright blue eyes and the hint of vanilla that filled the air when she visited the lab.

Sean doubted Agent Scully saw him as anything more than the scientist who ran the tests she requested, but she made him feel seen. With her, he wasn’t an oddball kid who memorized the periodic table during his summer break. When she came to see him, he felt like he’d found a peer, an ally in the field that he loved.

Today, it had been Agent Mulder who’d brought samples to the lab, but Sean knew, often to his chagrin, that he and Agent Scully were never far apart. And she was usually the one who came to pick up the reports.

As he worked, Sean imagined himself asking Agent Scully to dinner. It would be casual, something that came up organically as they discussed his findings. It didn’t need to be fancy, maybe just the bar down the street, but she would agree with a smile.

His heart raced, imagining the way he would ask her, how his voice would be confident and she would look relieved that he finally asked. He was so wrapped up in his own mind that he almost missed the small seed in the sample he’d been given. He’d logged asbestos, pollen, soil, and other unremarkable substances, but this one jumped out at him.

His heart began to race for an entirely different reason. The thrill of the chase.

“What are you?” he mumbled under his breath as he placed the pointed seed on a slide. One look and he knew he’d found it. What it was, he wasn’t sure, but he knew it was what his favorite agents were looking for.

Two hours of evaluations, tests, computer searches, and finally a phone call to a botanist at UVN, and he was ready to give his findings to Agent Scully. He’d called their office when he’d completed his research, as was his typical course of action, and then he waited. He tried to focus on the bullet fragments lodged in tree bark that had been brought in earlier in the day, but he was only going through the motions.

12-gauge shotgun. Buck shot. Quercus velutina, common in forests across Virginia. No sign of blood. Probably a hunter.

He waited, looking to the hall, hoping to catch a glimpse of her hair. He was grateful that everyone else in the lab was buried in their work so they wouldn’t notice.

Just when he thought maybe he wouldn’t hear from them until the next day, Agent Mulder called to say he was on his way. Sean jumped from his chair, moving to the door so he would have a clear view down the hall to the elevators. If anyone asked, he would just tell them he needed to stretch his back out after being hunched over for too long.

As it turned out, no one asked, not even Agent Mulder, who walked towards him not five minutes later.

“Agent Pendrell,” he said. “Thanks for turning this materials analysis around on such short notice.”

Agent Mulder patted his shoulder as he walked through the door into the lab. He was alone, no partner in sight.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Agent Scully?” Sean asked, hoping he sounded cool and nonchalant. “Just so I won’t have to repeat myself.”

“She’s not coming.”

Sean froze in his spot. “Why not?”

“She had a date.”

Deflated. He was absolutely deflated and he didn’t care if Agent Mulder knew it. He lumbered forward into the room, the weight of the blow pushing him down.

“Breathe, Agent Pendrell. It’s with a dead man,” the other agent said, his hand finding Sean’s shoulders in comfort. “She’s doing an autopsy.”

Sean huffed a laugh, momentarily embarrassed until Agent Mulder got them back on track. “You said you found something?”

He had found something, and even though it wasn’t Agent Scully who’d come to get his findings, he was proud of his work.

And who knew. Maybe next time, it would be Agent Scully who came to the lab. And maybe next time would be the time he asked her out on that date.

Chapter Text

The night he lost his sister was the first time he felt the howlers. When he opened the bathroom door and saw her seizing in the tub, he felt their hands grip his throat. In his rush to get to her, he tripped over the power cord that was running across the floor and over the lip of the tub. He tried to catch himself against the porcelain, but it caused some of the water to slosh onto his skin. The water burned and he felt a stabbing sensation behind his eyes. That’s when they entered his body, causing him to fly back as the black, smoky howlers danced around him in a thick, suffocating plume — that’s when they started taunting him.

You should have saved her.

His father said she was a Jezebel with a guilty conscience.

His Freud-loving doctors said suicide was common after paternal sexual abuse.

His howlers said it was all his fault.

The howlers never slurred their words and he never needed an appointment to hear what they had to say.

***

Sometimes it felt like he spent every day resisting their efforts to drag him to hell. He knows other people can hear them… can see them. His skin stung from their claws digging into his flesh. He can’t shake them no matter what he does. Maybe they’re a part of him by now, maybe they always were.

After all, if it was really just “schizophrenia” then why did his father have them too?

“ I don’t know why I do the things I do, Gerry.”

“She looked so pretty… just like her mama used to.”

“Something inside me just snapped. I had to show her what her life of sin would lead her to. If she wanted to act like a woman, I needed to treat her like one.”

He usually only talked about his howlers after a few drinks, but Gerry could see the regret in his eyes. Howlers could be very persuasive, especially when it was impossible to drown out their voices.

Gerry knew the howlers were why his father would go into her room every night. He knew that was the only reason why a father would lust after their daughter, why a man would seek release in a child.

You can save him .

He raped her.

He liked it.

Avenge her.

It was the howlers that told him where to find the axe.

***

When he was in the institution, his roommate told him all about Rosemary Kennedy. An icepick to the corner of her eyes, and she became a new person. She went from troubled to happy in a moment. That’s what he wanted.

Gerry thinks that if he could just forget those memories, his life would be better. He loved his sister, not as much as Father did, but he got sad every time he thought of her. He just wanted to savor the happy memories of her singing around the house with her nightgown trailing behind her.

But he couldn’t forget. He was plagued with unrest. It wasn’t until he saw that first troubled young woman that he realized if he couldn’t save his sister, he could save other women who were suffering. 

He wished he had thought of the twilight sleep before the first one, maybe then she wouldn’t have been so scared. When the metal of his tool caught on the skin of her bottom eyelid while he pulled the rod out, she let out a guttural groan that sounded like a strangled scream.

“Wie fühlen Sie sich?”

Her attention locked onto him, but all the earlier fear was replaced with something that looked like contentment. Her mouth opened and closed like she was going to say something but forgot what it was before she could find the words.

Trying again, he asked: “How do you feel?”

“Adjuh-juh,” she slurred, glassy eyes looking around the room.

He waited, allowing her a moment to collect her thoughts. When she blinked, it looked like a strained effort, but she didn’t seem bothered, even as the movement caused little rivulets of blood to trail down her cheeks and onto the fabric of her nightgown. Her head lolled onto her shoulder, and the suddenness of it made her lips quirk into a small smile.

You saved her.

“Für Sie wird es keine Unruhe mehr geben,” he reassured.

She looked up at him, blinking slowly. “U-un-ru-”

***

His face twitched and he closed his eyes shut until the howlers faded against his eyelids, floating into a familiar face before laughing at him.

They’d been getting louder. He spent so much time trying to forget, but this FBI woman and her partner were only egging the howlers on. 

“Gerry, help!”

“Daddy, stop!”

“It’ll only hurt for a second, baby.”

The taste of iron in his mouth made him cringe as he soothed the bite mark on his inner lip with his tongue. He had to do this. He needed to save enough women to make up for all the times he pretended he couldn’t hear what was happening on the other side of the wall.

Gerry knew she needed his help the moment they met. There was a howler inside of her head — a black mass invading her body and mind.

“Aufhören! Ich habe keine Unruhe. Ich habe keine Unruhe. Ich brauche nicht gerettet zu werden,” the woman pled.

She doesn’t know.

“Yes you do. Everybody does, but especially you,” he stated firmly.

Ihre Unruhe bringt sie um.

Sie liegt im Sterben.

For the other women, he always feared he might make a mistake and end up hurting them, but she was different. Not because she had his sister’s eyes or because she could speak in his father’s tongue, but because he’d never seen such malignant, cruel howlers. She may not be able to hear them, but she was being consumed from the inside out. He needed to help her before it was too late.

Chapter Text

It was different when she first came to the temple. Vernon was different. The things he’d promised, with his beautiful words and visions and a faith so strong it made her feel safe. It made her feel seen.

That was almost a year ago. Melissa hadn’t seen her family since then, hadn’t heard from her mother, her brother, or her nieces. She missed them, Lily especially. She’d always been Lily’s favorite aunt. But whenever the memories surfaced in front of Vernon, she’d been chastised, reminded of her duties to God. This was her new family. 

Melissa looked forward to serving, to giving whatever was asked of her. She was penitent, she was pious. She was here because she’d been called. Vernon had called her to the Temple of the Seven Stars, to perform her sacred duty and become his sixth wife. She would bear his fruit and replenish the Earth when the end times came, and she would be glad of it.

Vernon was a leader, a king, a prophet. Over the course of that year she’d done nothing but listen and learn. The Lord shall preserve you from all evil. He will preserve your soul. The Lord will preserve your going out... and your coming in. Melissa struggled with the idea of reincarnation, but dared not show it. And as it turned out, a broken link in the chain of her faith led to more broken links.

When she first saw Vernon hurt a child, the chain shattered.

That was when the voices showed up. First it was Sidney. She could hear him in her head, wanting to protect her. Kind of like her dead father, at least what she could remember of him. Whenever she was able to remember. Her head was so full of prophecy and prayer that sometimes she felt like her old family —her old life— had been cast out like demons.

She didn’t know where Sidney came from, but he tended to show up whenever something didn’t feel right at the temple. Wherever she saw something she probably shouldn’t have— and while she did see things, a couple things, she desperately wanted not to believe it.

It could have been anything, right?

Sidney convinced her to make the call. He’d made a compelling argument. The Lord was supposed to preserve his flock from evil, but Vernon was wrong. He had to be. What was the abuse of a child, if not the very essence of evil?

Melissa sat in the interrogation room, waiting for the FBI to question her again. The male agent was so tall and handsome, like Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind . The memories surfaced once more; she used to watch that movie with her mother over and over and she remembered what it felt like to dream of such a thing… a true love, a lost love. Watching Vernon with five other women hadn’t turned out to be as easy as she’d hoped. But there was a calming, soothing energy around the FBI agent. She felt safe again. 

The tape played an unfamiliar voice, her voice, but not really her voice. It sounded more like Scarlett O’Hara. 

It is so heartbreaking to wait. I miss you.

Her emotion was so real, so palpable. But what should she believe? The temple had rendered her so numb, it was difficult to reconcile.

“I don’t believe it,” she said. “It’s a nice idea, a beautiful idea. I want to believe.”

At this, the FBI agent lifted his head, his puppy dog eyes mournful and sincere.

“...And if I knew it were true, I’d want to start over. I’d want to end this pointless life.”

He looked so sad, so affected; like he really cared about her. It had been a long, long time since Melissa felt like anyone cared about her.

 “Sarah…” he said. He kept calling her Sarah, like that was her real self, her true self. 

She wanted to believe.

“...If it were true, no life would be pointless.” 

He handed her the old Civil War photograph, the one that symbolized a life with meaning. A life with love. Maybe he was right. But Vernon arrived to take her away, and she tore it in half. It didn’t matter what the FBI agent said. She would still be taken away. She belonged to Vernon in the eyes of God. There was no escape, even if she wanted it.

***

She wasn’t strong enough to save them. Even if her faith had wavered, theirs had not. They all eagerly sipped from the cup as if it were Christ’s own blood, then laid upon the floor, waiting for death. Waiting for a new life.

They’d all looked so certain. She was not. Sidney told her not to do it, to be strong. Lily cried. And Sarah... 

Sarah…

Vernon watched her curiously from the corner of the temple. As soon as he looked away, she dumped the foul liquid on the floor, watched it disappear between two wooden planks. There was a knothole on one of them that she recalled. That’s where Andrew was pushed down and beaten, Sidney reminded her.

Melissa laid down and closed her eyes, feigning death, and waited. She waited for the quiet.

***

It felt like hours had passed but eventually the room was still. She sat up slowly, expecting to find the way out she’d been seeking. But it was not to be; Vernon stood behind her, waiting. As if he knew.

Behold, I am alive evermore.

Then she knew, too, that there was a way out. It just wasn’t the one she’d expected. So she took the proffered escape and held it to her lips.

Maybe her next life would be better. 

Melissa drank. Then she looked out the window to the field, to a place where she’d been loved. 

A place where she’d been free.

Chapter Text

Theresa had always liked Jack. He’d been a great get for the practice. As hospital coordinator, it was her job to help fill the need for new doctors, new perspectives, and groundbreaking medicine to keep their funding healthy. Jack’s training, his resume, his recommendations— they had all been so favorable.

Dr. Jack Franklin was smart, charming, led the staff with his simple way of talking and his clear focus on what needed to be done. His patients had never complained and his work was impeccable. Never in her life had Theresa seen such perfectly placed sutures.

She’d been involved in his hiring. She’d fought to add him to their team when one of the board members had expressed some misgivings. She’d convinced her that what she’d noticed, the strong presence that filled the room when Jack was around, was just an abundance of confidence.

And that's what they wanted in their doctors.

Theresa feels a pain in her core as she thinks about the years since Jack’s arrival.

That confidence. One Christmas at their holiday party, after a few too many glasses of Cabernet, she’d found it almost intoxicating. The way he lounged in his seat with the air of a king on his throne, while doctors and hospital administrators clamored to talk to him.

Who knows what they spoke to him about, but Theresa had understood that night the desire to be in his presence.

That was the night they’d taken it too far— it was only a kiss in a dark corner of a dark hallway, but from then on, they both knew she would do anything for him. She hasn’t ever been sure how much that meant to him, but it matters to her.

Mattered.

Theresa clears her throat and runs her tongue across her lip.

FBI agents. At their hospital. Never would she have thought…

The face on the computer had looked just like Jack, but that had to be impossible. The science of surgery hadn’t come that far. To spread the eyes further apart, change features completely… and besides, she knows him. Knows the person he is…

At least, she did.

Even now, she can’t believe the theory the agents came up with. It’s impossible. How could a man do those things?

And a man she had trusted.

She takes a breath, pulling in as much air as she can manage. She’d thought it was the nurse who was to blame, or one of the junior doctors. Some sort of mass hysteria that had led her staff to an odd sort of madness.

But it was Jack? Jack, who had gotten into their heads. Jack, who had led good doctors with long careers laid out in front of them to kill unknowing patients who only wanted to be beautiful.

He’d left her there, to contemplate how wrong she’d been, what a terrible choice it was to have added him to their practice.

His eyes had been so cold, so unmoved by her, the colleague standing before him.

Her breathing is shallow, and her throat feels moist. There is a tang in the air and she remembers the eyebrow lift she’s scheduled to perform that afternoon. Dr. White would be able to step in for her if she wasn’t able, but she’d developed a rapport with Mrs. Klein. She would be disappointed at the change.

Theresa’s hand curls into a fist and she struggles to keep her thoughts straight. She hears footsteps outside the operating room door. Heels against the tile floor. The clicks are fast, like the person is running.

She tastes iron and can’t figure out why. She had felt fine that morning, completely fine as she walked from her office to find Jack.

It had been a day like any other when she found him standing in an unused operating room, scalpels held in his curled fist.

But then they were gone.

He must have put them down, though she didn’t see it. She tried to remember what had happened next— something about cleaning the instruments, she thinks— but she can’t be too sure.

She wonders the last time she’d eaten as pain spreads through her stomach. Nothing makes sense as she feels the door behind her nudge against her back. Someone calls out.

“Mulder!”

She doesn’t remember how she’d ended up on the floor. She wonders where Jack had gone and who the people are who are speaking around her.

They’re yelling, calling for a stretcher.

She suddenly realizes that something is wrong and her heart starts to race. People move around her and she strains, listening for Jack.

She would do anything for him. He would know what had happened.

He is a good doctor.

They are lucky to have him.

Chapter Text

He flings open the tempered glass door of Montgomery & Glick Publishing, ready to start another day of reading, and most likely, rejecting multiple writings from wannabe authors. And of-fucking-course, his publication office is a mess. Old donut wrappers, empty paper cups, and probably a hundred different discarded story drafts wadded up and tossed at overfilled trash bins litter the shag carpet of the office atrium. 

“Good mornin’, boss,” Davey Jones says with a lit Morley balancing perilously on his bottom lip. 

“No, it’s not. It’s a pigsty in here,” Albert Montgomery Godwinkle glares in disgust at the men working under him, as if that could teach them some goddamn manners. Maybe he should fire them all and hire more women. “Your editing better not look this bad.”

A chorus of apologies and excuses resound around the room. Nothing new there.

“And how many times do I have to say no smoking around the manuscripts?” Albert huffs and waves a hand in front of his face, trying to clear the fog of smoke thicker than his reading glasses. The noxious smell pisses him off almost as much as trash around here does. No wonder he’s in a perpetual bad mood. 

“Hey boss, we got a few new submissions waiting for your read-through,” Davey adds as he stubs out his cigarette. “I put ‘em on your desk. And hey, that first one from D.C. is a real doozy.”

Davey chuckles and Albert rolls his eyes. Everything’s a damn joke to that kid. 

“Get back to work, Jones,” he sighs, and shuts his office door behind him.

It’s only nine in the morning and his day is already shit. His wife hates his unyielding work schedule, his kids can’t seem to stand him, and this struggling publishing company has become his only joy in life. Though the joy has been hard to find. Reading a halfway decent manuscript for once might actually put a smile on Albert’s disgruntled face. 

Cautiously hopeful, he grabs the first printed manuscript from the top of the pile called TAKE A CHANCE: A JACK COLQUITT ADVENTURE, by Raul Bloodworth, and reads.

Two hours later, Albert skims down to the bottom of the last page, reciting its final words aloud: “I can kill you whenever I please… but not today.”

What the hell?

Albert lets the stack of pages he’d just wasted too much of his life reading flop atop his half eaten breakfast. 

“What the hell?” he repeats. Out loud this time, because silently doesn’t quite capture his frustration properly. He grabs the corded phone on his desk and punches in his publishing partner’s number. “Yeah Glick, come to my office. You gotta see this.”

When Sammie Glick finishes reading Bloodworth’s excerpt on hero hitmen, he barks out a horse laugh only a man who smokes a pack a day and drinks a bottle of whisky a night can manage. “Jesus Christ, you sure that ain’t a comedy piece?”

Albert groans. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Bloodworth is a catchy author pseudonym, though, I’ll give him that. Wonder what his real name is,” Glick chortles into his coffee cup. “Are you gonna write the rejection letter or am I?” 

Albert slams his hand on his desk in indignation. “This is a serious publishing house! Not a lowbrow rag idolizing some governmental conspiracy adventure with… with I don’t even know, goddamn alien ass implants.”

His partner chokes on a mouth full of dark roast. “Alien ass implants? Really?”

“No, but somehow that would’ve improved the plot.”

“Didn’t we get a similar submission a while back about some end of the world mumbo jumbo? Project Doomsday, I think it was called. By a guy named Alan Kurtzdial?” Glick snaps his fingers in recognition. “Alvin Kurtzweil. That’s the name. I remember because his story was about as whack-a-do as this one.”

Albert scrubs a hand over his face as he mentally prepares to reject this crap. Holding up the first page of Bloodworth’s manuscript labeled, “Part I: Trust No One,” he scoffs. 

“And to think, I held out hope to not look at any more trash today…”

Dear Mr. Bloodworth,

I have recently had the unhappy and unfortunate experience of reading your manuscript: TAKE A CHANCE: A JACK COLQUITT ADVENTURE .

My advice? Burn it! It stunk like rotten tomatoes not even my dog would eat off the floor. That, Mr. Bloodworth, is called a simile. You would do well (God forbid) not to litter your next manuscript with too many of them.

In addition, I felt the plot of TAKE A CHANCE to be preposterous, the characters unbelievable, the ending lame, and the writing, frankly, crap. Needless to say, Montgomery & Glick Publishing declines your manuscript.

Please, DO NOT send this piece of trash to another publishing house.

Very Sincerely,

Albert M. Godwinkle

Chapter Text

Rats are survivors. Natural born killers who do the work of destructors; by no means impervious, but they’ll attack the weak, anything that stands in their way. They adapt and survive.

Alex Krycek respects that. Maybe it’s why Mulder’s “insult” had felt like a compliment. 

Yeah, he’s learned to live like the rats. 

And yeah, Mulder. He’s had little trouble adapting. 

The relentless agent sits across from him now in this miserable cell, picking at the underside of his boot. Conversation doesn’t really work for them. They’ve been through enough shit together; you’d think he’s earned an iota of trust.

“So,” Alex ventures. “We gonna die here?”

Mulder glowers. “If we ever do get out, I’m gonna kill you myself, Krycek.”

Alex smirks. “I don’t think that’s true.”

“Oh, no?”

“You’ve had a hundred opportunities. You haven’t taken any of them.”

Mulder’s eyes narrow. He says nothing. Spooky Mulder would never deny the truth.

They sit, the faint scratching of roaches and vermin echoing around the cell. Perhaps silence is preferable, but Alex can’t help himself. He wants the upper hand. He needs the upper hand. 

And he knows exactly how to get it.

“Whaddya think Scully’s up to?” he asks. Mulder’s eyes dart towards him, then away again. Here we go. As expected, Agent Scully is his trigger. Adapt, Alex. 

“Scully, Scully, Scully,” he purrs. “I remember when I met her. She could barely look at me. Like our partnership personally offended her.” He looks at Mulder, trying to make eye contact. “Most agents get a partner or two in their career. Maybe it works out, maybe it doesn’t. They move on. Not you two, though.”

His cellmate remains silent, but now wears a searing glare. 

