Moondance

Chapter one: Come take me out of this Dull World

October 5, 1979. Rhode Island

A 17 year old Fox Mulder breaks the lock of the door to the liquor cabinet at his parents’ summer home. He is stunned by the choices that confront him in alcoholic selection. It is a well stocked bar. He knows he needs some liquid courage, but neither him nor his girlfriend, technically X girlfriend, are drinkers. They are both an awkward combination of scholastic and odd and neither are invited to a lot of parties. Bourbon is dark, he thinks, and so selects it for no other reason and pours them each a glass. They have both lied to their parents about where they were spending this week-end and now they are here for a specific purpose. It was all he could think about for the last two weeks since they had planned it, but…drink, Fox, he tells himself and takes a big swig out of the glass. Oh, God, that is awful. He forces himself to swallow. Fox is graduating high school early in December and is already starting on a reading list for his college classes next semester at Oxford. He has been accepted for early admission, will graduate with his BA in August 1983 and will immediately enter graduate school. The plan is by 1986 he will have a doctorate in psychology from one of the world’s most prestigious universities.

Fox finishes the drink he has poured for himself and pours another. He thinks of last Fall when he first met Felicity. She was new to the school. He saw her in the library; her nose in a book about fairies. He had teased her at first about liking fairies and unicorns and then when he saw she was self-conscious about it and that he had hurt her feelings he quickly blurted out:

Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.

He could have died with embarrassment. What self-respecting boy trying to talk to a beautiful girl would quote a poem about fairies? Still, she had smiled up at him and said. “You like Yeats?” Sometimes it feels like the only time they had stopped talking in the year since is when they were making out. They had told each other everything. They had talked about things like classical music, Eastern religions, occult practices, classical literature, baseball statistics, Route 66 trivia and board game strategies; everything that interested either of them. He had shared with her his reasons for sometimes being brooding: his sister going missing while he was watching her and his parents’ divorce. He had told her that she was his faerie and took him out of his dull world.

At the end of the summer, when he learned that he had been accepted for early admission into Oxford, they had the kind of frank, serious discussion two 17 year olds with genius IQs who trusted each other completely would have and decided to break up immediately. It made the most practical sense. There was no way they would make such a long distance romance work. It was better to agree to be friends forever. Friends forever, deal, swear! Breaking up immediately meant Felicity could have her entire senior year unencumbered with a boyfriend and he could concentrate on getting ready for Oxford without distraction. The, two weeks ago, she had came to him and asked if they could still celebrate his birthday together. He told her his mom had made these big plans because it was his 18th and his last year in the states for a while. Felicity had said the week-end before would actually be better because it was a full moon. Felicity had begun to explore pagan belief systems and kept track of the full moon cycle. He asked what she wanted to do and she had suggested they find a way to spend the week-end alone together. In the last year she had always stopped when he might have continued. Why now? He is trying not to ask. He drinks this time directly from the bottle.

“Fox, it’s such a beautiful night,” Felicity calls from the deck. He loves hearing her say his name…Fox. He liked to hear people talk about them as a couple, Fox and Felicity. He always thought their names sounded so good together.

He takes the drinks to the deck. Her back is towards him and her long flaxen hair always makes him think of gold and corn and sunlight. She turns and fixes her blue eyes on him. He hands her a drink.

“Be careful, it's strong tasting.”

She nods, puts her index finger in the drink and then rubs his lips so the alcohol is on his lips. She reaches up, he thinks to kiss him, and instead licks his lips top and bottom with her tongue and says “tasty”. What the fuck? Did she see that in a movie or something? It was so..

“Isn’t it a beautiful night, Fox? I am so happy.” She is looking out towards the lake and up into the full moon and he is looking only at her. “Let’s dance,” he says. He puts on Van Morrison and they dance to Moon Dance. They are both awkward dancers, but Fox tries a twirl at the phrase “October Skies” which almost takes them both off their feet. At the line “I want to make love to you tonight, “ Felicity pushes her body against him and grabs his ass. After an entire year, now that she has decided yes, she is the more eager and aggressive one. He pulls her back and asks, “Are you sure?”

“Fox, whatever happens in our future, I want you to be my first.”

He swallows hard. He knows what she is saying. “I love you,” he blurts out.

They stand awkwardly now, the music off, suddenly not dancing. “Fox, I’m afraid I might not compare to other girls you’ve had.” He has told her he loves her and she is suddenly afraid of disappointing him.

“Other girls?”

“You know before me or since.”

“What are you saying? We broke up a month ago.”

Fox is on the basketball team and Felicity had heard the cheerleaders had a bet once they knew he was free about who could go to bed with him first. When she tells him he smiles a mischievous grin and says, “Oh, man, I could have had a cheerleader? I didn’t know that offer was on the table.” They laugh together. They are a precious age. They can so easily fall into being children being silly together and yet are about to embark on adult adventures.

“Felicity, I’m a virgin. I want you to be my first.” They don’t rush in the moment, though. They have the week-end. First, they will spend some time with him standing behind her, holding her, looking at the moon.

Close to midnight, each shy, embarrassed and so grateful that this awkward first time had been with someone they so completely trust she says, “I love you too.” He smiles. “Do you think we are making the right decision?” She rubs her hands through his thick hair. “It's a little late now.” He giggles. “No, about not trying to do the long distance thing?” ‘We decided that the friendship was going to last, remember? You made me swear.” “But, Felicity, what if you are the one and only for me, the only woman who will ever understand me.” “It's more likely we are just each other’s first love.” “But you never know, do you, if the first love is also your one and only, and then you could end up alone.” In many ways Fox is a scared, little boy. He is the one leaving, but he is so afraid of being left. He had been so earnest with Felicity when they broke up- swear, friends forever, swear. He has that same earnest look now. “Fox, you are going to have so much opportunity for love. You have such an effect on girls?” “Do I?” She laughs. How could he not know?