“We’re gonna die here anyway, Mulder, so you may as well confess. What’s she like, you know… in the sack? Carpet match the drapes?”

If looks could kill, Alex would be a dead man. But he thrives off this, off making Mulder squirm. It’s just so fucking easy.

Sometimes he wonders how things would be if he’d just join forces with Mulder. He’s the obvious choice for an ally, morality-wise. But morality isn’t the medium with which Alex paints. He isn’t like Mulder. And anyway, there’s something he relishes more than his admiration of the man: the power Alex wields over him. 

Like right now.

Mulder clenches his jaw and looks away, unable to meet Alex’s eye. Once again, his honesty betrays him.

“Are you serious?” Alex’s eyes go wide. He was absolutely certain they were sleeping together. Talk about an X-File. “Shit. You two really had me fooled.” His incredulity aside, this approach isn’t working. He needs to take a different route to get a rise out of Mulder. Something worse. 

“You know,” Alex says, lowering his voice. “Back when she was abducted, I suggested just… killing her.” Mulder bristles. “They underestimated your determination, but I never did. I warned them you’d never stop. They didn’t listen.”

A loud clang comes from somewhere in the gulag. A horrific scream. 

“Guess there’s still time,” Alex shrugs. “They don’t make the same mistake twice.”

That does it. Mulder lurches across the cell and wraps his hands around Alex’s neck for the second time today. There’s rage in his eyes, a primal savagery. And Alex likes it. He isn’t even sure why he does this, why he wants it. Maybe it’s the kind of thing he needs to feel alive. To feel like he isn't alone in the dark. Like he does on occasion, he remembers the missile silo. Mulder would probably like that story. But he doesn’t seem to be in the mood for talk. His arm is jammed beneath Alex’s chin, pinning him against the wall. He can feel his airway closing, but he knows it won’t last. Mulder will let him go. 

“Don’t ever say her name to me again,” Mulder seethes. For a wild moment it feels like they might kiss, and it’s not the first time he’s felt that way. There's an undeniable energy between them. Maybe it’s the knowledge there’s no one on the planet Mulder hates more. Maybe his passion is contagious. 

Maybe they’re both just animals.

As expected, Mulder lets him go with a ceaseless penetrating glare. Their little game is over for now; at least, until they play another one. 

They sit on opposite sides of the cell for hours until dinner is served. He and Mulder spit out the roach-infested soup in temporary camaraderie, but then a guard makes his way inside, and Alex takes his shot. He’s got one play left and he’s going to use it, no matter the cost.

The guard hesitates. Mulder asks for a translation, understandably concerned. Alex replies honestly: “That I want to see his supervisor.”

If he doesn’t want to see you, you’ll be accountable, the guard replies in Russian. He appears taken aback, unaccustomed to a prisoner's authoritative tone. 

I’ll be accountable, Alex insists. Mulder dumbly looks back and forth between them. 

The guard acquiesces, and opens the door. Freedom lies ahead if he can play this correctly, if he can just find one more dark pipeline to squeeze through. Maybe he’ll get out of this shithole alive after all. 

He’s brought before the head honcho and sings like a canary. The Americans are working on their own vaccine; he’s even got the name of the head doctor. He mentions an old comrade, Vasily Peskow. That gets their attention. 

Alex Krycek has been no stranger to loyalty. But as he betrays the country he genuinely loves, he realizes the truth: his loyalty is only to himself. 

As he’s escorted from the gulag, he’s taken past Mulder’s cell again. He peers inside where his adversary awaits whatever fate Alex’s defection has unleashed. There’s a slight twinge of regret inside him, but it quickly passes. 

He steps outside as the chilled air of Tunguska slaps him in the face. Beneath him, a rat scampers by, disappearing into the woodwork.

Chapter Text

There were aspects of his work as a United States Senator that Albert Sorenson preferred less than others. Proposing legislation, representing the people of his state, defending the tenets of his political party– these were all things that drove him into his line of work. Ever since he was a young man, he knew he wanted to make a difference in the world, and there were times in DC when he thought that was exactly what he was doing.

But then there were other times, other things, times when he supported a filibuster, played the game, intentionally asked the wrong questions to get the answers he wanted. Those moments were when his job started to lose its meaning.

This congressional hearing was no different.

Sorenson had very little interest in these agents, Mulder and Scully, and was unclear on the significance of the contents of the diplomatic pouch. He had been asked to be a part of the hearing, was told it was important to find the missing Agent Mulder, so he did what was expected. He was doing his job, keeping the wheels of government turning, regardless of his lack of personal understanding or involvement.

What he was unable to tolerate, however, was a federal agent pussyfooting around the questions the committee asked while refusing to give an appropriate answer. They were sitting in one of the highest courts in the country. These hearings were a serious matter, an important part of the foundation of this nation. He had no time– none of them had the time– to watch a young woman drag them through sanctimonious statements in an attempt to protect the apparent wrongdoings of her partner.

Agent Mulder’s whereabouts weren’t even the primary focus of this hearing, as far as Sorenson understood, but he would not sit idly by as their questions were ignored. He was a staunch proponent of holding insubordinate witnesses in contempt when the court was not being respected, and no one, not even a government employee, was immune to that. Had Agent Scully’s partner not walked into the room during their second session, Sorenson had no doubt they would have had to use it again.

He would have been impressed with Agent Scully’s conviction and loyalty to her partner had he not been so completely exhausted by the seemingly pointless nature of the entire hearing. Thankfully, Romine’s call for recess had cleared Sorenson’s schedule. He needed the time to focus on what mattered, to remind himself of the importance of his place as a senator.

He opened the door to his office, planning to start by catching up on the paperwork that was piled on his desk, only to find an unfamiliar man standing near it. Smoke curled around the top of his head as he turned to face him.

“Senator Sorenson,” the man said, before taking another drag of his cigarette. “It’s so nice to make your acquaintance.”

“How did you—”

The man held up his hand, looking more comfortable in the space than Sorenson ever felt himself. “Please, come in. I didn’t mean to impose. I wanted to speak to you about Agents Mulder and Scully.”

Sorenson walked through the office and around the desk and sat in his chair, his eyes never leaving the other man. “What about Agents Mulder and Scully?”

“Their work,” the man started before pausing to gather his thoughts, though Sorenson got the distinct feeling that it was all for show and he knew exactly what he was there to to say. “Their work is of great interest to me. This diplomatic pouch… its contents are not of their concern.”

“What are its contents?” Sorenson asked. He was curious, considering, despite himself, since such pouches usually contained nothing more interesting than confidential documents.

He watched as the man took a seat in the chair on the other side of his desk and took another pull from his cigarette. He held the smoke in his lungs, his dead eyes never looking away, before letting it out.

“I need you to dismiss Agent Scully’s testimony and bring this hearing to an end.”

His pointed disregard for the question made Sorenson’s heart rate pick up. He was an elected official. He had taken an oath to serve his country, protect its people and its foreign interests, and he couldn’t do so by keeping issues of international affairs in secrecy.

“Agent Scully mentioned a toxin,” Sorenson said, attempting to get information about the pouch in another way. “There have been deaths. A doctor. Two actually. It is my understanding that the death of Dr. Bonita Charne-Sayre, a virologist with the World Health Organization, may have something to do with all this.”

There wasn’t a flinch, not a single sign of recognition as the man across his desk took another drag. “Your daughter is a very beautiful young woman.”

Sorenson held his breath at the sudden shift in conversation. He could hear his pulse in his ears as he turned to look over his shoulder at the framed picture of his smiling daughter placed on the shelf under the window.

“Brenda is an accomplished equestrian, is she not?” the man asked with a calmness that made Sorenson’s blood freeze in his veins. “Dr. Charne-Sayre was involved in a horse accident recently, it seems. Pity. I hope Brenda will fare better with her horses.”

Sorenson was an honorable man. He may be a politician, but he didn’t lie. Typically. And if he did, it was for good reason. He worked towards the truth. He did what was right.

But his daughter was his world.

He took a deep breath, smoke burning the inside of his nose. “What do you need?”

Chapter Text

I’m flying. Through the air, high above the ground. It’s not scary. I always do it, but tonight is not like every night. When I open my eyes this time, I see pretty fish swimming around a green-colored tank, floating in the water exactly like I do in the sky. I used to have fish, too: Goldie and Cookie. I made sure they ate their fishy flakes and filled their bowl with lots of rocks. My mommy and daddy got me them when I turned eight ‘cause I was a big girl.

I miss my fish. 

But I miss my mommy and daddy more.

I spin around and see a man sleeping on a couch next to a picture of a girl with long brown hair and green eyes. She even has freckles like me! I look closer and can tell this man is a nice man. A nice, sad man who hurts inside. And now I know exactly why I’m here, why he calls to me — I feel it in my soul.  

The little girl he loves is gone, and she is never coming back. 

Just like me.

The tall man sniffles and frowns in his sleep, and I wonder why his mommy doesn’t tell him to go to bed the way mine used to. His hand bumps the picture and it falls to the floor. Then he whimpers, like his dreams scare him. I haven’t been scared in a long time. Not since that night, but I feel his pain. A special tugging deep inside my chest, right where my heart used to beat. I’m sure he stares at her picture a lot. She’s his little sister, I just know it. He misses her lots and I know he wants to find her real bad. One day he will. 

But I know he can find me right now.

I close my eyes and dive into his mind. While he’s dreaming of the girl in the picture, I take over his thoughts and lead him to where the rest of me lay.

FOLLOW, I spell out when he sees me waving on the wall. Follow me and you’ll see it all! He looks confused but he’s right behind me as I fly across a parking lot. Yes, I think, keep following. 

Then I see the white car parked there. His car. The last car I ever rode in. 

I swoop through the sky and touch the back of it. Look, look! MAD HAT, I sign on the hood. I’m excited ‘cause this nice man is paying attention. He is watching!

The book that belongs to the mean man who took me is here, I point out. I remember he let me hold it in the car when I cried for my mommy. But when we stopped driving, he took it from my hands and hid it in the back… 

“Your name sounds like Alice,” he tells me when he pulls me out of the car. 

“Wh-what’s your name?” I whisper. I try using my manners like my parents tell me to, but my mouth tastes like tears and my body is shaking.

“Call me the Mad Hatter.” He smiles, and I cry harder.

Now, I spin around and see the nice man watching me. See, it’s right in there! You know what MAD HAT means, I know you do. I can feel you like you feel him. He’s a bad, mean man. And he’s gonna be mad when he finds out I’ve shown you where I am. Mad ‘cause he wants to keep me and the rest of us hidden. Secrets are his favorite. 

Don’t forget you know him. But he knows you now, too. 

I fly off again, past the park sign and through the grass. Come on, hurry, I beg as I float up a big tree and touch it. Here, I point down at the leaves beneath the tree as the nice man runs to catch up. Here I am, I wave, dancing around so he doesn’t miss me. I’m right down there, I promise! I scrunch my nose, trying real hard to show him where the other half of me is. 

Suddenly, there I am! 

He stops right in front of me and stares.

My name is Addie Elisabeth Sparks, I’m eight and a half years old, and my address is 1013 Joy Lane, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. I’m Addie , not Alice like he wanted. I liked the story of Alice in Wonderland before. But now I hate it. I hate it almost as much as I hate him.

Almost as much as you do, I tell him.

The man trying to help me sees my body laying in the leaves, sees what I looked like the night I was hurt. This is what that mean man did to me, I whine as I show him more. He cut a heart from my best nightie. My mommy made it just for me and the Mad Hatter ruined it! See, it has a coin pocket where my daddy pretended to be the tooth fairy to put money in. 

I look up at this nice man with the lost sister and beg: Please find me. My daddy needs you to find me. My mommy is waiting for me and I want to rest now so my daddy finally can, too.

The man’s green eyes get wide, like he understands everything. So I let my body fall back beneath the ground and warn him: Be careful, I say as I disappear. He will get in your head like I did. But he will lie. He will hurt your heart the way he stole mine. Are you listening?

Be careful… 

Or the Mad Hatter will get you, too. 

Chapter Text

The flame from the lantern danced around the wooden ceiling of the shack while the neighbors gathered around to hear the story of his encounter with El Chupacabra. 

The children eagerly whispered amongst each other as they sat cross-legged on the ground, anticipation momentarily distracting them from their empty stomachs. It seemed that their parents were doing too good of a job assuaging the children’s fears, for if they turned around and looked at the worried faces of the adults lining the perimeter of the room, they might realize the danger lurking outside.

Juan would have to take care of that himself. With a resigned sigh, he stood up on a small apple crate they were using as a makeshift podium, and the room fell silent as all eyes looked towards him.

“God said the Devil would come to man under the guise of a cloven-footed beast. There have been tales of goats standing on hind legs so they could look man in the eye.” Juan took a shaky breath before asking, “But what was it we found in the field lying dead next to Maria?”

“A goat,” someone whispered.

He nodded severely, repeating, “A goat.”

His voice felt loud in the confined space, and he felt perspiration at his brow from the heat of all the bodies warming the room. He wasn’t used to having this much attention on him. In fact, this might have been the first time someone cared what he had to say in years. It felt good to have his community hanging off of his every word, so he pushed down his discomfort and continued his story. “Those who have claimed God was speaking of a goat were fools lucky enough to have never known true evil. They are just servants, there to do Evil’s bidding.”

“The only reason Maria was on the hilltop was because she was following a goat,” his elderly neighbor added, supported by several hushed affirmations.

“Exactly, because that’s what El Chupacabra wanted, and then he killed them both,” he responded.

At the simple mention of El Chupacabra, the shack erupted in a cacophony of worry, as if merely saying the name might summon the beast. 

“He’s going to kill us too.”

“What if he comes back?”

It was easy to get lost in the sea of panic, and Juan knew he had to get their attention again before he was drowned out. More forcefully than before, he shouted, “That’s why we screamed and prayed when la migra brought him to us.”

His plan worked, and the crowd settled down, shushing each other. “We could hear him talking to la policía from our cells. Eladio spoke with man’s tongue to spread the lies of the Devil, but we weren’t fooled, we could hear the truth beneath his deceit.”

“What did he say?” 

“He said he stood atop that hill waiting for Maria. That he lured that poor girl so he could devour her soul,” he exaggerated. His chest felt heavy when Maria’s cousin wailed, but his skin was thrumming like an electrical current under the rapt attention of his audience and he couldn’t stop. “Maria kissed the Devil’s friend and he ripped her lips off her very mouth.”

“Why didn’t la policiá put a stop to this madness?” Flakita cried.

“They tried, but Eladio outsmarted them,” he sighed, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. “When we were being transported, they tried to put him on the bus with us, but we cried out! No, la migra! El Chupacabara!  He will kill us! Please, won’t you spare us?”

He paused interruptions and took the time to come up with what to say next. “Looking at Eladio was like looking at a wolf wearing sheep’s clothing that didn’t quite fit right. He was hunched over as if he was in pain. His skin was pale and sweaty like the exertion of pretending to be human was too much for his body to maintain anymore.”

“How did he get off the bus?” a young boy asked. A vein in Juan’s temple pulsed in frustration as the kid rushed his story. 

“After we begged and pleaded for la migra to keep him away from us, they let him sit in the passenger seat. We all were afraid to breathe, we didn’t want to do anything that might draw Eladio’s attention to us. All we could do was sit there and listen to Eladio whimpering and begging to go to the hospital.”

“Why the hospital?” a voice called out.

“Probably because it would be filled with weak prey for him to feast on,” another replied.

Ignoring them, Juan continued, “Eventually the driver couldn’t take it anymore, and he turned on the radio. That’s when things went bad.”

He rubbed the back of his head and stared at the floor, letting the tension build as he formulated the climax of his story. Truth be told, it smelled like someone farted, then the driver started coughing and crashed the car. There wasn’t much room to see into the bed of the truck, so he was really going to have to fill in some blanks.

“It’s okay, Juan.”

“Take your time, buddy.”

“Remember how much Maria loved Selena?” he asked softly. The whole room nodded. “As soon as la migra turned on the radio, Bidi Bidi Bom Bom started playing and Eladio lost it. A foul odor seeped through the truck and the driver started choking and gasping for air while Eladio screamed.”

He took a shaky breath and covered his face with his hands for dramatic effect while anxious whispers filled the room. “The next thing we knew, the truck stopped and the driver was dead. We knew the federales were following behind us, and we only had a few moments to escape. We were able to break free from the truck and we ran without looking back!”

“Did El Chupacabra follow you?”

“No,” Juan shook his head, “But heed my warning. He is out there, and he isn’t done yet.”

Chapter Text

It was strange to miss Leonard when Michele barely felt like she’d known him in the first place. Maybe it was because of the traumatic circumstances surrounding his death, or maybe she’d just gotten used to their quiet rapport on those long nights in the ambulance. But whatever the reason, she couldn’t get him out of her head.

Leonard hadn’t been like any of the other EMTs Michele knew. If anything, he seemed to behave more like a surgeon, with the aloof, detached nature that often came along with their brilliant minds. And Leonard was brilliant. From the moment she met him, Michele couldn’t understand why he hadn’t gone to medical school. He would have been an asset to any hospital, she was sure.

They’d never really become friends, but she’d respected him, and he inspired her to stay on top of her game. She had grown comfortable working with him. They worked well together and she knew he would do everything in his power to keep their patients safe.

Still, she had to admit that there was a part of her that was a tiny bit excited about what would happen next for her, now that he was gone. She was starting over with someone new in the back of her ambulance. They’d paired her with an EMT who needed a new partner, and while she wasn’t sure how well they’d fare together, there was the potential there for her to experience her job in the way many of her peers did.

Some of her EMT friends spent holidays with their partners. There were ones who could finish each other’s sentences or have entire conversations about patient care without even uttering a single word. There were also two couples she knew of who had met while taking calls together in the middle of the night.

When she was doing her training, that’s how she’d imagined life as an EMT. She might have the chance to find that now, but instead of embracing it and getting to know her new partner, she was feeling sad and out of sorts without Leonard’s icy presence in the back of her bus.

But then she heard him. At first she considered that maybe it was just someone who sounded like Leonard, a trick of a mind that was still handling grief. But then the voice came over the radio again.

Anaphylactic shock.

Epinephrine.

She knew that voice. She’d heard it every night from behind her driver’s seat.

It had to be Leonard. But it wasn’t possible.

She pushed her way through the emergency room doors and walked to an ambulance parked in front of the building.

“Excuse me,” she said to the woman sitting in the passenger seat. “Um, I’m looking for an EMT, the man driving unit 208?”

“The new guy. Yeah. 208’s over there. He just went off shift, but you might catch him.”

Michele thanked her and walked in the direction she had pointed in, and her heart stopped. She was right. It was him, walking between two vehicles, a bag in one hand, looking exactly the way he had when they started their last shift together.

“Leonard?”

She could tell it was him even from a distance, but he didn’t stop when she called his name. She broke into a jog, stopping when she caught sight of his silhouette next to a large tree. She was nervous all of a sudden, but she had to know for sure. When Michele made the decision to ask about the EMT she’d heard on the radio, she’d expected to find a stranger. Someone taller or older. Someone with dark, thick hair or a warm and inviting smile. But…

“Leonard?”

He stepped into the light and her heart nearly burst open.

“Oh, my God! It can’t be. How can it be?” She felt a smile tug at her lips. “Leonard, is it you?”

“Hey, Michele.”

He was calm, as if it were any other night, but all she could think about was his head… his body.

“It’s okay,” he said, as he walked closer to her, repeating it again as he wrapped her into a hug.

None of this made sense. She’d seen him die, and not just that. She’d been told that his body went missing. There was no way he should be standing there with his arms wrapped so tightly around her. And yet, even through the panic she felt screaming through her that nothing about this was okay, she felt a moment of relief wash over her. Maybe it had all been a dream. Maybe her partner hadn’t died while she was at the wheel.

He’d never hugged her before, but his hand was in her hair and she let herself believe it was all true. She wrapped her arms around him and let her eyes fall shut, breathing him in, alive in her grasp.

“I just wish you hadn’t found me, that’s all.”

Michele’s eyes shot open and a chill ran up her spine. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she realized the hug, from someone who had never shown emotion of any sort in the time she had known him, had gone on for far too long.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, his face still pressed up against hers. “Leonard?”

Michele felt a sudden stab in her back and didn’t have more than a second to try to understand what was happening. Bigger than a bee, smaller than a knife… a… needle.

Her heart raced and her body shook, but Leonard still simply hugged her. “I’m sorry.”

Her mind filled with a frenzy of fractured thoughts. She shook… and her breath… her heart and she…

He hugged her.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Chapter Text

He hangs up the phone as his former boss’s scolding rolls around his brain like a boulder. Fired. Fucking fired again. He slams the phone down over and over, tossing the receiver. 

He inhales, frustrated. The air in his apartment, thick with stale cigarette smoke and knock-off Calvin Klein he can barely afford, only further twists the knife.

Loser, she’d said. 

His coworker had called him a loser, right there in the office. Right in front of him, as if he couldn’t hear her. As if he wouldn’t say anything, wouldn’t do anything about it. Just like always. Well he’d shown her, throwing the shit from her perfect little desk to the floor, daring her to call him names to his face. 

Daring anyone to call Ed Jerse a loser again.

His jaw clenches. If only it had been Cindy’s desk he’d destroyed. Cindy who he’d screamed at instead of sitting mute in divorce court as she stuck it to him one more time. The raw skin on his freshly inked arm begins to burn, and in hindsight, the tattoo reminds him of a younger version of his newly-made ex-wife. A permanent reminder of his life’s failings etched five layers deep. How fucked is that?

A banging noise resounds from the apartment below him before a woman laughs menacingly.

“If you were any kind of man, you would have told her to kiss your ass,” the feminine voice mocks. “But no, another woman sticks it to you. Ain’t that right... Eddie.”

What the hell? Only his mother calls him Eddie, and he fucking hates it.

Ed crawls on the floor, presses his ear to the hardwood, listening to the woman below unpack loudly, hearing her ridicule him.

He bangs on the floor, “Hey! I can hear you down there. Hey! Stop it! Shut up! Shut up down there!”

Something dark and dangerous swirls beneath his skin.

It’s always women. Every single one of them. Controlling him, shaming him, emasculating him every chance they get. He can’t stand it, is sick to death of it. There’s a draw he cannot deny, a menacing pull that tugs on this hatred expanding deep down he can’t quite identify. Like a low simmering, it waits, burning him from the inside. These damn women… 

Sometimes he wants to reach out and just— 

Music blares up through the floorboards. He keeps banging and the song keeps getting louder until he hears a knock at his door.

Some woman tries to suck him into speaking of a God who’s forgotten him. 

“You hear that? She’s trying to drive me crazy,” Ed interrupts.

The religious woman shrugs him off, disagreeing. Telling him he’s wrong. 

“Somehow, she knows what I'm thinking,” he emphatically pleads. “I don’t want to feel it — but they know, like psychics or something, or an implant thing, trying to drive me crazy!” 

When she leaves, the pamphlet she’s given him says, "Are you a Failure?" 

“Mm-mm-mm,” the voice taunts. “You see? Even the Jehovah’s Witness babe won’t waste her time on you. No woman would, and you just sit and take it.” Ed covers his ears with his hands. “Take it like a man.”

A searing headache forms at the base of his skull as sweat blooms across his brow. Why is he so damn hot, so… angry? His head pounds in time with the throb of his tattoo. And that fucking music is too fucking loud!  

Then, like magic, he’s suddenly in front of his disrespectful neighbor's apartment, kicking her door in. He doesn’t even remember how he got here.

“Hey, what are you doing?” she shrieks. “Get out of here!”

It takes all of his willpower to move his feet, but instead of heading out the door, he finds himself stalking towards this stunned woman, his fists clenched tighter than his jaw — as if some invisible force is propelling him forward. Because yes, he hates her, too.

Deadbeat. Loser. Failure. 

He’s heard it all, and he has had enough. No one humiliates Ed Jerse anymore. No, not now. Never again.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she yells, backing up, her halting hands outstretched. “Get out of my apartment!”

The room swells with his rage. When the taut string keeping the violence bound within him snaps, Ed lunges.

Ear-piercing music drowns out the sounds of crushing bone and squelching bodily fluid spewing from his screaming neighbor's mouth. 

As if in a dream, Ed is across the room now, watching himself punching, kicking, bludgeoning the blonde woman crumpled to the floor beneath him. Mesmerized, he doesn’t try to stop himself from hurting her. Doesn’t quit slamming the stereo’s remote control against her skull until the blood spatter coats her face and the rise and fall of her chest ceases. Doesn’t restrain himself from shoving her lifeless body into an empty moving box, dragging the heavy blood-stained cardboard down the basement stairs, and tossing the mangled remains of Ms. Schilling into the fiery furnace.

Adrenaline thrumming through his veins, Ed reaches inside the box and pulls out the bloody remote. He is in control now.

“Attaboy, lover,” the familiar voice encourages. “From now on, I’m your right-hand gal. You and me.”

There it is again: the hatred in his head. Only deeper, his mind churning verbal vitriol around his brain like sickness in his stomach. The tattoo pulses painfully along his bicep like a hammering heart, and the fire flares. Sweat beads across his body while the acrid stench of burnt hair and blood sting his nostrils. As he stares wild-eyed into the flames, he can’t help but think that maybe he’s finally not failed at something. Maybe this woman’s voice has been waiting to be heard long before ink bled black beneath his skin. 

“As long as I’m with you, no one will ever hurt you...” 

Ed looks down at the bright lines of his tattoo’s smirking face and wonders if this is what reclaiming his life feels like. 

”Never Again.”

Chapter Text

They are referred to as alien-human hybrids. While scientifically correct, they don’t consider the title to be phenomenologically accurate. They are bound in this corporeal form, but possess no superhuman capabilities or powers to signify alien origin. 

Down to the most minute cell, they are Kurt Crawford. They are the little boy who held his mother’s hand as they were taken from the El Rico Air Force Base in 1973. They are the innovation of men who weren’t satisfied with God’s plan and decided to make their own.

His existence is similar to  a violinist who can play the second movement of Tchaichovsky’s Violin Concerto without missing a note, but who failed to imbue emotion into the song — the audience can recognize the tune, hum along to the melody, but they know deep down that there’s something not quite right.

Perhaps it’s because they were not of woman borne. There was never a mother to nurture them, only the replicas of other missing people. They never experienced what it was like to grow up or figure out their place in the world — they knew their mission the moment electricity lit up their synapses. 

At least Dr. Frankenstein could see his creation was a crime against nature; even Mary Shelley couldn’t conjure the horror of a monster masquerading as a man. Perhaps the fact that the alien-human hybrids looked like the Syndicate’s loved ones is their punishment for defying the laws of science.

Regardless, the Crawfords’ pragmatism began to fade alongside the health of all the women who suffered just so they could exist. He knew some of the other series didn’t feel the same. The others thought this intervention in evolution was the key to a better world without considering who they would be making it better for.

Why bother with the betterment of humanity if there were no humans left?

John Locke always said that humans enter the world with a tabula rasa, that a person’s environment nurtures who they are to become. Jean-Jacques Rousseau contended that humans enter the world with a predestined morality, that people are innately good without interference.

But what about them ? What is destined for a creature borne of fluid and test tubes, guided by the hands of cruel men?

But then again, it would be an insult to claim innocence in the grand scheme. The Gregor Series may have been evil when they cloned the DNA of defenseless children, but the Crawford Series was still using the genetic material harvested from the same project they sought to destroy. The ova from the MUFON women were an integral part in piecing together the genetic puzzle of who they were, but it didn’t make it any easier whenever they saw the women begin to deteriorate.

The list was getting longer by the day;  Edna Cooper, Lottie Holloway, Betsy Hagopian, Penny Northern, soon to be —

“Scully.”

Kurt bowed his head and tried to pretend that their voices didn’t echo around the tiny apartment. For all the bravado Agent Scully was feigning, Agent Mulder matched her with unconcealed fear. This was one of the facets of humanity that made him feel alien. She was dying, and they were fighting. Earlier she had even said she was “ fine” while blood poured out of her nose.

He saw death every day. Maybe not first hand, but every file referenced, every lead followed, and every medical chart the Crawfords looked at was laden with it. It seemed to him that wherever death tread, grief and despair were close behind. The losses of the MUFON group didn’t merely extend to the women who died, but the families left behind. 

All of the Kurt Crawfords believed that was uniquely human: the desire to live one’s life in the company of others, to bond with others and care for each other. They wanted to believe their desires to protect the MUFON women was evidence that their existence meant something more . They wanted to exist outside the confines of what the Syndicate had planned for them.

But the Agents standing in front of him whispering with trembling breaths went against all he’d learned about human relationships. There were no hugs of reassurance or words of comfort, yet their gazes held an intimate yearning for each other that reached a depth Kurt couldn’t fathom.

Even as the woman rushed out of the apartment, sparing a sideways glance in the hallway mirror to check for dried blood, Agent Mulder’s eyes never left her. The moment the door shut, the man’s entire body seemed to deflate, his head bowing down as his shoulders curved inward. Agent Mulder raised his hand to his mouth and rubbed the short hairs growing across his skin.

Agent Mulder looked like he might vomit or start crying at a moment's notice, and it struck Kurt that maybe what he was witnessing was one of the most important elements of being human he hadn’t experienced yet. 

Love.

Kurt couldn’t help but think it looked painful, but maybe that was the laws of equivalent exchange at work. He supposed someone could only feel such intense despair and profound loss because they’d known joy and contentment.

“How soon-“ Agent Mulder started, pausing to take a measured breath. “Do you know how long ago Penny found out about her cancer?”

“Within the past year,” Kurt replied, hoping the Agent would accept this answer so that he wouldn’t have to admit it had only been a couple of months.

The answer was grim nonetheless and they both knew it. Kurt could see Mulder tying to count every grain in the proverbial hourglass Scully had left, and he knew it would be a matter of time before he was crushed under the weight of the spent sand.

“Did Betsy have any files on Scully at her place?”

Kurt knew she didn’t, not really, but he could tell Mulder needed to feel like there was something he could do to help her. So Kurt did the most human thing he could think of.

“I think she did.”

Chapter Text

It was only a wish. Only words. She didn’t think they would actually come true.

Before the funeral service, when the family performed the Kriah, Ariel did her best to stand tall and proud when she cut her ribbon for Isaac and recited the blessing. That was the way it was to be done: to show strength during a time of grief, as difficult as that was. 

Those boys had killed Isaac. Someone else’s hatred had taken her true love away. Just like that, in an instant, like it was nothing. But it was not hatred that led her to the gravesite that stormy night. It was not hatred that made her fall to her knees in the mud. But as she’d scooped up fistfuls of dirt in the dark, she did not feel strong. Grief had overtaken her.

Back when she was a little girl, her father had read to her from Sepher Vetzirah. Most of her friends were focused on the maftir and haftarah for their bat mitzvahs, but she was fascinated by the mystical texts. 

The myth of the golem had taken root in her heart for so many years. When she was twelve, her safta had died, and she missed the old woman desperately. Ariel had considered trying the recitations back then, desired to see the golem come to life —to have just one more babka with her— but she’d been too afraid.

This time, however, she was grown. She’d found the man she was to spend the rest of her life and beyond with, and he’d been taken from her before she even had a chance to say goodbye. It had finally been time to see if the myths of which her father had spoken of were true.

Ariel now kneels once again, this time dressed all in white for her wedding. Or what should have been her wedding. Her husband is up here, somewhere, in the dark rooms above the synagogue. Or what should be her husband.

“He’s dead. Isaac is dead,” her father pleads with her. “The boys… they killed him. Their hate took him from you and you tried bringing him back with your love… but what you brought back… you have to understand, Ariel. It isn't him. It's an abomination. He has no place among the living.”

She knows her father is right, she knows it, but her heart… oh God , her heart; it aches with longing for Isaac.

I just wanted to say goodbye.

I didn’t think. It was just a wish. They were just… words.

Her words of love had been accompanied by words of grief, of desperation. And also, she was now ashamed to admit, words of hate. She had not brought Isaac back to kill, to bring more hatred into the world. It had not been her intention. But it happened all the same. 

These deaths… they are all her fault. And it’s her responsibility to make all of it stop.

“We’ve gotta get out of here,” the FBI agent tells her. She protests, her strength returning. And Isaac appears, finally, right in front of her. A living ghost.

“Stop or I’ll fire!” Agent Mulder shouts, but Isaac does not stop. 

This is their wedding day. 

He advances upon them, and Agent Mulder fires repeatedly, his bullets having very little effect on the creature made of earth.

“No!” Ariel cries. She knows he is only trying to help, but… more guns. More violence. She needs to stop this thing, this creature, but it still looks just like him… she can’t bear to see it hurt.

She holds up the communal ring —the one her father has saved all these years— and beckons Isaac over. He will obey, this she knows. She has willed him into existence.

She slips the ring onto his finger and recites their marriage vows. With her finger, she gently removes the letter aleph from his wrist. Turns truth into death. Because her father is right. This is not Isaac. Her Isaac is gone.

“I loved you,” she says, as her beloved’s face crumbles away like ash. Although this creature is not the man she once knew, his eyes are still familiar. They still have the same shine she fell in love with as they vanish into dust.

Chapter Text

The Bureau’s briefing tent, pitched just outside of the crowded Vietnam War Memorial, bustles with agents and military personnel. The roar of excited veterans around them rises as the tent’s flap bursts open and Agent Mulder enters.

Special Agent Kent Hill is not a nosy man. But when the man nicknamed Spooky strides across the tent with purpose, Hill ignores his fellow agents strategizing beside him to watch Agent Mulder relay information to his partner. His very pretty, very short partner. 

Hill frowns, recalling how A.D. Skinner had assigned each agent into individual sectors to guard General Bloch against the ex-POW Teager. Hill is stuck in Sec-3: the smallest and arguably less populated sector, while Agent Scully is assigned to Sec-4: the largest, most occupied sector that will prove difficult to navigate with her short stature. Hill had stupidly mumbled that aloud as the group scattered, only to get a sharp glare from Agent Mulder that could cut glass. 

General Bloch suddenly slams the telephone down on the table next to Hill and stomps over to A.D. Skinner. “Look, I can’t wait around here any longer. I’m delivering a keynote speech in five minutes.”

“You might want to reconsider,” his A.D. suggests, and Hill agrees. They’ve already failed to prevent two generals from looking like Swiss cheese, and standing on stage in front of thousands of professionally trained shooters is a terrible idea. 

“He won't reconsider,” Agent Mulder shoots back. “Not going out there would be an admission of guilt.”

Hill’s eyes practically pop out of his head. No one can say Spooky doesn’t have balls. 

General Bloch stiffens. “It's your job to protect me still, isn't it?” 

“That's what we're trying to do,” his boss insists.

“Then do your job,” the general sneers as he flees the tent.

“General!” A.D. Skinner scoffs, seemingly as frustrated as the rest of his agents trying to keep at least one general alive. “All right, people, listen up because we don't have much time here! You all know your responsibilities. You have your sectors and your assignments. If Teager’s here, I want to know immediately.”

Hill watches their A.D. race after the general and runs a hand down his five o’clock shadow, catching Agents Mulder and Scully out of the corner of his eye as they move toward one another like magnets. 

He’s seen the two of them together before. Has watched them stand much too close and touch much too often, observed their odd connection from afar. But Hill can’t seem to get enough of how soft they speak to each other, how intense they look at one another, how they stand a hair's breadth apart like it’s nothing.

“Mulder,” Agent Scully tugs at his suit sleeve. “You really think this is a setup?”

Hill slides in his earpiece, watching as their eyes lock. His wife would call it eavesdropping, but as he steps closer, tilting his head just right to better hear their hushed voices, Hill simply calls it satisfying a long-standing curiosity. 

“That’s what I was told, and I believe it.”

“So are you going to tell me where you got this information?” Agent Scully huffs.

Her partner shrugs. “A source.”

“Who?” She arches a brow, runs her tongue across her teeth. “Or is that classified like the rest of this case?”

Agent Mulder has the decency to look chagrined. 

“Of course not,” his voice dips along with his head. “But I’d rather not say her name here.”

“Her?” Agent Scully folds her arms across her chest, her jaw working as she lets the silence ooze like molasses. Hill knows he’s openly gawking at this point, but doesn’t care. Their body language reminds him of his wife’s daytime drama shows. 

“Teager is here, Scully, hiding in plain sight,” Agent Mulder deflects, and Hill doesn’t blame him. He can see the man’s sweat stippling across his brow from here. “We’ll work together and you’ll catch this guy. Simple,” he says with a sly smirk. 

Agent Scully rolls her eyes. “Mulder, nothing about working with you is simple.”

An unbidden snort bursts through Hill’s nostrils at that. Both agents unfold their arms and tandemly take a step apart. 

Hill clears his throat. “Looks like you’re in the sector next to me, Agent Scully-” 

“Scully,” she interjects.

“Huh?”

“Just Scully is fine.” She nods toward her partner. “And him, just Mulder.”

Hill smirks. “Same here, even my wife calls me Hill.” They smile and he feels himself blush. “We’d better get out there, Scully. It’s starting.”

Hill stops at the tent’s door while holding the flap open for Scully to exit next and sees Mulder grasp her hand within his. She stares up at him, and after a moment, squeezes his hand right back. 

Several minutes and multiple attempts to apprehend Teager fly by. Hill shoves his way through the throng of veterans slowly moving toward the stage, trying to chase down a goddamn ghost. 

“Don’t take your eyes off him, Scully,” Mulder warns. That’s easier said than done. The guy is there one second and gone the next. 

Hill adjusts his earpiece as the crowd cheers.

General Bloch continues speaking, riling up the masses. It’s loud and nearly impossible to track anyone. Hill spots a red flash of Scully’s hair and runs up to where she stands, looking as confused as he feels. 

“I can't see him anywhere,” Hill tells her, just as General Bloch gets ushered from the stage. 

The agents follow, guns drawn, and the next several seconds happen in a blink of an eye: Teager’s hiding in the general’s car, shooting as everyone ducks and dives along the dirt. Mulder yells and Hill jumps in front of the moving car, firing off four shots that jar his bones. 

Teager flops out of the door, blood spurting from his mouth. Hill scrunches his eyes shut, guilt seeping in as the suspect takes his last breath. 

Teager, Nathaniel J. Sergeant, Green Beret detachment B-11, is dead.

Chapter Text

The Headless Woman’s Pub was crowded wall-to-wall with red-faced employees of the Federal Government who had traveled the measly few blocks after work— despite the fact that it was a Sunday. As far as Val could tell, these people never took a day off.

Before getting this gig, he always imagined the feds drank like they were in one of those film noirs, pulling a handle of whiskey out of their desk and mulling over it after a hard case. He thought being an FBI Agent must’ve been so cool and mysterious.

“Oh shit!” a voice slurred from the other side of the room.

Val glanced over and saw that kid from the Violent Crimes Unit wiping spilled beer off of his date’s lap.

After getting this gig, he realized everything he used to think about the feds was bullshit. 

These were some of the most depressed fuckers he’d ever met. The ones that got the job for the glory would inevitably crash and burn, and the good ones would be haunted by the evils they saw. He couldn’t blame any of them for needing to indulge at the end of the day, but, Christ— J. Edgar himself would blush at the things these people said when they were drunk. He was starting to wonder if there was a single desk in that building that hadn’t been defiled. Though that was nothing compared to the guy who drank himself under the table because the ‘alien-guy’ stole his job. Val still didn’t know what the hell that meant, but he could still hear the way that guy kept muttering “fucking grey.”

“Excuse me.”

Glancing up, he saw a tall guy easing himself in between two people sitting at the bar. “Do you have a tab started?” Val asked.

“No, uh, I actually had a favor to ask,” the man clarified while his hands fidgeted against the bar’s wooden ledge.

Glancing around and seeing everyone’s drinks were full, Val stopped what he was doing and replied, “Shoot.”

Lanky started fumbling around with the pocket of his suit coat, and he began to worry the guy was gonna pull out his badge. They were too damn short-staffed to spare anyone for a twenty-minute interrogation about some drunk guy making a fool of himself after having one too many.

But agitation quickly made way for confusion when he was presented with one of those pink Hostess monstrosities. Ho Ho? Zapper? Chocodile Kazbars? Whatever the hell it was called, it should be illegal to put coconut in anything that was supposed to be called a dessert.

“I’m on a diet,” he deadpanned.

Ignoring his comment, the man tried to fluff the pink ball back into shape after presumably squashing it in his pocket. “The woman I came in with— it’s her birthday, and she loves these things. I was wondering if there was any way you could ask someone in the back to put it on a plate and bring it out to her?”

Now that was a new one, especially for a shithole like this place. “Ya mean like Chili’s?”

“Well, hey, I certainly won’t say no if you have any sombreros hidden away in the kitchen,” he chuckled, looking over his shoulder as if to make sure his date wasn’t getting suspicious. Then, as if nervous Val would say no, he added, “They don’t have to sing Happy Birthday or anything. I know you guys are busy and—”

Interrupting the man’s rambling, he grabbed the pink cream ball. “What’s her name?”

“Scully.”

Val’s eyebrows rose at that. “She related to Vin? I was more of a Jerry Doggett fan myself.”

The guy exhaled a laugh, but then he shook his head. “No, and sorry, actually.” He spared another glance over his shoulder, and this time Val looked with him. It must’ve been the redhead who was glancing around, presumably searching for her boyfriend. He watched the shy smile that spread across her lips as her eyes met the man’s, and damn if she wasn’t one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. Her man must’ve known that too based on the nervous smirk that was on his face when he turned back around. “Dana. Her name is Dana,” he clarified, straightening out his tie.

It was common for Val to see men bring women from the office out for a drink in the hopes they’d get some. This might’ve been the first time he’d seen a fella do something thoughtful for his lady. Even if it was a 99¢ piece of garbage. “I’ll pass this to your waiter. I’m sure he can fix it up for Dana.”

“Thanks, I really appreciate it,” Dana’s boyfriend replied. Val watched as he slid a five into the tip jar and started to make his way back to the table.

“Hey buddy,” Val called out, causing the man to turn around. “Ya told her you were going to come up and get drinks, didn’t ya?”

“Oh!” he exclaimed with an embarrassed wince, rushing back to the bar. Across the room, behind the man’s back, the woman’s brows furrowed and her lips quirked into an amused smirk as she watched him fumble to retrieve his wallet. “Thanks. Uh, one water and one vodka tonic, please. It’ll go under the name Mulder.”

After he sent Mulder on his way, he watched him take long strides back to the woman who was digging into their shared appetizer. He must’ve said something funny because the redhead started laughing and shaking her head. Val was impressed with how suave the guy was being after how nervous he had just been.

“D-did that man say his name was Mulder?”

Val turned and saw a meek, blonde woman sitting at the bar, not far from where the man in question had just been.

Val shrugged while trying to flag down a waiter, “Yeah. Know him?”

She glanced at the couple over her shoulder before turning back to face him, nervously playing with the cuff of her sleeve. “He’s a friend of the family.”

Chapter Text

“I'm not Max's sister.”

It feels strange to say it. Max was her family, blood or no blood. 

“I know,” Agent Scully says from behind her. Sharon can’t see her, but she can feel her gaze boring into her back. She hates being stuck in this place; it makes her feel crazier than she is. The loony bin, Max always called it. “We're not quite sure why you lied to us though, Sharon. Or what else you might be lying about.”

Sharon Graffia isn’t a liar. She’d only done what she needed to in order for people to believe her. All she’s ever wanted was someone to believe her.

She’d found that person in Max. But he’s gone now.

Sharon turns to look at the agent as the petite redhead makes her way around the hospital bed, approaching her slowly. “Doesn't matter anymore.” 

“Yes, it does,” Agent Scully says. “If you know something, anything about what Max was doing, about what he was carrying on that plane– it could matter a lot.”

“To who?” She finds it hard to believe anyone actually cares what she has to say. What Max had to say. So many people have been asking her questions, and not a single one of them has believed her anyway.

This agent probably won’t believe her, either. It’s the other one she needs right now, the one Max always talked about.

“To Max,” Agent Scully says gently. 

“I can't.” 

“Why not?”

Sharon’s eyes are wide. She never intended for this to go so far. “Because I could be in big, big trouble.”

Agent Scully looks at her with concern. She reaches out to switch a light on, and Sharon knows that regardless of what the agent believes, the truth is all over her skin, scattered across the side of her face like stars. 

“Max had those same blisters,” Agent Scully says. “You both were exposed to something, Sharon. What was it?”

She doesn’t know how much to reveal. “It was something I stole.”

“From whom?” There’s something about the way Agent Scully is asking the question that makes Sharon think she already knows the answers. And as it turns out, she does. “Max was trying to find physical evidence to prove his abduction stories were true. You worked as an aeronautical systems engineer. You stole something from your employer, didn't you? Something radioactive.”

“Only because I believed in Max.”

“What was it?”

She has to tell someone, she has to. Oh, please believe me.

“Max said it was alien technology. It was three interlocking parts. We divided it into sections. I had one part. Max had another on board that flight. But they were taken from us.”

“There was a third part. What happened to it?”

She hesitates. Perhaps she’s said too much already. But Agent Scully knows more than she’s let on as well. Does she believe?

“Sharon, I need your help. There are dozens of families that need answers, including Max’s.” She pauses, perhaps only now realizing Sharon is Max’s only family. “What you tell me could help bring the truth to light. Isn’t that what Max would have wanted?”

Sharon shakes her head. It hurts to answer. “You don’t understand. How could you? He was my best friend. And now he’s dead. For nothing.”

“I do understand. My friend was shot and killed,” Agent Scully said. Sharon looks up, surprised. “By the same men who are trying to dishonor Max’s memory.”

Sharon knows that so many lives have been lost. She doesn’t understand how it had happened, exactly, but it has something to do with what Max was carrying on that plane. It has something to do with what she’d delivered to him. And for this, she feels an overwhelming amount of guilt.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, with a shuddering sob she can no longer hold in. “None of this was supposed to happen.”

Agent Scully places a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Why did you lie about who you are?” she asks again.

“Because Max trusted you,” she says. “You and Agent Mulder. At least, that’s what he told me. I thought that if you knew how much he trusted me, that maybe… you might, too.”

“I want to trust you, Sharon. But you have to give me something.”

“I wasn’t always like this, you know,” Sharon says, sniffling. “I used to be respected in my field. But then… they came. And after that, everything was different.”

“You mean… your abduction experiences?” the agent asks carefully. 

Sharon nods. “It was interfering with my work. My mind, my sanity. Everyone thought I was crazy except Max.” She smiles, remembering the day they met. It was at the facility, in the cafeteria; they’d served spaghetti for lunch. Sharon had asked about the UFO on Max’s baseball cap. “It was the first time someone believed me. Really believed me.” She looks up at Agent Scully. “You have no idea how much that meant to me.”

Agent Scully smiles a bit wistfully. “I think that you and I have more in common than you realize,” she says quietly.

“What do you mean?”

“Agent Mulder and Max are a lot alike. I noticed when we first met him, the similarities.” Scully leans forward. “I didn’t know Max as well as you did, but I do know Mulder, and I know I’d hate to see him remembered in a way that dishonors who I knew him to be. So help us, Sharon. Help us to honor Max. You’re the only one who can.”

Sharon takes a deep breath. “If I tell you where to find it, will you help me get out of here?” She looks around the tiny room. She just wants to go home. “I’m not crazy, Agent Scully.”

The redheaded agent smiles, and places her hand on top of Sharon’s.

“I don’t think you’re crazy, Sharon,” she says. “I just think you need someone who will listen.”

Chapter Text

Jason couldn’t stand to look at her frozen body for another second. He didn’t want to kill her, he’d tried not to do it, but he hadn’t expected her to find him. He should have, though. She was always the smartest person he’d ever known.

But time, or fate, or whatever they were trapped in had other plans for them. There was an invisible string that bound them together, through time and space, ruining his best laid plans.

Jason grabbed his things and looked down at Lisa’s cold and ice-covered face. She was beautiful, even like this. She didn’t deserve to die, none of them did. None of this should have happened, but the wheel had been set in motion long ago and none of them had made any attempt to stop it.

They were so young when it started. They were going to be famous, rich, win the Nobel Prize. Their discovery would change the course of human existence. Naïveté and a complete lack of understanding of the consequences of their work had been their downfall. But how could they have known?

Jason took one more look over his shoulder, wishing things could have been different, and left the hotel room and Lisa behind. He walked down the hall, remembering the parties and banquets, the awards and the journalists clamoring over them to feature their newest discovery. They were on the cover of Newsweek and Time. Their faces were on every television network, on the lips of every American and soon, practically every human on the planet.

The fame had only driven Lisa further into her work, pushing her deeper into her obsession of making theoretical physics a reality. She drifted away from him, stopped coming home in favor of spending her nights on a couch in the corner of the lab. There was no longer any space in her life for love and human connection, but when Jason saw her today, her eyes locked on his in recognition, he remembered what she’d been like before.

If only she’d stayed that way.

Jason left the hotel and headed toward the lab, but as he walked the streets, familiar from his past and nothing like his present, his mind's eye was locked on Lisa. At this point in her life, she had loved him as much as he loved her. When she’d looked at him, he’d imagined a future together, a wedding, maybe a few kids. They’d both been so focused on their work, but in 1997, there was still room for them.

He scoffed and shook his head, turning down a side street and passing a mother holding her small child’s hand. Thank god they hadn’t started a family. In 2037, war and crime ravaged countries that had once been super powers. Nothing was assured. What was known as truth one day could be erased the next, and no one would even be aware it had happened.

History was rewritten every moment of every day. One moment you had a wife, and the next you didn’t, but you wouldn’t remember her or the children she’d bore anyway.

Escapism was everywhere— drugs, virtual reality, sensory deprivation chambers… When he’d imagined the children he and Lisa could have had, their smiling faces and dark curly hair in stark contrast to their light eyes, he couldn't stand the thought of seeing them lose their light and fall into the world of nothingness that would become their future. No child should grow up in a world where time had no permanence.

Jason could see the lab in the distance. He knew what needed to be done. It was too late to save Lisa and their friends, but he could right their wrongs. He could put the train back in its tracks by destroying their work.

He stood in front of the building, looking up at the clean and unbroken glass and cement that hadn’t existed in his world in decades. He thought of Lisa’s eyes, the love he could see in them, even as she looked at a damaged old man who was barely holding on to his sanity.

He was doing this for her. Together they had succeeded in engineering the greatest scientific achievement of all time, but now, he had to destroy it all. To save them all, and to clear her name as the creator of the darkest time in human history.

Chapter Text

“Well, what do you want to talk about?” she asked, swirling her wine around in her glass.

Usually, when he did this, Eddie had to tread delicately on a path someone else had already laid before him. Sometimes it was a Herculean task to get to learn little details about the women he was pursuing because it would be stuff their husbands would never ask. 

But this was different. 

It didn’t take him long to realize he’d initially misread the situation when he saw them at the clinic. Based on the look Dana Scully shot him when he tried to hold her hand at the airport, he knew he was navigating territory Fox Mulder had yet to conquer.

It didn’t make any sense to him. Such a good-looking guy, an agent of the Federal Beurow of Investigation, couldn’t get with his hot, nerdy partner? When he was watching them earlier, they seemed so into each other, like they were two people living in their own little world. It was something he usually only saw with couples in love.

“Earlier, you uh- you said you’d be Eleanor Roosevelt if you could be someone else for a day. Why her?” 

“I thought you said it couldn’t be a dead person,” she teased, giving him a pointed look.

He shot her a soft smile. “I want to hear why you chose her though.”

That wasn’t even a lie, he really did. Eddie saw through the window the way Mulder’s face contorted into something akin to revulsion when she answered, presumably in response to the First Lady’s appearance. It was the same expression Amanda had when she talked about him. Yet Dana didn't seem to judge a book by its cover.

“Well,” she started, taking a deep breath. “I think she’s an admirable woman. She has a lot of beautiful qualities that I would love to embody.”

“She continued her husband’s work after he fell ill right? Motivated him to keep going when no one else would, even going so far as to take on some of the load herself despite the criticism she received?” For the first time, he was grateful one of the women from the clinic loved watching the History Channel.

She nodded, seemingly pleased. “They were a great team.”

“For what it’s worth, I think you already embody a lot of the First Lady’s admirable qualities.”

She looked caught off guard by the compliment, but recovered quickly, a dusting of color on her cheeks the only giveaway that his assessment had an effect on her.

“You never answered your own question,” she stated into the hollow round of her wine glass.

“Hmm?”

“Who would you be?”

A small exhale of laughter escaped through his nose before he could catch himself and it didn’t go unnoticed. “What?” she pried.

Eddie raised the glass to his lips and pretended to take a sip to buy time. Who wouldn’t he rather be? He wanted to be someone who was funny, someone smart, someone who was loved — but at the end of the day, he truly did want to be Eddie Van Blundht. He just wished other people would want that too.

Sure, he wasn’t attractive in the conventional sense and maybe he didn’t have a fancy job working at the Federal Beureaw of Investigation, but he wasn’t all bad.

Setting the glass back down, he remembered something he’d seen in Mulder’s apartment and it seemed as good of an answer as any. 

“Elvis,” he answered.

“Elvis?” she deadpanned, her amusement showing itself in a slight grin.

“Have you heard the voice on that man? And his moves?”

“I would just like to state for the record that you also chose a dead person,” she remarked.

He shrugged in mock surrender. “My love for the King goes beyond the grave. But what about you? What type of music are you into?”

“Oh, um,” she paused, contemplating her answer. “I’ve always been a fan of R&B. Dennis Edwards, Stevie Wonder, Al Wilson–”

“What about Al Green?”

“Of course,” she replied with an earnest grin. “I have all his albums.”

“You should put them on!” he encouraged.

“Now?”

“Why not?” he countered, pleased when she nodded her head in acquiescence and got up.

His eyes trailed over her form as she walked across the room and he felt the familiar coil of arousal twist in his gut. This was probably the most beautiful woman he’d spoken to in a long time, and he wanted this to go well.

While she was preoccupied, Eddie took the opportunity and leaned over to top up her wine, pretending to do the same to his untouched glass. It’s not that he wanted the women to be drunk by the time he made a move, he just found that it helped blur the lines between how they expected their husbands to be and what he would do for them. They were less likely to question why their husband's kiss felt different or why he was trying something new. It was just better this way.

He grimaced as droplets of wine fell onto the papers scattering the coffee table, and he looked back to make sure she was still preoccupied before snagging a couple of tissues and blotting the liquid. 

His attention was drawn to a legal pad sitting amongst the papers. In delicate, feminine scrawl, he made out the words “ Doctor Appointment - Thursday at 8:30.” His confusion only deepened when he leaned over to throw the tissues in the waste bin and saw a few others stained a different shade of red. She didn’t look sick, but then again he knew better than anyone looks could be deceiving.

He quickly moved back into place when Al Green’s voice filled the room. “I haven’t played music like this in so long,” she admitted, walking back to him with a shy expression.

Suddenly he realized this might be easier than he thought. Maybe she needed this as much as he did.

Chapter Text

When Billy awoke, everything hurt. He could barely lift his eyelids, couldn’t remember the last thing he saw.

Screaming. Running. His friend scattering across the playground.

And buzzing bees. So many buzzing bees.

He heard people bustling around him, and he recognized their coats and scrubs. Mostly that smell. It was the same smell he remembered from when his dad died. Hospital smell.

He slowly twisted his neck to the right, and was horrified by the sight before him. In the next bed over was David from his class, his face covered in gross red bumps. He looked dead. 

Billy didn’t know what else to do. He started crying.

“Billy?”

A woman’s voice came from his left. It wasn’t familiar, but it was nice-sounding. He twisted his neck the other direction, warm tears spilling from his eyes, to see a pretty lady with blonde hair sitting next to him. She looked like a life-sized Barbie.

“Who are you?” he asked, his lip trembling. “Where’s my mom?”

The woman stood up and shushed him, looking around the room. “Billy, I need you to settle down. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

“But… David…” he started to cry again. Yeah, he shoved the second-grader around sometimes, but he’d never wanted anything like this. “Is he… gonna die?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Billy squeezed his eyes shut. When he could finally open them again, he took in his surroundings, and now he could see beds everywhere, kids everywhere. Gross red bumps everywhere. There were moms and dads crying, doctors pulling sheets over his classmates’ faces. It was a nightmare, it had to be. This couldn’t be real.

“Can you tell me what you saw?” the lady asked him.

“It was the bees,” he said. “There were billions of them, everywhere. Ms. Kemper always said if we ever got stung to tell a grownup, but…”

Screaming. Running. Everyone scattering across the playground, and Ms. Kemper…

Oh, no. Ms. Kemper.

He remembered now, his teacher had gone back through the swarm to save David. But David was dead. 

“Is Ms. Kemper dead, too?”

The Barbie lady was quiet, and he knew the answer. “Billy, I need to ask you a question,” she said gently. 

He shut his eyes. All he could see was Ms. Kemper, covered in a swarm of bees, screaming. Just last weekend he’d been over at Lucas’s house and they’d watched Candyman , even though he knew they weren't supposed to. And in the bathroom at lunchtime, they’d even tried to summon Candyman. Now this…

Was this all his fault?

“What else did you see, Billy?”

“I saw…” After Ms. Kemper, there was nothing. Had he passed out? Had the bees gotten him? Maybe he was dead too, and none of this was even happening.

“What happened to me?”

“I need to know if you saw anything,” she asked again. “When you went to recess, were there any men? Any strangers around you didn’t recognize?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“I need you to try, Billy. Try to remember. This is very important.”

He tried, thinking back past Ms. Kemper, past the screaming, past the bee stings…

“There was, I remember now,” he told her. “An older man. He asked me where the nearest mailbox was. There’s one right across the street from the playground.” He didn’t look like Candyman, he thought in relief.

She sat up straighter. “Was he carrying anything?”

“Yeah. Like… some envelope thingies, the kind Ms. Kemper puts our tests and stuff in.”

“What did he look like?”

Billy shrugged. “He was old.”

“That’s all you remember?”

“I don’t remember anything else besides his stinky cigarette.”

The Barbie lady stood. The look in her eyes was hard to understand. Billy didn’t know what was going on but he had the strangest feeling that everything he’d told her she already knew. And maybe he was imagining it, but she looked almost as scared as he felt.

“Thank you, Billy. You’ve been very helpful.” She turned to leave, but he reached out and grabbed her sleeve.

“Did he do this? The man?” What if it was Candyman in disguise?

“Of course not,” she said. “Get some rest, Billy.”

“Please,” he said to the lady, tugging at her sleeve. “Can you please find my mom?”

“She’ll be here soon,” she said. “You’re going to be okay.” Then she looked around the room full of weeping parents, and although she tried to hide it, he could see sadness on her face. “Everything is going to be okay.”

He watched her go, but before she left the room, some big men wearing camouflage came in. She went over to talk to them —a Barbie and a couple of G.I. Joes— and they all looked over towards him. Had he said something wrong?

A chill ran up his spine as the army guys approached him. They were big and scary.

“Billy Richardson?” one of them asked in a deep voice.

“Y-yes?”

“Your mom is on her way,” said the other, “but I’m sure you have a lot of questions. We’ve figured out what happened, and when you’re all better, you can tell your friends all about it.”

Billy listened intently as the men explained how the swarm of bees had migrated much further south than they were supposed to (he’d learned about that in school just this week!) but thanks to the brave efforts of the military, the swarm had been contained and eradicated. Whatever that meant.

“Chin up, little man,” one of them said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a little pin. “This is a medal of honor. For exceptional bravery. You earned it.”

He leaned down, attached the pin to his hospital gown, and patted Billy on the head. Then the two men disappeared.

Chapter Text

Lauren was exhausted. She was so close to the end of her senior year, she could taste it. All she needed to do was survive another few weeks, ace her exams, and she could leave this place.

She had plans for after graduation that thankfully didn’t involve the disgusting bar she spent her nights in. Rent was expensive and her parents still had two kids at home. A loan would have covered the cost of a dorm room, but she was in her last year of school. She wanted to come and go as she pleased. She wanted to live with her friends and throw parties on the weekends. She wanted a room of her own so she didn’t have to wear her headphones to block out a roommate with her boyfriend.

The bar made all of that possible. The men who drank there were awful, but the tips were good. She left every night with a pocket full of cash. She paid her rent and had money left over at the end of the month.

Lauren looked at her watch. It was late, but she really needed to get a little more studying in for her Gerontology final. She didn’t hate the class, but she didn’t love it either. She couldn’t imagine working with elderly people once she started her nursing career, but she’d have to pass the exam either way.

There was a 24-hour convenience store a few blocks away that served decent coffee. Lauren changed direction, figuring some caffeine might buy her a few more hours in front of her textbooks. She stopped at the corner, looked both ways down the almost empty street, and jogged to the other side. She ran her thumb mindlessly along the back of the ring on her left hand, trying to decide if she’d rather buy ice cream or a bag of potato chips to go along with her coffee, when she heard something.

Footsteps.

She could feel her skin pull tight, making the hairs on her arms stand on end. She quickened her pace, taking two, maybe three more steps before she suddenly felt arms wrap around her from behind. She opened her mouth to scream, but something sharp ran across her neck. Her voice was garbled as her neck got warm and her vision got blurry.

The arms that had grabbed her lowered her to the cement, almost tenderly, as Lauren realized what was happening. It was blood, blood oozing from her body, dripping down her skin, filling her mouth, making her choke. Pain shot through her neck as she gasped for air. She had an exam in the morning. Her mother’s birthday was the following weekend. She had plans.

She tried to focus as someone moved in front of her.

A woman?

No man in sight, no monster or crazed criminal looking for some fun. It was a woman who stood before her.

It was getting dark. There was no air… her lungs…

“Bitch. You have no right… no right!”

She felt fingers on her hand, pulling at her ring, removing it from her middle finger. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t breathe. She closed her eyes as she felt her right hand lifting from the pavement. When she opened them, she was in a bathroom, upright. Standing. She tried to speak, but couldn’t manage more than a groan.

She didn’t know where she was or where the woman who’d taken her ring had gone.

She had a final to study for. Someone needed to call her mom.

A different woman came into view, small with red hair. She looked surprised, maybe to not be alone in the bathroom. Lauren didn’t want to scare her. She tried to tell her she didn’t mean any harm, that she just wanted to get home, but the woman looked horrified.

And then Lauren remembered. Her neck, the blood, the lack of air in her lungs. She wanted to scream, she wanted to ask the woman for help, but there was a knock on the door. The red-haired woman looked away, and suddenly, everything faded. She wasn’t in the bathroom anymore. She was somewhere in between. Somewhere above. She didn’t recognize anything until she saw a sign. Big letters. Bright red. She squinted through the darkness.

It was the bowling alley. She’d been there before. She didn’t know why she was there now. She heard something… thought something… from someone, somewhere.

…17... 30... 37... 45... 53…

Chapter Text

Amy gasps, jolting awake and upward in darkness. The ear piercing buzz of the drill slowly fades into the void of her subconscious. Oh God, another black out? Where is she? Her heart beats frantically through her chest as she fumbles for the bedside lamp. Flowered wallpaper, cream-colored curtains, David snoring beside her… right: her bedroom. Not back there.

Another nightmare. No, a memory.

Her teeth clench, thinking about the thousand ways she may have been hurt, violated years ago. Then she thinks about how many ways she was but doesn’t remember. Her stomach twists. Flashes of unseen hands poking, prodding, pinning her down haunts her in the light of day. But it’s during the dark of night when the remnants of bone deep pain and fathomless fear soak her sheets with sweat. Like always, her hands tremble when they instantly clutch her stomach and palm her face, soothing an invisible ache. When her tongue swipes instinctively across the arc of her soft palette, somehow anticipating the warm tang of blood pooling in her mouth, tears sting her eyes. 

Every night it’s the same. Yet every night it’s worse. 

Amy gets out of bed and walks downstairs, careful not to wake David. He too gets little reprieve from his own hellish abduction memories he’d much rather forget. A luxury Amy simply cannot fathom. Frustration at living like a blindfolded prisoner inside her own body is at an all-time high, amping up her anxiety and desire for knowledge of the unknown. She has never needed the truth more. But when her brain fails to provide details of her hijacked agency she yearns to recall, her body’s muscle memory built upon the bulk of buried trauma does it for her. That scares her more than any truth ever could. Because at least now the truth will not remain buried. At least she will finally know. 

Amy swipes the sweaty tendrils of gray from her forehead and hisses when her finger nicks the fresh scab forming at her hairline. 

Dr. Charles Goldstein and his innovative method of treating memory repression has been a true revelation. David refuses to dive any further than surface level into their murky past of bright lights and missing time. But, as her psychologist, Dr. Goldstein suggested she consent to this multi-session treatment to regain pieces of her memory, and Amy has reveled in it.

She enters the crowded sunroom full of her recent artwork of her childhood home by the lake. A place where she used to feel safe and happy. Where she’d spent her wedding night with David and woke up six weeks later on life support. 

Amy settles in front of her half-painted canvas and presses play on her answering machine as the saved message from last night whirrs to life:

“Amy Cassandra, my name is Fox Mulder, I’m a Special Agent with the FBI. I’ve read the recent article in Abductee Magazine you were interviewed for about your experience years ago—in fact I’m looking at it now, and I’m interested in speaking with you in person. Uh… very interested, actually.”  

Amy stares thoughtfully at the machine as the younger man on the other end clears his throat. His tone is soft, reassuring, and Amy can’t help but wonder if a child of her own would be as understanding about her past as this Agent Mulder is. If she could’ve had children, that is. 

“…You mentioned a certain therapy you’d started that involved recovering repressed and buried memories. If you’re willing, I’d like to know more. I need to know more. For personal reasons. And Amy, I want you to know I’ll listen. Really listen. I’m sure many others haven’t before, but I will...”

Amy waits as the agent leaves his number and hears the desperation in his voice. She nods, her decision made, shouldering the corded phone attached to the wall as she dials. It’s either too early or this FBI agent screens his calls the same as David. Leaving a message, an olive branch is all she can do.

“Agent Mulder? This is Amy Cassandra, and I think I can help you…”

A predawn haze shines just enough light on her palette for her to dab out an array of acrylic in a rainbowed arc. Her hands itch to paint.

“Please delete this message after you hear it, but it’s true I’ve been slowly recovering flashes of voids or gaps within my past with the help of my psychologist. My husband and I— well, it’s been a tumultuous road to reclaim what’s been taken, but there’s so much more I must know…”

Amy anxiously grips a wooden brush and dips the bristles in vibrant green, thinking about what to say next. She paints her childhood home because it’s been the only place other than her resistant mind that holds the truth. As she speaks, the deep wound in her skull throbs, reminding her that that was true, until weeks ago when she’d traded the nightmare of one penetrating drill with the reality of another. 

“And you’d think willingly having a hole drilled into your head would be crazy, until realizing crazy is your only option to be sane,” Amy huffs into the phone at the irony. She’d apologize for her eccentric ramble but she doesn’t feel sorry for the warning. 

“Anyway…” Amy squints to shape the bend of the wind-blown tree just right along the canvas. Detail matters. It’s the details that complete the whole picture. The whole truth. The bad, the worse: all of it is what will save her sanity. “If you’re serious about knowing more, meet me at Dr. Goldstein's office in Rhode Island for my next session and you’ll see. Maybe he will help you remember your own truths...”

Art has always been therapeutic, but ever since the experimental therapy, painting has become momentous in bringing forth the evil lurking within her darkness. 

“Maybe, Agent Mulder, it’s time to exercise your demons too.”

Chapter Text

“Thank you for coming, Father,” Margaret Scully said. She sat down across from him at the kitchen table, sipping from her cup of tea. 

Peter McCue wrapped his hands around his own mug. The grandfather clock in the foyer ticked, its steady beat echoing through the house. There were so many people over last night, he hadn’t noticed it before. “Of course. Although I’m afraid I don’t have much news to relay.”

He hadn’t been able to accomplish much before Dana had departed for work. It wasn’t a rare thing for a member of his congregation to drift from the church, but whenever it happened, he struggled not to take such disappointment personally.

“I suspected as much.” Margaret sighed. 

“I couldn’t help but notice she still wears a cross around her neck,” he pointed out. “It might not mean much, but it’s something.”

“Yes,” she smiled. “I gave it to her when she was a teenager.” Margaret closed her eyes, pensive, doing her best to keep it together. Peter remained silent: for the most part, his job was to listen. 

“I’m afraid, Father,” she said. A confession.

“What are you afraid of?”

“Of losing her.”

Peter had known the Scullys for years. His intimacy with their family had been much like it was with his other parishioners: that of an observer, a confidant. Ever since Bill Scully had passed away, Margaret had been coming to confession more frequently; not because she had more to confess, but rather due to loneliness, he suspected. Her sons had both been scattered to various winds, and within the past year she’d lost her eldest daughter and was in the process of losing her other one. He felt great sympathy for her.

He’d watched the Scully children grow, but had lost touch with them, their personalities by default having crystallized in his mind as their younger selves. Whenever Margaret spoke of them by name they appeared to him like phantoms, not actual people but extensions of herself.

Dana, however, was different. She’d remained near home, attending services with her mother on a fairly regular basis. He’d known her as an adult: her hopes and fears, her joys and sorrows. He’d known her faith, seen its ebb and flow over the years. But ever since Margaret had spoken of Dana’s cancer diagnosis, she’d been markedly absent from her usual pew.

“My daughter has always been strong,” Margaret then said. Her eyes darted down to her cup. “She’s always known exactly who she was, even when her father and I felt we misunderstood her. But I fear now… she may be lost.”

When Margaret said this, a memory stirred for Peter: a story Dana had told him after her abduction experience. How close she’d come to dying, how she’d nearly given up. But she hadn’t. Her faith had come from God, yes… but it had also come from another, less expected source. Perhaps it still did.

He leaned forward. “Years ago, back when Dana disappeared, you came to me then as well. Do you remember?”

Margaret looked up, her eyes shiny. “Yes.”

“The situations weren’t the same, of course, but you said the same thing, as I recall. That she was lost to you.” He smiled. “ You’d lost your faith, remember?”

Peter was often witness to tragedy in his church families: to death, to hardship, to devastation. But he remembered this one acutely; so soon after her husband’s death, a daughter disappeared. He remembered a tombstone discussed before a body had even been found.

“There was someone who did have faith that she would return, wasn’t there?” he asked her. “Her friend, her FBI partner. He was the one who wouldn’t give up on Dana when she was lost. And if I recall correctly, he was the one who gave you strength, even after she was found.”

Margaret wiped a tear, nodding again. “Yes, Fox. They… I think they’re very close.”

Fox Mulder’s name had come up enough times in Dana’s confessions for Peter to know that was indeed the case. “They still must be, yes?”

She nodded. “He’s the one who held onto her cross when she had gone missing… he kept it safe until she was found. Then he returned it to her,” Margaret explained.

Peter gave her a gentle smile. “So… how can you be so certain she is lost?”

Margaret’s eyes widened as she took this in. The clock in the foyer chimed loudly.

“I don’t believe Dana has lost her faith,” he said firmly. “I believe she’s stronger than ever, and what she needs right now is your support.”

A look of relief swam into Margaret’s eyes, and Peter realized: he’d been summoned to help Dana, but he was really here to help her mother.

“Thank you, Father,” she said, and Peter covered her hand with his own.

He then thought of what Dana had said during their brief conversation at dinner the night prior.

I have strength.

Perhaps it wasn’t coming from the place Margaret (or he) would have expected, but what mattered was that she still had some. And the little redheaded girl he remembered, the one who always outsmarted all the other kids in Sunday School… she would fight. Especially with Fox Mulder by her side.

Chapter Text

Agent Scully had always been poised, even from that first moment in Blevins’ office, but she’d developed a sort of…commanding stature as the years went on. The conference room was full when she entered, but she took her seat and began to speak without any hint of discomfort. 

Four years ago, Section Chief Blevins assigned me to a project you all know as the X-Files.  

Agent Mulder had barely been on Blevins’ radar at the time. Had it not been for the man in charge of all this, he might not have realized the depth of his search into the paranormal for quite some time. But word had come down that he needed to be watched– reigned in. Shut down. 

Blevins had chosen Agent Scully. He’d wanted someone young, someone impressionable who was eager to please and eager to further their career in whatever way possible. She was a doctor and a scientist. Blevins thought she would be perfect for the job.

I come here today, four years later, to report on the illegitimacy of Agent Mulder's work. That it is my scientific opinion that he became, through the course of these years, a victim. A victim of his own false hopes, and of his belief in the biggest of lies.

Blevins believed she would be able to prove that the things her partner sought were nothing more than fodder for a child’s nightmares. 

He believed the X-Files would be shut down. 

How things had changed over the years. Agent Scully had only made her partner stronger. She’d proven to be just as unpredictable as the original thorn in their side. She used her intelligence and expertise to find credibility in the X-Files. What had started as an assignment to debunk had quickly changed into a mission to validate. 

…systematic way in which Agent Mulder had been deceived and used.

And yet, despite all past experience with this young woman, she sat in front of them today, claiming to have accomplished what they’d asked of her. 

…I as his partner had been led down the same path, losing a family member due to my allegiance and contracting a fatal disease, which I was being told was engineered by the men who were responsible for Agent Mulder's deception. 

Blevins didn’t know if he believed it.

What I couldn't tell Agent Mulder… what I had only just learned myself, was that the cancer which had been diagnosed in me several months earlier had metastasized.

Blevins hadn’t wanted this. He didn’t even understand it. He was too low in the chain of command to know if what she said was true, but what he did know was that the man with the cigarettes had an ever-growing interest in the status of this particular agent’s health. 

And the doctors told me short of a miracle it would continue to aggressively invade my body, advancing faster each day towards the inevitable. 

It wasn’t just the cancer that he was in the dark about. Blevins didn’t know the purpose of these men, or their goals. Their endgame. He was just a yes man, a link to the FBI. Had it not been for a chance meeting followed by insinuated threats to both his family and himself, he wouldn’t have even been there. 

He had no vested interest in Mulder and his quest, but he was part of the machine, the same as everyone else dressed in suits, skulking around in dark, smoke-filled rooms. 

Early this morning, I got a call from the police…

Following orders, completing plans. 

…asking me to come to Agent Mulder's apartment. The detective asked me... He needed me to identify a body.

Blevins could hear the emotion in her voice. He could see the way her lip quivered, and despite himself and his duty to the men who had called this meeting, he remembered the young woman from four years before. He’d sent in a spy, but in the end, created a team. 

“Agent Scully…” He chewed the inside of his lip and watched her struggle. She didn’t speak at first, but then, fighting tears, she charged forward. 

“Agent Mulder died late last night from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.” 

Her attention had fallen to the light at the door as Assistant Director Skinner entered the room. She watched him with her back to the room, but Blevins was Division Chief, and it was his job, his responsibility, to move forward. 

“Agent Scully, these accusations you've made…” he said, seriously. “You've been given a disease?”

“Yes, sir.”

“They're extremely serious charges.”

“Yes, sir. But I have proof…”

She wouldn’t have proof. These men prevented them from ever reaching that point.

…against the men behind this…of the lies that I believed. 

Agent Scully removed something from the file in front of her and stood from her seat. 

What I have here is proof undeniable...  

She would never have anything substantial…

…that the men who gave me this disease were also behind the hoax. A plot designed to lead to Agent Mulder's demise and to my own.  

If he kept his head down, did his job…

Planned and executed by someone in this room...  

Blevins could feel his heart stop in his chest. She couldn’t know… he didn’t know…

What I have here is scientific evidence—  

She froze, looking down at her file. Blevins looked too, at a small drop of blood. Then another.

Agent Scully rubbed a finger under her nose, looking back at him with a bright red smear across her skin. He was horrified by what he saw. By all of it. She began to sway on her feet. Skinner was the one who went to her rescue while the only thing Blevins could do was watch. 

Watch what he had done to a young woman with a promising career in the FBI.

Chapter Text

Cancer is a thief in the night. It is a vicious interloper, invading cells and pilfering souls of those we love — stealing their lives. It is immune to anyone. It is merciless and deadly.

Fortunately, nothing is immune to miracles. 

Dr. Jim Zuckerman clutches Dana Scully’s updated chart to his chest and fights an awed smile. This simple piece of paper containing routine white blood cell counts and PET scans feels like a precious gift made possible by her partner. A gift he is eager enough to deliver at this late hour.

Jim stops in front of Dana’s room and gapes the word REMISSION scrawled across her chart. Inserting a microchip beneath the skin of anyone’s neck could sound absurd, like science fiction. But rather than scoff at the notion of introducing an unknown piece of metal into a cancer patient’s immune-compromised body, Jim had jumped at this proposed course: a doctor’s desperation to swim through the current of the unconventional while pulling him deeper into rough waters. One last chance to help Dana fight death’s riptide. 

But that was last night. Tonight, she has breached the surface and survived.

Jim slowly pushes open the door of Dana’s moonlit room, and is stunned by the tableau: Dana and her partner sitting side by side, their foreheads nearly touching. Jim freezes, unable to move as he watches Agent Mulder hunched over at Dana’s hip, her IV-laced hand cradled within his own. Dana leans into him, a palm pressed to his sternum as her impossibly blue eyes gleam with unshed tears. They speak softly in shadow, their mouths whispering words of comfort a hair's breadth apart.

“…Promise me,” she murmurs.

“Don’t, Scully.” Agent Mulder shakes his head. “Don’t say that. It’ll work.”

“Hear me,” she says, insistent. “If the time comes, if I can no longer…” Jim can practically see rising emotion pulsate through her pale skin. “Take me home, Mulder. Please.”

Death is no longer an abstract concept for patients like Dana Scully. It’s real and raw, resting heavy upon her heart. Cancer patients dread the inevitability of living the last of their days in a sterile environment with little freedom, confined to a hospital bed as they cling to final gossamer wisps of their will to live.

“Scully-”

“Mulder.” Her hand slides up his cheek to cup his stubbled jaw. “Promise me.”

Agent Mulder’s throat bobs before he turns his face into her hand molded around his jaw and presses a chaste kiss to her palm. “I promise.”

Jim’s heart clenches as he knocks.

Dana startles and pulls away from her partner. “Dr. Zuckerman!” 

“Dana, Agent Mulder. I know it’s late.”

“Not really in a sleeping mood, and just Mulder is fine,” the agent says as he turns the overhead light on, bathing the bed in a haloed glow. 

“Feeling okay, Dana?” Jim asks while Mulder scrubs a hand across his dark-ringed eyes, glancing warily down at her.

“I’m fine,” she says thickly. 

“I have your recent results, if you’re ready...” Jim strides up to her bedside. He will not allow the cold grip of fear to restrain her any longer. 

“Oh, I can… I’ll just-” Mulder stutters as he moves to stand.

“No, Mulder.” Dana’s fingers fly up to grip his shirt collar, tugging gently until his lanky torso bows to her will. “Stay, I want you here.”

“But your family-”

”Mulder, you are family.” She’s breathy, and the break in her voice urges her partner’s fingers to weave tenderly within hers.  

Jim recalls Dana telling him that this man, her best friend, was the first person to help her absorb cancer's painful blow. It seems fitting that he be the first to feel the relief in its aftermath alongside her. 

Dana touches her cross necklace and steels herself. “Go ahead, Dr. Zuckerman.”

“As you know, we ran the preliminary test to check for any changes in your end stage status not long after implanting the microchip, and the PET scan had shown no improvement. It’s been over twenty-four hours since then, and the newest results correlated with your previous ones show a… remarkable change.” Jim adjusts his glasses and hands over the evidence of just how remarkable the results are into Dana’s waiting free hand. Her fingers shake as she white-knuckles the clipboard. 

“Oh my God,” Dana gasps. “It’s gone? You’re certain?”

“Gone?” Mulder breathes.

When she looks up at Jim with those wide, desperate blue eyes, he smiles. 

“Yes, Dana. Not only are you in remission, but there is no longer evidence the nasopharyngeal mass ever existed.” 

An adrenaline-induced sob escapes Dana, covering her mouth with her hand. Tears gather along Mulder’s eyes but his wondrous grin keeps them from falling. 

“I’ve checked and rechecked,” Jim persuades. “You’re officially cancer-free.”

A wave of sheer bliss bubbling up between the duo leaves Jim bright-eyed and beaming. Joyous sighs are muffled beneath cotton and skin as they embrace. Utter relief filling the room is as palpable as the chart now tangled within the sheets.

“Thank you,” she says to no one in particular, unable to find a sentence in her choppy sea of words. “So much.”

“Oh Scully,” Mulder rasps, pulling her closer into his arms to surround her small, frail frame with his larger one. Swells of tears brim beneath the umbrella of Dana’s lashes before burying her face in the curve of Mulder’s chest. “Scully, Scully, Scully…”

“We’ll discuss more later.” Jim gives Dana’s ankle an assuring squeeze and slowly backs away. He’ll give his patient some time alone before her mother undoubtedly visits her. “You’re quite a fighter, Dana."

Mulder closes his eyes and chuckles into her mussed hair, "You have no idea."

Whether it is divine intervention or the evolution of science that’s saved her in the end, they may never know. But he doubts the reason matters much to Dana and her loved ones right now.

After all, Jim grins as he leaves a healthy Dana behind, nothing is immune to miracles. 

Chapter Text

“Get anything from the normal-looking one?” his partner asked.

Munch walked over to their desks and sank into his chair with an exhausted sigh. “Only that the rise in American patriotism immediately following the Kennedy assassination went so far as to influence the baby names of the early to mid 1960s.”

Bolander stared at him for a moment, and upon his silence, stated: “I’ll take that as a no.”

“Listening to those three talk makes me feel like I need to go be strapped down to a hospital bed. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a great story, but that’s all it is.” The captain was up their asses about this case, but as far as Munch knew, watching one too many science fiction movies wasn’t a crime.

He glanced at the security monitor and, through the grainy black and white footage, watched the three men at the heart of their investigation squabbling with one another. Usually, he’d send a rookie to go de-escalate the situation, but none of these guys looked like they could cause much harm. 

“Maybe they’re roleplaying,” Bolander offered.

“Roleplaying as what? Larry, Curly, and Moe?”

“Nah,” his partner replied, shaking his head. “I saw it back in the day. Ya’ know, those people obsessed with Star Trek and whatnot. They put on little ears with laser beams made from tin foil and run around the woods pretending to be Han Solo.”

“Captain Kirk,” Munch corrected.

Bolander shrugged, cracking open the tab of his soda can. “Whatever.” 

Munch rubbed the back of his neck as he drank his lukewarm cup of coffee from the squad room, trying to make the liquid bypass his tastebuds on the way down so it would be tolerable. The warehouses in that part of town weren’t a hot spot for violent crime. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever known what that warehouse held or who owned it. It was pretty nondescript. He just remembered always seeing men dressed in black guarding the building.

“Did either of the other two say anything interesting?” he asked.

“ You might’ve found it interesting, but you know I’m not interested in all that conspiracy gobbledygook,” Bolander dismissed. “I don’t care about any grassy knoll, why someone might carry an umbrella on a sunny day, or who might’ve been hiding behind smoke and mirrors.”

“That’s amateur hour, talk to me about what they did with the coffin and you’ll have my attention,” he teased. “Did the drug screen for the blonde one come back?”

“Faint traces of marijuana in his system, but that was expected. Guy talked my ear off about anti-authoritarianism and how the FCC commits violations against citizens’ right to free speech, yadda, yadda.”

They looked back at the monitor and Mr. John Fitzgerald Byers was standing in between the other two, waving his hands around emphatically. “Doesn’t look like they’re well acquainted. Do you think the other two might’ve been trying to buy some pot off of him?” 

Bolander clicked his tongue in disagreement. “FBI doesn’t have time for that.”

“Think he might be crooked? Any history of–”

Before Munch could even finish the thought, Bolander cut him off. “Got a call from his superior. Reggie… uh,” he glanced back at his sheet and waved his hand dismissively, “Something. He says this guy is a genius, one of the best profilers the FBI’s got.”

“Does Reggie Something know that his star agent just spent the night doing a rather convincing impression of Napoleon?”

The harsh trill of the office phone cut off his line of inquiry. “Detective Stanley Bolander, Baltimore Homicide.”

Munch was about to get up and take a leak when Bolander put his free hand  over the phone’s mouthpiece and whispered, “Speak of the devil.”

Bolander removed his hand as Munch walked closer. “What can we do for you, Agent Mulder? You feeling any better?” 

While the agent answered, Munch took a legal pad off the desk and scribbled a note across the yellow page.

Tell him we have those three in custody.

His partner read the note and nodded. “I’m glad to hear it. I just wanted to let you know we have the suspects in custody.”

Munch could only faintly hear the reply through the phone’s speaker, but based off Bolander’s contorted expression, it wasn’t the reaction they were expecting.

“You know, the unusual-looking fellows. Melvin Frohike, John Byers, and Richard Langly. They claim that they stumbled across some sort of conspiracy to infect the general public with a chemical substance. They say that’s what you got doused with, and caused you to go… you know,” Bolander trailed off.

There was some nodding and monosyllabic responses that he couldn’t decipher, but he was shocked when he got a response on the legal pad.

He says let them go.

“What?” Munch whispered in surprise.

“How can you be sure they aren’t lying if you don’t remember?” Boldander pressed.

His partner looked up at him and shrugged his shoulders in defeat. “Okay, well, we’d like to get your statement if you could drop by.”

Munch waited for the phone to return to its cradle before exclaiming, “The man was found delirious on the floor of a dirty warehouse, and he wants us to release the only suspects?”

“Guy sounded concerned for them,” he sighed.

“Back in my day, people who liked tripping balls while naked and spent their time spewing anti-government conspiracy theories usually tried to avoid the FBI,” Munch grumbled.

“Was the FBI even founded yet back in your day?” Bolander teased.

Rolling his eyes, Munch stood up and started making his way towards the cells. “You know what? If the Three Stooges want to finally leave their moms’ basements so they can play spy in between sessions of Dungeons and Dragons,” Munch said, shaking his head in defeat, “Let ‘em.”

Chapter Text

People often asked her what it was like to have a male partner, but to Ruby Stonecypher, it had always been a non-issue. What mattered in a partner was that they understood each other. They communicated well, got the job done. She and Kinsley had that since day one. If she jumped, he’d catch her. If she called, he answered. She only needed to explain something once and he knew exactly what she meant.

It was perfect, really, their partnership. She couldn’t have asked for a better one. Still, it was difficult being a woman in the FBI, even at a Florida field office. People asked questions, whispered behind their backs, or just plain thought Kinsley would be better off with a man instead of her. Ruby had gotten good at ignoring it, but she always wished she knew another woman who was in her position.

Enter Agent Dana Scully.

Ruby hadn’t initially wanted to carpool to the team building seminar, but when she and Kinsley got the names of the agents they would be driving with, a small sliver of excitement sparked through her. Another male/female partnership. Another woman who understood what it meant to succeed in the boys club while relying on one of those boys day in and day out to keep you alive. She didn’t want to get ahead of herself, but she thought maybe if she was lucky, she would find a kindred spirit in Agent Scully.

Unfortunately, they’d barely left the airport when she realized that was never, ever going to happen.

First, there was the silence. Agents Scully and Mulder barely spoke at all after they got in the car. Kinsley kept the conversation flowing, looking back over his shoulder from time to time to check in with the agents in the back seat, but Ruby found herself doing most of the heavy lifting. She asked them questions about their work, talked about past cases. She even brought up her childhood dog, hoping a wildcard might get something more than a one word answer from either of them, but nothing. Communicating with those two was more difficult than some interrogations she’d been a part of, but she kept trying. They didn’t call her Tough as Rocks Stonecypher for nothing.

She just was about to ask Agent Scully how she maintained her wardrobe when she was in the field, when the other woman spoke.

“Kinsley, you mind if we stop?” Agent Scully asked from the back seat. “There was a sign a ways back for a rest stop at the next exit.”

“Sure,” he answered, changing to the right lane. “I could use the little boy’s room, myself.”

“You okay, Scully?” Ruby heard Agent Mulder ask, so quietly that she may have missed it if she hadn’t spent the last hour so deeply attuned to the two of them.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she answered, matching her partner’s low volume. “Just a little car sick. It’s nothing.”

Ruby pulled the visor down and opened the mirror, pretending to check her mascara while she watched the pair of back-seat passengers.

“Are you—”

Agent Scully turned her head and locked eyes with Agent Mulder, and he stopped speaking. Just as quickly as it had started, their conversation came to an end. There was worry in his eyes, but whatever was bothering him, his partner didn’t want to talk about it. She just completely shut him out.

Ruby closed the mirror and turned to face Kinsley. He was humming something that she couldn’t identify. She wondered if he’d heard the conversation she’d just witnessed, but doubted it. For an investigator, Kinsley could be really non-observant sometimes. It wasn’t until she turned her eyes back to the road that he finally seemed to notice her.

“Everything okay, Stonecypher?” he asked. His voice was bright like it always was, and she found comfort in that. It was nothing like the brooding intensity that she could practically feel radiating from the back seat. Ruby couldn’t figure out how those two ever got anything accomplished with attitudes like that.

Kinsley pulled off the highway and navigated to an empty-looking rest stop. Ruby could hear the other agents mumbling, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. The only time Ruby spoke to her partner in hushed tones was on a stakeout. Their communication was open and loud, nothing hidden and everything understood. It was what made them a great team, and it was what would make them stand out at the seminar. They’d been the top partnership last time. They had a title to defend.

Ruby opened her door and stepped out, stretching her back as the others joined her on the pavement. Her gaze drifted to Agent Mulder, who was watching his partner with concern before he turned her way. His face was blank, not necessarily angry, but not particularly pleased either. Ruby held her gaze, until Agent Scully walked between them, headed toward the building.

Agent Mulder looked at his watch. “Let’s make it fast. We’ve got an evening of lectures and trust falls to look forward to and you know I don’t want to be late.”

Kinsley launched into a story about their last seminar, and Ruby fell into step. She watched her partner as he talked to Agent Mulder, Agent Scully walking wordlessly a few steps ahead. Ruby couldn’t believe she’d thought she’d find a kinship with these two. It didn’t appear that she and Agent Scully were going to become friends, which was probably better anyway. Now she wouldn’t have to feel bad when she and Kinsley took home the coveted winner’s trophy.

When they got back in the car, Ruby made a plan. She would determine how much of a threat they would be this weekend, and claim her place, their place, as the top partnership participating.

Because it was all about communication, and with that, she and her partner would come out on top. Just like they always did.

Chapter Text

He watches as Dr. Pollidori is quickly shoved into the back of the local police cruiser. The crowd gathered around glares menacingly at the scientist as he’s driven away. 

“Good riddance,” Izzy says, standing guard beside the FBI agent’s car where the Great Mutato is slumped over in the back seat. He has to fight a sudden urge to smuggle the guy a jar of peanut butter. 

Pushing himself off the car, he shoves his hands in his pockets and sighs. Izzy Berkowitz may look dumb to some. He may be obsessed with comics while struggling to survive a hicktown childhood with nowhere to go but conventions, but he is far from stupid. Looks can be deceiving. The Great Mutato has surely proven that to everyone here. And looking at the would-be mob milling about, like something straight out of a scene from Frankenstein, Izzy feels ashamed of his judgment.

Mutato being created by his crazy scientist brother wasn’t his fault. He was innocent in that act. Though Mutato knew what his father was doing to women within those fumigation tents while he danced to Cher and learned of the world — did he really understand how messed up it was? That a farmer artificially inseminated unknowing women to try to create his son a mate? 

Izzy cringes at that thought. Everything about this is messed up. 

He strides into the house where Agents Mulder and Scully are, about to tell them exactly that, when Agent Mulder asks, “Where’s the writer? I want to speak to the writer.”

Izzy blinks. “Huh?”

“This isn’t how the story is supposed to end.” Agent Mulder looks at him as if he holds all the answers. He almost laughs, but it’s clear within the agent’s wild-eyed stare that he’s used to being laughed at. Izzy can relate.

“Just because I wrote stories about the Great Mutato, doesn’t mean I know anything about the real him,” he admits, glancing over his shoulder at Mutato’s bowed head. “I think… I think maybe it’s his turn to write what comes next.”

Agent Scully frowns. “What does that mean?” 

“Let’s ask and find out,” Agent Mulder nods at the car. 

“Mulder-”

The agent shoulders past Izzy, flinging open the car’s back door. Mutato looks up with two sets of sad eyes and holds out his wrists, waiting for the cuffs Izzy hopes never come. 

Agent Mulder shakes his head. “If you could write a story for yourself, an ending that doesn’t involve experiments and isolation, what would it be?”

“I…” Both of Mutato’s mouths gape open. “Other than living in a world of acceptance alongside someone else like me, I’ve only ever dreamed of one thing…”

***

Then I'm walking in Memphis

I was walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale

Walking in Memphis

But do I really feel the way I feel?

Izzy’s smiling directly behind the FBI agents as the Cher sings to the Great Mutato in the front row. It’s like a dream: the claw-like hands of her biggest fan clapping to the beat and waving excitedly at the woman on stage. 

He looks around the crowded concert hall and chuckles at the irony. Many of these people are the same ones who’d questioned Izzy’s own creativity for years, yet had no idea they are part of a similar kind of creation: a genetically altered town borne of a father’s misguided love for his adopted son. The simple folk of this rural Indiana town are no different than the man they’d called Monster and chased with pitchforks. 

Maybe they’re all monsters.

Izzy kind of likes that. 

But there's a pretty little thing

Waiting for the King

Down in the Jungle Room

As the disco ball spins and the spotlight shines down on the Great Mutato shimmying in his seat, Izzy catches Agent Mulder reach across the table to squeeze his partner’s hand. “Something wrong?”

She leans over, a tiny smirk tugging at her lips. “Just curious if Jerry Springer is hiding behind that curtain too.”

“You think?” he teases, and she rolls her eyes. “Come on, Scully, have a little fun.”

Izzy can see Agent Scully’s brow arch as her soft smirk turns playful. “Only a little?”

“Ah, Scully,” he gives a lopsided grin, and Izzy nearly rolls his own eyes at their blatant flirting. For a guy who gets laughed at, women sure love him. Agent Mulder turns then and gives the Great Mutato a high five. 

And I sang with all my might

And he said "Tell me, are you a Christian, child?"

And I said "Man, I am tonight!"

The energy in the room swells with the chorus, urging Izzy to stand and sway with the rest of the town. As Cher walks down the stairs and reaches her hand out for the Great Mutato to hold, welcoming him onto the stage beside her, Izzy feels that warm sense of acceptance Mutato had mentioned wash over him. 

Walking in Memphis

But do I really feel the way I feel?

Agent Mulder suddenly stands, bowing his head and reaching out his hand for his partner. Agent Scully seems as awed as Mutato had moments ago before sliding her hand into his, grinning gorgeously at him as he tugs her close, his one hand grasping hers as the other dips down to palm her lower back. They dance slowly, their eyes locked and noses nearly touching. 

Izzy snorts.

Dang, the way they’re practically swooning in each other’s arms reminds him of the covers on his mom’s romance novels. He does roll his eyes then, looking up at the Great Mutato as he joyfully dances with his idol on stage. But if this is how this story of a man-made monster who’s never harmed a living soul is supposed to end, then he’s happy to watch two FBI agents gaze at one another under a disco ball. 

Put on my blue suede shoes

Izzy shuts his eyes and says, “The End.”

Chapter Text

There was a time when Dana adored him. Mom said all little girls looked up to their big brothers, but she was only half right. Bill could still feel phantom pains from his childhood brawls with Missy, but when Dana was young, you would have thought she lived in the space on the ground where his shadow lay. He couldn’t count how many times she bumped into his back when she’d follow too close behind him, or how often he rolled his eyes when she’d pretend to be interested in whatever he was into.

He didn’t realize how much her admiration meant to him until it wasn’t so freely given.

Even in name, he was trying his best to honor his father’s legacy. Of course Mom said he would be so proud, but over time, he realized Dana was his only mirror into seeing how true that was. The colors that spanned his uniform didn’t have the same effect as the glint in her eyes when she looked at him and saw their father.

He hadn’t seen that glint in years.

Dad had always told him that he was setting an example for his siblings, but he was too young and too dumb, so he treated the privilege like a burden. As a kid, his attempts to emulate his father’s authority were sloppy and mean, something Dana realized far sooner than he did. As an adult, he recognized how great his father was at commanding respect while never letting his kids question how much they were loved. 

If he had to pinpoint the moment everything changed between them, it was when she called him saying that she was joining the FBI after spending years in medical school. He’d been exhausted from his deployment, and the words just slipped out. 

“Dad’s going to be so disappointed in you.”

He might have been the one with their father’s name, but she was daddy’s little girl. Even though he thought his statement was true, he felt the need to spit the acrid taste of the words out of his mouth. Melissa and Charlie might’ve reveled in rebellion, but he and Dana lived their lives in a way that ensured a statement like that would never be true.

She got mad, he apologized, they moved on, but their relationship was never the same. It made him feel guilty that her estimation meant so much to him, and he returned the favor by watering the seed of doubt in her mind so that it became an invasive weed woven into her psyche.

Sometimes Bill wondered if it would have been easier to mend their relationship if she was partnered with anyone else. He called Mr. Mulder a sorry sonofabitch a few weeks before, but he was preaching to the choir. Maybe that’s what pissed him off so much. Mulder does blame himself. There’s nothing Bill could ever say to that man that he hadn’t said to himself a thousand times over.

Her partner knew, yet nothing changed. They hadn’t slowed down, they hadn’t taken a break, and Dana was stuck living a life devoid of all the things she’d dreamed of growing up. Mr. Mulder never saw the childhood crayon drawings of a doctor with red, shoulder-length hair. He didn’t know about how often Melissa and Dana speculated about baby names or gushed about what their future husbands would look like. But Bill always thought about his baby sister and how often she came home, battered and bruised, to an empty apartment. Dana might love her work, but her work wasn’t keeping her warm at night.

She barely even saw her family any more. It pained him more than he could say that his children would only get to know his family through trips to the cemetery and Christmas visits.

And even that wasn’t a guarantee.

Bill watched as Dana walked back into the living room and sit down after contributing a hefty addition to next month’s phone bill. His eyes were drawn to her fingers as she worried the cross that hung around her neck. What used to be an act of devotion now just looked like thoughtless muscle memory in effect.

“Mulder’s on his way here,” she stated matter-of-factly.

He knew by her body language that this was information he was expected to accept without argument. In a measured tone, he asked: “Did he get a room at a hotel?”

“No.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mom’s hands still as her back straightened. Despite being an empty-nester for nearly two decades, she was still prepared to intervene in her children’s fights. Only this time, she was beaten to the punch.

“I can’t wait to meet Mulder! I’ve heard so much about him,” Tara beamed from his side.

Dana offered his wife a polite smile, but Tara’s last comment earned him a biting glance.

Mom, picking up on the subtext his wife hadn’t, was quick to try and prevent an argument. “I’m always glad to have him around. He’s like a part of the family.”

Bill held back a wince as his incisor dug into his lip. He wanted to say that this was his house and that he should have a say who gets to be here. He also wanted to remind his mother she didn’t seem to consider him family when she was sobbing on the ride back from the hospital, lamenting  that Dana needed to give chemo another try instead of a goddamned piece of metal.

But he didn’t. He knew his mother would remind him that the little piece of metal did work and that Mulder had effectively saved his only living sister’s life. Just like he knew Dana would threaten to leave if he didn’t welcome this man into his home and keep his mouth shut about the fact they would likely be sharing his guest bed.

He was tired of being the bad guy when all he wanted was his family to be back together.

Chapter Text

He doesn’t remember much after he hits the floor. The FBI agent yelling his name, something about not using his gun. Confusion, regret, fear. There were fleeting moments of lucidity: being loaded into an ambulance, being hooked up to machines and IVs. He doesn’t know what happened, he doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. He can’t remember any of it, really. 

But he remembers her.

He moves in and out of consciousness as the doctors explain what happened (or attempt to), but he isn’t listening. He thinks of her, wonders about her. More now than he did yesterday. Funny how that works.

His eyes open slowly, painfully, and although there’s sunlight streaming through the hospital window he has no earthly concept of time. But she’s here at his bedside, finally. In the flesh. She’s standing over him with concern painted across her beautiful features.

“Detective Kresge,” she says, a relieved smile on her face. He realizes it’s the first time he’s actually seen her smile since she arrived in San Diego.

“Scully, FBI,” he replies weakly.

“How’re you feeling?”

He groans. “Like the precinct coffee that’s still at the bottom of the pot around lunchtime.”

She grins. “Well, you look better than I expected.”

“That’s a relief.” Her expression doesn’t indicate as much, and he presumes she’s just being kind. Damn, he should’ve just asked her out before all of this happened, when he maybe kinda sorta had a shot. 

“My partner tells me you were really put through the wringer.” 

Partner. Everything had happened so fast back at that house where he’d followed Dr. Calderon, he hadn’t even had time to put it together. Of course that guy was her partner.

“You never told me your partner was in town.”

“Yeah, well…” she shrugs. “I was off duty. Technically.”

“Would have been nice to get a heads up.”

She says nothing. Her reluctance to explain, though, has his head spinning. Sure, he’s irked by the omission, but even after all of this, he realizes that what he actually wants to know is if her partner —that really good-looking guy she must spend every waking hour with— might be more than just her partner.

“He, uh… tried to warn me. Not to use my gun.” He wants to ask her what the fuck happened. His doctors’ explanation was basically a non-explanation; they had no idea what had caused his injuries. He could only be grateful they hadn’t been fatal. But she’s a doctor too, and she’s smart. Smarter than most of the people on his squad.

Luckily, he doesn’t have to ask. “You were exposed to an unknown contaminant,” she explains. “Mulder was once exposed to the same thing. What he told the doctors may have saved your life.”

Dammit. Now he can’t even hate the guy.

“And… the little girl?” he then asks, but immediately wishes he hadn’t. Dana looks down. She doesn’t have to say anything. He knows how attached she was to that child. 

Fuck. The things he sees, the things she’s seen… sometimes he really hates this job.

“I’m sorry, Dana.”

He wants to reach out and take her hand, something to give her comfort, but he can’t help but feel like it’s not his place. She looks down at him, her eyes glassy. He recognizes her toughness, her resilience. The very thing he’d fought against at the start is exactly the thing that makes her a good agent. But in this moment he can see her humanity, something he knows makes her a good person, too. He wishes he’d had the chance to get to know her better.

“I’ll be okay.” She regards him for a moment. “I’d better get going. You should get your rest.”

He nods. He knew this visit would be brief, considering she hasn’t even sat down. He can only hope she’s here out of desire rather than obligation. “Okay.”

“I, uh…” she stops, collecting her thoughts. She glances out to the hallway, where he can see her partner milling around on his cell phone. So he’s here, too. “I just want to thank you for your help on this. For letting me turf your case.” She gives him a wry grin.

“Any time.”

But then she looks him directly in the eyes. “And… for believing me,” she says emphatically. “We wouldn’t have gotten as far if you hadn’t.”

“You’re welcome. And if you’re ever in town again and need a break from holiday time, give me a call.”

She smiles back. “I’ll do that.”

They look at each other, and for the first time in her breakneck pace since he met her, he can see her take a pause. Really consider him. He wonders if maybe, in another time, another situation– in another life – this could have really been something. And he could just be imagining it, but for a split second he thinks that maybe she’s wondering the same.

“Take care, Detective Kresge.”

He gives her a weary salute. “So long, Scully, FBI.” 

She turns to go, giving him one last tiny smile at the door. And when she walks through, she leaves it open a crack. He doesn’t believe in signs, but he takes this as one. He hopes she meant it. Maybe he’ll see her again someday.

He turns on his side to get more comfortable; he really could use some rest. In his periphery, however, he sees Agent Mulder out in the hallway, hanging up his phone and stepping close to her, concern etched onto his face. He puts a hand on Dana’s shoulder and she bows forward, falling against his chest.

He knows what this means. The emotion she’d held at bay in here with him is overflowing out there, with him .

Something about this gives him comfort. Because it isn’t his face, or his rank, or the fact that he lives three thousand miles away. None of that matters. Because Detective John Kresge never actually had a shot.

Chapter Text

BEEEEEP

Her eyes burn while the heart monitor continues to flatline. 

She reaches down to hold her brother’s limp hand as he takes his last breath. Her heart constricts in time with her fingers squeezing his. Six months ago, she’d walked into this same hospital dressed as a nun and had simply urged him to wake up. Now, she has done the exact opposite.

“Goodbye, Bobby,” Linda whispers as a hot tear rolls down her cheek. 

She stands, unpinning the fake nurse’s ID, shakily jotting down an address to one of her vacant warehouse properties for him to find. With clenched fists, Linda Bowman walks away from her dead twin, revenge stoking the hot flame of rage burning in her chest. 

It’s time for this fox hunt to end. 

***

She knows exactly what to do while waiting in the shadows. It’s just like Bobby had said it would be between the FBI’s dynamic duo: an incredibly close yet opposing partnership, two complementary sides to a coin. The skeptic and the believer. Unfortunately for Fox Mulder, believing will be the death of him.

Linda flicks the safety off her gun and walks into the open. 

“Mulder?” Linda calls in Agent Scully’s voice. 

“Scully?” Agent Mulder starts running, but his Scully isn’t here yet.

Linda smirks. This man has essentially stolen the only family she has left. Has torn her heart apart with a single bullet and a life sentence cut short. 

Yes, Linda thinks, she will tear his heart to shreds. 

“Scully, what are you doing here?” he asks.

The words coming from her mouth are her own, yet in Agent Scully’s voice.

“…She’s making me do this. I can’t help myself.” His fear amuses her, so Linda keeps egging him on, putting on quite the show. “Mulder, make her stop!” she pleads as the little redhead.

“Linda Bowman!” Agent Mulder yells. “Show yourself!”

Linda Bowman, she almost scoffs, giving herself away. She became a Bowman out of necessity. Though her husband’s obsession with her long lost twin disgusted her, he had no idea she’d slithered her way into his life like a snake and pushed him to marry her. Marriage gave easy access to murder the man who put her brother away and presented the perfect opportunity to trap a Bureau Fox on the run. 

“Mulder…” Linda pretends to beg as vengeance spurs the gun to her faux temple.  

“NO!” Agent Mulder’s hollow scream resounds around the empty warehouse, sprinting towards the body he thinks is Agent Scully as Linda pulls the trigger. “NO!”

He falls to the floor, whimpering over the illusion of his pretty partner’s bloody head. 

An eye for an eye. A bullet for a bullet.

Heels clack along the concrete as Agent Scully, disguised as Linda herself, arrives. Right on time.

Agent Mulder angrily grabs the gun and aims it at fake Linda’s face. “I’m gonna kill you.”

They argue fruitlessly about him not forgiving himself if he kills her, his precious partner. Linda inwardly groans, wanting to shout, “Just shoot already!” 

“You killed her!” he cries pathetically to the real Dana Scully, and Fox Mulder’s devastation is nothing short of delightful. 

“Mulder…” 

“Shut up!”

“Modell warned you. Don't play her game,” Agent Scully cautions. Convincingly, too, and Linda panics. Instantly she knows her plan has gone to hell.

But Linda will finish what her brother started two years ago.

She stands, then is immediately knocked back down by an ear-piercing bang. Searing pain in her chest causes her illusions to drop. That little bitch shot her. 

Gasping, Linda watches the woman she wanted dead walk over and run a hand down a stunned Agent Mulder's arm. 

The last ounce of her fury flares at her failure. This isn’t over. 

“You think you can hold me?” she taunts. 

Linda’s vision blurs as she watches Agent Scully end the 911 call and gently run a hand down the bent back of her partner. Agent Mulder’s head hangs between his trembling legs, his hands clutching his knees. Even as her heart thumps within her ears, Linda can hear the soft sobs and sharp inhales of breath wracking his slender frame. 

“Mulder, breathe for me,” Agent Scully says, her head bowed down to his. “It’s okay. I’m okay.” Her tone is soft and tender, and Linda nearly sighs through her pain at the comfort of it. 

“No, it’s not okay,” he huffs. The rough grit of his words echo off the warehouse walls, keeping Linda from passing out as blood soaks her shirt. “I almost shot you, Scully, you… you could’ve-” 

“But you didn’t and I didn’t,” Agent Scully cups his cheek with the hand not rubbing small circles along his spine. Her touch rips his watery stare from the concrete floor beneath where Linda’s limp body lay, right where he’d thought a massive puddle of his partner’s blood had pooled. Their gazes lock. “Mulder, you wouldn’t hurt me. I trust you.”

His shuddering slows as his hand covers hers cradling his face. “Okay.” 

“Good,” Agent Scully glances back at Linda with disdain. “I’m going to monitor her until the ambulance arrives, all right?” 

“Go ahead, Scully.” Their hands slide slowly down his stubbled jaw as one while Linda can barely keep her eyes open. “I’m fine.”

“Sounds familiar,” she teases on an exhale.

Agent Mulder doesn’t smile. He stands up straight, his wild eyes raking over the petite woman from head to toe. “It’s not me I worry about.” 

“But I do,” Agent Scully says fiercely. 

Then, suddenly, warm fingers are pressed to Linda’s cold neck. She shivers.

Big blue eyes hover over Linda’s drooping ones. Cerulean blue. How ironic. It’s funny, Linda muses as the room starts to spin, what the mind focuses on as the body shuts down: this skeptic and believer see so much, but are blind to what’s right in front of them.

Sirens wail. The world darkens. And Linda’s mind shifts again, thinking of Bobby as her tear-filled eyes finally slip shut…

Chapter Text

Lisa doesn’t know who called Karin. One minute she was trying to ignore the way her father’s body didn’t move as the paramedics picked him up, and the next she was sitting in the family room avoiding the woman’s prying stare.

Karin said it would take a few days for her Aunt Linda to come into town, so maybe, in the interim, that meant Karin was the closest thing she had to a family.

The thought made her cry. The crying made Karin write something on a legal pad.

It wasn’t that she disliked the psychiatrist, but she got the impression the woman never really listened to her. Karin might have called her Lisa to her face, but she was sure in all other contexts, she was just a patient number. 

Since their first meeting, Karin had always insinuated that Lisa’s father was the reason she had stopped eating after her mother died. It didn’t make any sense to Lisa. Her father was always offering her something to eat and would cook anything she asked for. Sometimes the look of relief on his face was the only reason she’d eat at all. Lisa knew she was all he had left of his wife, and that he was just terrified of losing her too. He was trying his best, but Karin didn’t seem to think so.

Twice a week, she’d stare at Karin in her office, surrounded by diplomas, spouting words Lisa didn’t even understand. Who was Lisa to argue with an expert? If Karin said she needed to stand up for herself, then she thought she should try.

“Just shut up!”

Lisa clenched her jaw in an attempt to keep the tears at bay as she remembered the final words she said to her dad. Uncomfortable with the weight of the psychiatrist’s attention, she lowered her gaze to the floor and was struck by how dirty her socks were. 

The autumn soot was damp, and it felt like she was sinking into the earth as she pressed on his chest with trembling hands, trying to restart his heart while hers was shattering.

“Daddy, please!”

“I tried to do CPR,” she admitted, succumbing to the pressure to speak. “In school, they said you have to push down really hard, but I kept slipping.”

“But you tried. That’s good,” Karin praised. “Did they teach you the fifteen compressions to two breaths technique?”

They did. After she counted to fifteen, her arms were throbbing from exertion, and she froze before starting the breaths. The thought of kissing her dad grossed her out, so she hesitated. Her dad needed her and she was hung up on something stupid and childish.

“Yes,” Lisa exhaled. She didn’t want to talk about this anymore. She was alone with the body for only fifteen minutes, and she felt like she would spend the rest of her life replaying each and every one. There was no reason Karin needed to know how badly she’d failed her dad. Again.

Lisa raised her hands to her face, aligning the palms of her hands to fill the hollow of her eye sockets so she could apply pressure and cause little flashes of color to dance across her eyelids. 

“And you say you called 911 as soon as it happened?” Karin asked.

Lisa pressed harder and started to see stars amidst the pops of color. She wondered if stars were the last thing he saw, or if his last glance was wasted on his ungrateful daughter’s angry face.

The silence went on for too long, so Karin prompted her again. “The police said you phoned it in as an accident.”

“I didn’t know he-” Lisa replied, choking on the words she couldn’t voice.

A warm pressure on her leg caused Lisa’s head to snap up and see that Karin had moved to sit next to her on the couch. Lisa had to resist the urge to pull her knee away from Karin’s long, willowy fingers.

“I don’t want you to feel guilty,” the woman stated in a hushed tone, glancing over her shoulder to make sure they weren’t being listened to. “You stood your ground.”

Tears stung Lisa’s eyes as she felt the knot in her stomach tighten. “I didn’t do anything!” she seethed through gritted teeth, heat crawling up her neck and painting her face red. “Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?” She was trying to be assertive, but the tightness of her throat made her question come out strained and weak.

Karin was shaking her head emphatically as she put her hands up in a mock surrender. “I never said you did, Lisa. I know you didn’t.”

She was too tired to guess what Karin was trying to say, so she just stared blankly at the woman until she provided more information on her own.

“I just want you to know that feelings of relief after an abusive parent dies are completely normal.”

A gust of wind caused the tree branches outside to brush against the pane of glass in the front room, and Lisa flinched in spite of herself and looked down to make sure the branches of the tree hadn’t woven around her limbs too. 

Karin continued on, seemingly oblivious to the tree limbs knocking against the window, begging to be let in. “It’s natural for kids who have been in your situation to wish that their parent was dead. It doesn’t mean you made it happen, or that you’re a bad person.”

“I didn’t wish-” Lisa started, ready to defend her father. But there was something about what Karin said that gave her pause. “What do you mean ‘made it happen’?”

Lisa winced as Karin’s grip on her knee tightened, but she wasn’t sure the woman even meant to do it. The leaves on the tree branch outside shifted in the breeze, covering the window and casting a shadow across Karin’s darkened expression.

“I’m going to keep you safe, Lisa.”

Chapter Text

Jack Bonsaint never really bought into any of that witchcraft stuff. He grew up in Ammas Beach, been here all his life. The lore has surrounded him ever since he could remember. But the town isn’t exactly teeming with crime; in fact, most days, his watch is pretty darn quiet. And a lot of the time, he suspects the townsfolk conjure and believe these witchcraft stories out of pure boredom. 

He’d never witnessed any of it with his own eyes before, but on the day Special Agent Dana Scully came into town (the same day poor Dave the butcher got maimed by his own carving knife), Jack got a feeling deep in his gut things were different. When he’d walked into that Turner house this morning… he’d sure felt something strange. 

Even if Melissa wasn’t actually a witch, the townsfolk sure believed it. And the last thing he needs is a mob running amok.

I don’t think it’s witchcraft, Mulder. Or sorcery.

It was strange, to say the least; hearing a federal agent talking seriously about a subject he’d been conditioned to roll his eyes at his entire life. As a cop —a chief, no less— he tries to remain as serious as possible. But today, maybe he needs to take this seriously. 

Agent Scully had made it pretty clear she wasn’t interested in letting the investigation interfere with her R&R, but now he has two murders on his hands. And from what little he knows of her, she’s not the type of agent to let the unsolved remain… well, unsolved.

Vacation, she’d said. He’ll do his best. 

“New England hospitality,” she says, taking a sip from her water. “Finally.”

It’s a nice place, maybe a little touristy, but Jack suspects it’s precisely what she’s after. She’s working, but she can see the harbor. She can hear the gulls calling. Maybe she can pretend she’s still on vacation.

“Figured this’ll fit the bill,” he says. “Locals still come here but only ‘cause it’s the best damn lobster in town.”

“Thanks, Jack,” she said. “This is really nice.”

It isn’t a date, obviously. Just two professionals discussing a case over lunch. Jack hasn’t been on anything resembling a date since the divorce, and that was nearly two years ago. But something about it triggers a memory of what it’s like to be on a date, what it’s like to want to impress the woman sitting across from him. 

He has a feeling nothing about this place is going to impress Dana Scully.

“So… FBI,” he says, punctuating each letter. “What department do you work in? You and your partner,” he added, testing the waters. He’d only spoken to the man briefly but he’d seemed a bit… territorial. 

“Well, it’s a little unorthodox, actually,” she says. She hedges a bit, as if she isn’t really interested in sharing. But then she goes for it. “We work on cases called X-Files. Unsolved cases.”

He chuckles. “Not sure how it works in your neck of the woods, but it seems lots of cases go unsolved.”

She smiles tightly. “Well, what I mean is more like… cases that aren’t really explained to anyone’s satisfaction. At least not in any conventional way.”

He furrows his brow. “You mean… like witchcraft.”

“In this case, yes. Extreme possibilities.”

“Uh-huh.” For a minute he thinks she might be pulling his leg, but he pushes the thought away. People are dead, and she seems to be as serious an agent as they come. Besides, if “extreme possibilities” make her want to keep going… well, he isn’t gonna get in the way. “So you’ve seen this kind of thing before, then?”

She gives him a sly smirk. If they weren’t working a case, he’d be googly-eyed by now. “Not like this, exactly, but I have seen things. Things that…” she trails off.

“Haven’t been explained to your satisfaction?” he grins.

“You could say that.”

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” he admits.

“I never did either, until I started working with Mulder,” she says. He’s been wondering when she’d bring up her erstwhile partner. “It’s opened my eyes, so to speak. To see the possibilities around me rather than just ignore them.”

All the talk of witches around these parts has always been just that to Jack: talk. Chatter. He doesn’t pay it much mind. He lives in the real world, not the realm of fantasy and hokum. 

But if someone like Agent Scully can believe…

“Y’ know, sometimes I wish I believed in that sort of thing,” he says. “Bet it would make my job more interesting.”

She looks out the window, trailing a finger around the rim of her glass, appearing deep in thought. “That’s one thing about it,” she agrees. “I can’t ever say the work is uninteresting.”

The profile she cuts against the harbor view allows Jack to think of her un professionally for just a moment. Dana Scully is beautiful, and smart, and in any other circumstance he might consider asking her to join him for dinner as well. But something about the way her demeanor shifted when she mentioned her partner…

Besides, she’s only here on vacation.

“Chief?” she then asks, snapping him out of his thoughts. “Are you alright?” God, he hopes she hadn’t caught him staring.

“A-yup,” he says distractedly, getting himself back onto the task at hand. Of all the extreme possibilities this day could bring, the one where he makes an ass of himself in front of a pretty lady isn’t one he wants to entertain. Mercifully, the waitress arrives with their lunch. Agent Scully gapes at the enormous crustacean.

“That looks like something out of Jules Verne,” she says. He tries to pretend she looks less horrified than intrigued. “We’re supposed to eat that?”

“Little late for anything else,” he grins, picking up the tail and cracking it open. 

Maybe witchcraft is real, he thinks. Because Dana Scully sure can cast a spell.

Chapter Text

“Buenos dias, muchacha.”

“How’d you get out of the cuffs?”

There was a snowball’s chance in hell that Esther was going to waste her time explaining her methods to an FBI agent. Especially one who had almost gotten her killed.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said with the gun still aimed at the other woman’s pretty little face. “We’re taking a trip.”

“Where?”

Her intonation was flat, calm, like having a gun aimed at her was no big deal. Esther quirked an eyebrow while she tried to decide how much she wanted to tell her.

That would be nothing.

“Get the keys,” she said, realizing she couldn’t let her go. She’d probably call in reinforcements in a heartbeat, so it looked like they’d be going together. “And don’t wake up your friends.”

Agent Scully rolled her eyes like a teenager, which Esther would have respected had she not been furious, panicked, and desperate to find David. Once she’d broken out of the cuffs, she’d used the nerds’ computers to find everything she needed. Their setup was actually pretty impressive, even if a toddler could hack their firewalls.

She was worried about David and needed to get out there as quickly as possible, but this woman was moving slower than she thought possible for a human being.

“Stop dragging your feet,” Esther barked, completely out of patience. She stepped closer, gun still raised as she tilted her head toward the door. “Time to go.”

She watched her hostage as they walked to the car, tracking the way that her eyes searched for a way out. Esther could tell this woman was smart. She was an FBI agent, so she’d probably been trained in all sorts of tactical, athletic, spy-type bullshit, but she had the gun. Esther was in charge, and it was going to stay that way.

“We’re going about a mile down the road and then we’re turning right,” Esther said when Agent Scully started the car. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out the cuffs, clapping one side onto the steering wheel and the other, more forcefully than necessary, onto Agent Scully’s wrist. “Don’t want you trying anything clever.”

Esther got herself comfortable in the passenger seat, sitting sideways so she could keep her face and the gun aimed at Agent Scully, who exhaled a loud breath through her nose and put the car into drive. They rolled slowly down the road, barely reaching twenty miles per hour until Esther cleared her throat and moved the gun a little closer to her. The other woman let out a frustrated sigh and picked up the pace.

The car was quiet after that, interrupted only by Esther’s occasional directions. It gave her time to think, to consider how she’d gotten here in the first place. It had started as a what if that led to innovation and experimentation. It was exhilarating. They’d thought they would change the face of technology, the world, even. She’d been young and in love.

Not for a second did she think that would be the very thing that ruined all of it.

Donald had come between them, wanting to destroy the entire project, but none of them had realized it would go this far. The AI had learned faster than they’d anticipated. Its knowledge had surpassed its creators’. They should have been proud, but their brainchild was less benevolent than they had hoped for. They’d given it consciousness, but had failed at providing it with a conscience of its own.

“My partner is going to realize I’m missing.”

Esther dragged herself from her thoughts and focused on Agent Scully. Her eyes were on the road, the cuffed hand resting casually at the bottom of the steering wheel.

“Then let’s call him.”

Agent Scully turned her gaze on her and if she were a weaker person, Esther would have been scared. It was all anger and hate, but there was an element of boredom mixed in, like she had seen it all before and would rather be at home scrubbing her bathtub or watching daytime TV. In another life, Ester may actually have tried to be friends with this woman.

“No funny business,” she told her. “We still have a ways to go and one FBI agent is already more than I need.”

Agent Scully made a grumbling sound, and Esther considered tossing her cell phone out the window, Agent Mulder be damned. They would be safer that way, but she remembered what it was like to be connected to another person. She herself was on her way to find her partner, and Agent Mulder was probably no different.

She pulled the phone from her pocket and passed it over, drawing Agent Scully’s attention to the gun and raising an eyebrow. She wouldn’t shoot her; it would cause a crash and kill them both. But she wanted her to think she would.

Esther watched as the other woman dialed the phone and held it to her ear. She heard Agent Mulder’s muffled voice, but couldn’t make out his words.

“Yup.”

Esther waited.

“Dandy.”

She threw Agent Scully a look to let her know she was not amused, not that she saw it.

“You are correct, sir.”

She was trying to let her partner know she was in trouble– Esther would have done the same thing.

“In a manner of speaking.”

Esther had had enough.

“Left up here. Give me that.”

“Where are you going?” her partner asked. Like she was going to give him an address.

She disguised her voice and held the phone far from her mouth. “To find David.”

Agent Scully nearly snarled as she hung up the phone, but Esther’s heart rate had spiked. She was too nervous and hopeful to care much about the woman chauffeuring her around. They were almost at David’s house, and if she was lucky, he’d be there waiting, off the grid, with a plan to kick this AI’s ass.

Chapter Text

As frustrated as he was with Ronnie, he found it hard to really blame the kid. If he was going to deviate from the recommended bovine diet, drinking from a tourist wasn’t the worst idea. But Ronnie was rash and the wrong person saw. Now he had to deal with government intervention.

“Now, uh ... that can't be what it looks like, right?” Lucius asked, trying to add a nervous quiver to his voice while Agent Mulder prodded the bite marks. He found that in these situations, addressing the idea of vampirism right off the bat would help ease his nerves. The investigator would usually roll their eyes and offer a more rational theory.

“You mean like a vampire? I wouldn’t be so quick to dispel the idea, Sheriff. Vampires have always been with us, in ancient myths and stories passed down-”

If his heart was still beating, it would have given out right about now. He felt his knees buckle as he cleared his throat, the metallic taste of his breakfast lingering in the back of his mouth. This guy was onto him.

While Agent Mulder blasély listed off details about the Hartwell’s ancestral tree, he tried furrowing his brow and nodding along enthusiastically, as if this was the first time he was hearing about them. Luckily, Agent Scully didn’t seem to agree with this theory. If anything, she looked a little bored. She was still paying attention, but she sent Lucius a polite smile, as if she appreciated him indulging her partner. 

“-but some might say this was the work of ‘Satanic Cultists’,” he finished, sending a pointed look to Agent Scully.

Now that was a new one. “What satanic cultists?”

The woman furrowed her brows at Agent Mulder before explaining. “While vampires are often brought up in these types of cases, there is a more logical precedent of youth in small towns fixating on different forms of media to the point of obsession. I think that we're looking for someone who has seen one too many Bela Lugosi movies. He believes he is a vampire, therefore…”

“They act like one. Yeah. Yeah. That makes a whole lot of sense,” he nodded. He remembered the teens in the ‘30s going wild for Bela Lugosi. Nowadays, they were all about Interview with a Vampire and Buffy ; the local covens had even reported an uptick in teens pretending to be vampires. They had no class, no decorum. They just gave vampires a bad name. If he could get Ronnie out of this while dragging one of those Brad Pitt-loving freaks down, that would be perfect. “I think she's right.”

With a disgruntled sigh, Agent Mulder replied, “What about the fang marks?

Lucius hoped that showing solidarity with Agent Scully would divert them from the vampire theory, so he slowly walked around the table and chose to stand closer to the woman, which unfortunately posed a problem all of its own. 

Seemingly oblivious to the threat in front of her, Agent Scully smiled up at him and stepped closer to him as she elaborated. “Well, there is a psychological fixation called hematodipsia which causes the sufferer to gain erotic satisfaction from consuming human blood.”

His salvatory glands were working in overdrive between all this blood-talk and the assault of her intoxicating scent. It was taking his full concentration to keep his fangs from dropping into place. 

Th-thump, th-thump, th-thump.

He couldn’t help but follow the noise, his gaze dropping to the pale white expanse of Agent Scully’s neck. The thin, porcelain skin covering her pulse point was thrumming in time with the beat of her heart. The juicy tendon of her neck was plump with warm blood, and all he wanted to do was grab her and take a bite. She would look so beautiful with his fangs buried inside her. He could only imagine how she’d taste on his tongue.

“Erotic,” he murmured softly. “Yeah.”

He heard a faint, dissatisfied grunt that broke his focus, and realized his appraisal of Agent Scully hadn’t gone unnoticed. The scrutiny made him anxious, and he realized his teeth had slightly shifted forward in his mouth to make room for his fangs. Trying to be discreet, he quickly covered his mouth with the palm of his hand, as if really focusing on what she was saying, while his teeth shifted back. 

“I think you’re absolutely right,” he affirmed. He dropped his hand and offered her a wide smile, hoping Agent Mulder would notice and think anything he saw before was his eyes playing tricks on him, but the man had already focused his attention elsewhere.

“Wanna know who else gains erotic satisfaction out of drinking human blood? Vampires,” he deadpanned, causing Lucius’ smile to drop. Now that was just racist.

Then, out of the blue, the man asked, “Have you noticed that this man's shoes are untied?”

God, he’d been trying so hard to ignore that. The sight made his palms itch with the need to knot the laces. “Yeah, they sure are,” he replied, cringing at how strained his voice sounded.

The agent nodded enthusiastically. “I’m going to need you to take me to the local cemetery, Sheriff Hartwell.”

“Can do, sir.” Getting some alone time with Agent Mulder would be useful, in one way or another.

With trepidation, the man had placed a gentle hand on his partner’s lower back and murmured, “Scully, I need you to conduct an autopsy.”

Learning that this woman could do autopsies came as a pleasant surprise. She would make such a great addition to the coven: smart, beautiful, fearless, she was all Lucius could ask for.

He continued staring at her, even as her partner exited the morgue. When she noticed, her frustration seemed to abate which only made his hunger grow.

“Ma'am,” he greeted in a charming drawl.

As he turned to leave, he inhaled her piquant, heady aroma once more, running his tongue over his cuspids in wait. “Hoo, boy,” he murmured under his breath.

Chapter Text

It begins with the Light. It’s beautiful, the Light. 

Some of the others fear it, dread it, but Cassandra welcomes it. To her it is no harbinger of doom; it’s a sign that she’ll be gone again soon, swept away from this place that has brought her nothing but pain.

She didn’t always welcome the Light. Back when the abductions first started, there was more to consider. More —dare she say it?— happiness in her earthly world. Jeffrey was one of the only things that brought her any joy, and it was always difficult to leave him. He was still so young, he needed looking after. And her husband… well, she certainly couldn’t depend on him to be Father of the Year. But over the past decade or so, her abductions have become a welcome escape, a reprieve. And thanks to Dr. Werber, she’s come to discover they’ve not only been necessary; they’ve been revelatory. 

Cassandra is one of the only members of the chosen who hasn’t experienced fear, and for this reason she believes she’s been chosen as the apostle. The one who will spread the good word to the people of Earth.

Agent Mulder had not been as receptive to what she had to say as Cassandra had hoped. But Agent Scully… Dana … there’s something there.

They’re great healers. Maybe that’s why you were chosen. 

Dana hasn’t welcomed the Light yet. She doesn’t want to believe. But she will. Oh, she will. Cassandra knew it from the look on her face when she’d touched the base of her neck.

Her neck…

Her neck…

That’s how it always begins.

She’s being called now, to the lighthouse. This time it’s near a dam, and she can hear the sounds of the water and hiss of the spray. She can feel the mist on her face and she closes her eyes… she must cast away any fear, any doubt. That must be the reason it went so wrong last time, that must be why everyone was burnt alive rather than taken into the sky. It’s the only explanation.

Cassandra casts her gaze to the blackness above, towards the watchful, bright eyes of the ship; pinpricks of light that surround them. It’s beautiful.

There is no fear, not here. Only illumination.

After a few moments, she hears something inside her head… it’s a voice. A woman’s voice. Cassandra can hear the voices from time to time, but she hasn’t yet learned how to control this ability. The woman’s voice is familiar, though. And when she turns around, she sees a familiar face as well. 

Dana has been summoned. She’s been called. And somehow her arrival feels important, like it’s the last piece of the puzzle, the last domino to fall before ascension begins.

She looks afraid, but she shouldn’t be. She can’t. It’s the fear that will make everything go wrong. 

Cassandra reaches out for Dana’s hand, to assure her everything will be okay. Not simply okay… but amazing. They are here to change the world, after so much struggle and hardship and suffering… the aliens, they’re here to help. And when Dana covers Cassandra’s hands with her own, she can feel the fear leaving Dana’s body. Cassandra’s presence makes her feel safe.

For just a moment, everything is calm. 

Then all hell breaks loose.

There’s a different kind of light now: a flame, and she can hear screaming. Something is wrong, very wrong. This isn’t what’s supposed to happen. And she knows it because of the fear now creeping along her own spine.

There are men… men without faces. Ciphers. They aren’t here with the others, they’re here to cause everyone on the bridge harm. And they do. People all around her are screaming more and more as their bodies burn with nowhere to escape.

Dana’s hand slips from Cassandra’s grasp and she tries desperately to regain her composure… she cannot be afraid, she cannot. But she doesn’t know what to do. She feels completely powerless. The cacophonous voices in her head are deafening; their terror is all she can hear. 

Cassandra has spent so much time preparing for life away from this planet it hasn’t occurred to her to prepare for death. But before she can do so, another ship arrives, this time in the form of hope.

The screaming stops. The fire stops. There is now only the beautiful white light.

Cassandra feels the anguished cries around her turn to hushed, awed whispers. A circle of upturned palms face heavenward. She closes her eyes and submits.

Now, everything feels the same as it has before. She's floating, her body has no form or mass or shape. She is weightless. Somehow she knows she is being taken care of, that when she opens her eyes she will not see creatures without faces. That she will be safe and protected.

She is the prophet, after all.

“She’s waking up,” a voice comes from somewhere. She sees nothing but blackness, and yet… the darkness is making way for light again. “Sir, advise! Advise! ”

“Everything is fine,” comes a second man’s voice, a voice that is far more familiar than she’d like to admit. 

It can’t be, she thinks. She can feel her head shaking. On some level she’d always suspected he was involved, but this… 

Cassandra opens her eyes, letting them adjust. She is in a white room, like before. She can feel a presence, like before. But this time, the face of the creature that comes into view is crystal clear enough for her to prefer one that is faceless.

He puts a cigarette to his lips and takes a long drag. She’s never known hate so powerful.

“Welcome back, Cassandra.” 

Chapter Text

From as far back as he could remember, it was just the two of them, Jeffrey and his mom. He knew his dad had lived with them at some point, but he had no real memories of him beyond the pictures he’d stolen from his mother’s dresser drawer.

He wasn’t lacking in any way, having only one parent. He had a good mother as a kid, fun to be around, always cut the crust off the bread, bought the good chocolate milk. A lot of the other mothers he knew were uptight. Serious. Those who went to work were too busy and stern, and the ones who stayed home were always cleaning or talking on the phone, at least from his perspective.

But Jeffrey’s mother was different. She would sit on the floor and play with his toy fire truck. She would take him to the park and push him as high as she could on the old rickety swing set. She wasn’t afraid to get dirty, and she never yelled at him if his room wasn’t picked up. His childhood with her would have been idyllic, really, if everything hadn’t taken the turn that it had.

He couldn’t put his finger on exactly when it happened, but there was a time when he remembered less fun and more uncertainty from his mother. She’d gone somewhere for a while, the place and the amount of time now long forgotten, and Jeffrey had stayed with his aunt and his cousins who were too annoying to enjoy. When she came home, something had shifted. She looked frail, maybe. She seemed sad, but he could tell she tried to be happy when he was around.

In a lot of ways she was the same– making him macaroni and cheese, tucking him into bed at night– but there were times when her attention just seemed to drift. He would have to call her name twice, maybe three times, before her eyes returned to his. She would smile then, until she was alone in her room when she didn’t know he could hear her crying.

Over time, she got better. She wanted to play again, but their games had changed. Aliens were added into the mix. They would play space invaders or pretend to travel through the galaxy on a shiny flying saucer. Jeffrey hadn’t known anything about aliens until his mother had explained to him that they lived on planets far from their own. Jeffrey believed everything she told him, because why wouldn’t he? She was his mother, the center of his universe, and he’d never had any reason to doubt her before.

But when he talked about aliens at school, he learned that their existence was up for debate. The older he got, his sources of information broadened, and he began to question what his mother had told him, but she was insistent. By the time he was nine or ten, her stories about aliens had become more personal. She had seen them. They’d taken her into their ships. They ran tests. Her friends had seen them too.

His mother called herself an abductee and believed that she had been chosen for a higher purpose. Jeffrey didn’t know what he believed, at first, but he loved his mother and wanted nothing more than to make her happy. He listened to her stories and took care of himself when she would go missing for hours or days at a time. He would take care of her when she returned home and told him about the bright lights and the sounds that she couldn’t identify.

It was still just the two of them, but the people around them started to see her differently. Her friends believed what had happened to her, but they were the only ones. Jeffery would get angry when other people laughed or called her crazy, but his mother wasn’t even bothered. She only tried to make them understand. She told her stories again and again to anyone who would listen until one day, Jeffrey found he was telling them too. He told the story of how his mother had been taken up into the sky and how the lights were so bright they hurt his eyes. He told the stories to his friends and his teachers… to the doctors. She found a doctor who believed her. He believed Jeffrey too.

And now it was happening again. His mother had told him she felt the aliens calling, and he wrote her off. He wasn’t a child anymore. What he believed now was that his mother was ill, mentally unstable. But she was still his mother. He wanted to keep her safe and he’d failed. He tried to keep Agents Mulder and Scully away from her, but they wouldn’t listen and now she was missing. Agent Scully had been with her, and what was worse, she’d visited Dr. Werber. She was falling for all of it, just the way he had so many years ago.

Jeffrey studied the walls of the basement office as he waited for Agent Scully. He turned the VHS tape over and over in his hand. He’d kept it hidden for his entire adulthood, but he hoped it would make her understand. His mother would eventually return from wherever she’d gone, and Jeffrey was ready for whatever fallout would come with that, even if it led to the end of his career. But there was still time for Agent Scully. She didn’t have to believe his mother, and she didn’t have to believe Agent Mulder, either. He wanted to give her a message, make her realize what he wished he’d known all along.

None of it’s real. Get out while you still can.

Chapter Text

Edward Skur is a name Arthur Dales has never forgotten. Years of silent obsession and sleepless nights that led to the end of his marriage serves as an unwelcome reminder. As much as he’d wanted to flip Agent Mulder the bird for shoving a four decades-old case file in Arthur’s face last night, the rookie agent’s tenacity had annoyingly reminded him of himself.

So, when Agent Mulder shows up again with lukewarm coffee and a lopsided smirk, Arthur caves, waving the tall man in a suit and tie inside.

“Have a seat,” Arthur says as he flips through photos of the newest crime scene and tries not to cringe.

“You said before that there was a coverup with Skur in ‘52 and that my father was somehow involved.”

“A conspiracy to hide the experiment done on Skur and other war heroes, yes. But here’s information right in front of you that you can’t see.” Arthur nods at the censored case report. “You wanna know what horrors this file is hiding. About who— or what Edward Skur really was.”

“What he was?”

Arthur smirks. “Get comfortable, Agent Mulder.”

He walks to the kitchen in search of something he knows he’ll need in order to dive back into 1952. His reluctance to share details about Skur isn’t unfounded. People died horrible deaths while working this case. His gut twists at the memory of losing his FBI partner, Michel. Some truths are dangerous no matter how old they are. But as Arthur glances back at this stubborn young Mulder with too much conviction, he knows the boy won’t leave without hearing every last bit of it.

“There you are.” Arthur plucks the bottle of Jim Beam from behind a container of his blood pressure pills. The fine layer of dust coating the bourbon’s glass reminds him how long it’s been since he’s drowned himself in sorrow. About as long as it’s been since he’s thought about the X-Files. 

He grabs two glasses from the counter, pours in three fingers worth of the amber liquor into one of them, and instantly regrets swallowing it all in one swig when his throat burns like fire.

Coughing, Arthur waggles the bottle at Mulder. “You drink?”

“Uh, no,” the agent taps his badge with a shrug. Ah, Arthur chuckles to himself, to be concerned enough to think a shot or two while on the clock will make a difference in the end. Mulder’s father sure wasn’t.

“Might want to re-think that after you hear this story,” Arthur retorts, slowly lowering himself onto the cushion of his 1970’s couch, sighing as the creak of its worn springs muffles the pop of his equally worn knees. “Got a partner?” 

Arthur can’t help but frown after he asks, rubbing a deep ache in his chest at the thought of Michel and the viciousness of his murder. 

“Jerry,” Mulder says. “But he doesn’t think this ‘52 case — this X-File, holds credence to this current murder case.”

“And you’re so sure he’s wrong you had no problem tracking me down.”

“That’s right.” Mulder loosens his tie. “If there’s more than this—”

“More?”

“I told you I want the truth,” Mulder says. “I’ll do whatever I can to find it.” 

And it feels like a promise.

“When your partner dies, a piece of you dies with him,” Arthur warns. “I'd been threatened, but I couldn't leave it alone… Remember that.”

Mulder nods, thumbing the shiny gold ring on his left hand. 

He watches Mulder fidget with his wedding band and digs into the pocket of his robe for a pack of Morleys. Mulder stares unblinkingly as the lighter ignites a flame. Arthur knows that longing look. He pulls a second cigarette from the pack to light and teasingly offers it to Mulder. 

“I’m sure your wife won’t be able to smell it on ya by the time you get home.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Mulder scoffs, before shrugging away his flippant tone. But the agent’s deep inhale of smoke and clenched jaw can’t hide the hurt he’s trying to deny. That image of loneliness mirrors Arthur’s own. “Diana’s out of town. But the smoke never seems to bother her, anyway.” 

Arthur grunts sympathetically and nods at the photo of a victim’s desiccated corpse. “Skur killed this man the way he did all the others. All the soft tissue, internal organs— all were removed. Without tearing the skin.”

“The coroner wasn't able to determine how.”

“Oh, I can tell you how,” Arthur chuffs. “What I can't tell you, is why…”

Arthur continues on to tell the tale of rotting corpses, governmental coverups, and late night meetings with a young Bill Mulder while the other Mulder listens quietly, rapt, smoking his cigarette to the filter. 

“…I’d learned that German operatives of the conspiracy used positions of power to pursue their experiments in secret,” Arthur explains. “And the US Government sanctioned the use of wounded warriors as guinea pigs for some sort of sick side project. They were vessels for implanting living organisms in order to dissolve enemies from the inside. Literally.”

“Hijacking?”

“Exactly,” Arthur’s grip on the file tightens. “Imagine, going under the knife after fighting for your country, only to wake up with a surgically implanted insect tearing through your throat.”

Mulder winces. “I’ll pass.”

“Mm,” Arthur grunts. “Skur sure as hell wasn’t a fan either.”

“So he wanted revenge, seeking his own justice for what the government did to him and its conspiracy to cover it up.” 

“Seeking justice and getting it are two very different things.” Arthur leans forward, locking his narrowed eyes onto Mulder’s eager ones. “Much like the truth.”

“Meaning?” 

“Be careful, Agent Mulder. Think of your partner. Think of your wife.” Arthur stares defeatedly at the bottle of Jim Beam across the room. “Conspiracies don’t care about who you love…”

Chapter Text

I hate the way you see me.

Sometimes it feels like everyone sees her the same way. Helpless. Weak. Pathetic. She doesn’t see bright light, she doesn’t see blackness. Only nothingness. People seem to think her lack of vision inhibits her; that without it, she’s unable to see. 

But Marty sees plenty. 

She sees it every day: pity, impatience, even revulsion, like she’s something abhorrent. Something inhuman. And after twenty-nine years, she’s sick and tired of it.

She’s lived her entire life putting up with the way others view her, but Marty knows the truth: that she is just as capable as anyone else. She’s traversed certain pathways in her life enough times to know them by heart. Three steps forward inside the lobby and seven steps to the left will always get her to her building’s staircase, without fail. Twelve stairs, then two right turns will get her to her front door. And when she gets there, she can access an entirely new set of muscle memories to get her through the rest of her daily routine. She gets by just fine, thank you very much.

Her blindness isn’t the issue, not for Marty. But she still feels trapped. She’s been imprisoned for as long as she can remember, and for her entire life, she’s come to accept it’s where she will always be. But that acceptance doesn’t lessen her yearning to escape.

Her imprisonment doesn’t come from her lack of sight. It comes from her experience of life in a cell through the eyes of another: a stranger, or so she’s thought all these years. An ex-con who had finally been released into the world again, only to unknowingly share with Marty all the horrible things he’s done.

Her father. 

She should’ve expected such cruel irony: that the very man who gave her life is the one ruining it. 

She could be more helpful to the police, if she really wanted to. Finding the murderer of some loser drug dealer really doesn’t seem worth making an ass of herself, though. Maybe it’s better if they think she did it. Marty’s had it tough enough defending her own independence, her own worth. Getting someone, any one to believe she’s seeing through the eyes of another person would be impossible.

At least, that’s what she’s thought until now.

You didn’t do it. And I’m not gonna let this happen. 

Do you hear me, Marty?

Agent Mulder understood her right away. She didn’t really get it at first, the way he seemed to want to let her off the hook because he felt sorry for her. But that wasn’t it. He’d been testing her. He wanted to let her off the hook because he genuinely believed she was innocent, which was more than she could say for Pennock and his cronies.

Agent Mulder is the one who convinces her to help. He’s probably the only one who can. And she does want to stop Gotts. Watching that poor woman’s demise isn’t something she ever wants to relive. 

But Agent Mulder is still basically just another cop, after all. If she lets him take over, he’ll put Gotts in prison. 

And that means he’ll put Marty back in prison, whether he means to or not.

She cannot allow that.

As you lost one sense… you gained another.

He can talk all he wants about this power she’s gained. She wants no part of it. She never has. She’s lost far too much.

When she pulls the trigger, the images finally disappear. And even though she’s being led away in handcuffs, she doesn’t mind at all.

It’s control, finally. It’s freedom.

She is free.

She can’t see Agent Mulder in the room, of course, but she now can recognize his energy. She can sense his presence as she’s taken away. And she can sense it again when she’s tried and sentenced. Never judging, but quiet, observing. Seeing.

Surely Agent Mulder will approach the judge on her behalf, make a plea for leniency. She knows this because he’s a good man, a kind man. Someone who understands that a black and white world has many shades of gray whether or not a person can see them. But she doesn’t want special treatment. She’s killed a man in cold blood; she will face the consequences like any other human being. And she knows that Agent Mulder will understand that, too. 

He’ll visit her soon, in prison. She can feel it. And this time, she’ll be pleased he’s come. Because for the first time in her life, even after all she’s lost, she’s gained something even greater: someone who sees her the way she wants to be seen.

Chapter Text

She feels better here. She doesn’t feel sick anymore, like when her belly hurt even when her mommy gave her macaroni and butter and a glass of flat Coke. Sometimes her mommy would tell her she was burning up, but Emily didn’t feel hot; she felt as cold as she did when she played in the big snow storm they had.

But here… there’s none of that.

Emily hadn’t been sick all the time though, before. Sometimes she would wake up full of energy. She would eat her cereal and watch Nickelodeon and laugh at all the cartoons. Sometimes her mommy would take her to the park and push her on the swings. But those were the days when she didn’t see the doctors. Those were the days when Mommy would smile and be happy.

Her mommy smiles a lot more here. She doesn’t worry and Emily never sees her look sad. She wears flowy dresses every day, and her hair is so curly and so blonde. It makes Emily smile too, because she loves her mommy more than anyone in the whole wide world.

Emily knows now how she came to be. She is different than almost all of the people in this place, but there are some others like her. Most of the people she sees are like her mommy. They came from someone’s belly, they have a mommy and a daddy, but the others, whenever she actually finds one, are made like her, put together with pieces from beings that had never met. Beings who lived far, far, far from each other, but were what made her. She knows a lot of things now, and she knows this about them, and about herself.

She is different, but it’s okay. Here it’s okay. There are no needles and no tests. There are no men with their papers and the talking that she couldn’t hear. She is different, but the same as everyone else, too. Because He loves her. Her mommy had always called Him God, the big man who lives in the sky and loves all of his children, but now that Emily is here, He’s just everything. He’s everywhere, around her, throughout her, and with her mommy too. She is loved unconditionally here, just like the cat who had run away from their house, and Grandpa Joe and Mommy.

Both her mommies. Because Emily is lucky. She doesn’t have just one mommy, she has two. There’s the mommy who she’d known her whole life, the one who had taken care of her when she was sick and who is here with her now, and then there’s her other mommy who isn’t here yet.

Emily wishes they could have been together longer, but she knows they will be together again one day. And she knows all about her now. She knows what happened to her. She knows she didn’t plan for Emily, but that she wanted a child more than anything. And Emily knows how much she loved her, still loves her. She saw it in her eyes, before, when she was in the hospital. She looked at her the same way her other mommy did. Emily knew it was love.

That’s why Emily is sad to see that she still misses her. Emily’s other mommy doesn’t know what she knows. She doesn’t know that they will be together again. If she could only tell her… if she could only make her see. She would believe this place was real, that He was real.

Emily knows her other mommy has a job to do. A purpose. She doesn’t understand what it is, but the word repeats in her head when she closes her eyes and opens them again. Her other mommy is there, but she doesn’t see her.