“Let’s make another deal. Like we did to be friends forever. If ten years from today we are not married, we will marry each other. It gives us ten years, but if we haven’t found anyone else, then we know it's because we were meant to be together.” He looks so cute and ten years is such a long ways away. How could she say no to him? “How about if you don’t love me in ten years?” “Felicity, even if I love someone else, I could never stop loving you. I will swear to that.” “Ok, Foxy Fox, Fox, in ten years from today, if neither of us are married, we will marry each other.” They begin to kiss. “You know what I heard, Felicity?” “What, Fox?” “Sex is better the second time.” “ Lets try it and see.

Chapter 2: The Morning After on the Bridge (continued from season 10)

Scully wakes up on a bridge with Agent Miller shaking her. The bridge is packed with cars and people who, also, appear to be just waking up. Scully feels disoriented, groggy. Agent Miller helps her to her feet. “What happened?” Agent Miller shakes his head. He doesn’t remember. He just woke up on the bridge himself. They are standing next to his car, but damn if he remembers how it got here. Scully tries to think about what the last thing she remembers is.. She had tried to call Mulder. She reaches for her phone.

“Miller, my phone says it tomorrow six a.m. I mean, I guess it's today but the last thing I remember was early yesterday morning.”

Miller nods. “That seems to be true of everyone around.”

Lost time. Scully remembers the first case she had worked on with Mulder. They had lost time. Just a few minutes, not an entire day. She needs to reach Mulder. Her training and experience in crisis is kicking in, however.

“Miller, we need to establish some order. Get people off this bridge and home. See if anybody needs medical attention.” Scully’s phone rings: Skinner. “Sir?”

“Scully, what do you remember about yesterday or last night.”

“Only trying to call Mulder in the morning. Sir, I am on a bridge. Agent Miller is here and there are people here like me with no memory.”

“Scully, listen to me. Across the country people are waking up in odd places with no memory of the last 24 hours. No one seems to remember. Leaders from other countries are telling us that the U.S. experienced some type of biological attack from disease. We are assuming the lost time or memory loss is associated with this. There is an emergency meeting in one hour with homeland security, FEMA,CIA, CDC, NASA and FBI. They want Mulder and you there. As people are looking through medical records and television and streaming documents, Scully, you were the one who found the cure yesterday.”

“I was?”

“Something about branch DNA and alien DNA. I don’t understand the science.”

Scully remembers having her DNA tested along with Sveta’s. Miller, it appears, has traffic moving on the bridge. She sees a couple of people, she assumes with medical credentials-waking up on the bridge same as her, providing medical assistance to the injured or sick and he has enlisted other civilians to help with traffic flow. He has things well in hand. She tells Skinner she will be at the meeting.

“Try to find Mulder. I keep calling him. It goes to voice mail. I have an agent checking with hospitals. I sent someone to the house. It looks like a struggle took place. As strange as all of this is you know Mulder is likely to be in the middle of it all.”

Scully hangs up with Skinner and tries to call Mulder. She knows Skinner is right. She left Mulder years ago because she knew he would always put himself at risk for his truth. She needed to put some emotional distance between them if she was going to survive the next time he was abducted or found dead. This decision of theirs to return to the X-files! She knew they had no choice. She had told Mulder that. She had to find out what the bastards had done to her when she was abducted. She needed the truth for herself. Their truths so linked. Their lives so linked. Who had she been kidding? She would never find emotional distance from Mulder. She knows instinctively that he isn’t going to answer the phone. Mulder, where are you and what kind of trouble have you found yourself in now?

Chapter 3. This cannot be happening again

Scully has gone over this discussion with the Director of the CDC again and again. She knows it sounds crazy. How long had she denied the truth, but she has alien DNA which is somehow related to an abduction from decades ago. She is glad if that DNA helped to save lives yesterday, but she doesn’t remember how. She will need time to examine the records and information and then she will be able to develop a hypothesis of how she developed the cure. The more time she spends in bureaucratic meetings, the more delayed be there is in her getting to work on the answer.

The coordinating meeting of the various agencies involved in recovering from and preventing further attacks was an experience. The country has never seen this type of attack, this comprehensive and nation wide before.

First: Emergency Management. FEMA, Red Cross and the National guard were making sure families found missing love ones, that orphaned children were provided care, that nursing homes and hospitals were provided extra care. The amount dead was staggering. It was 300,000 when the meeting started and up to 600,000 when the meeting ended two hours later. It wasn’t just the attack from the disease but the time spent with every person asleep over night. People had heart attacks, patients who needed round the care treatment didn’t get it. The number of plane and train crashes alone was mind boggling with pilots and conductors suddenly asleep. The gridlock on most major streets turned out to be a blessing as most cars were stopped or stalled. It would be in the millions dead once they finalized the total. Count on it. Grief counselors were being recruited at the highest level in history by a FEMA that had no forewarning this crisis was coming.

Second: Investigation and record compiling about the time people couldn’t remember. This wasn’t the loss time of typical alien abduction. This was the loss of memory. People had lived their lives in the 24 hours no one could remember. There are records. Phone messages, texts, emails, faxes, hospital records, social media,news broadcasts. Every citizen was being asked to do an accounting for themselves and 800 numbers were established to call if people thought information was critical. Census workers and capital hill office workers were being reassigned to help with the efforts.

Third: Prevention on two fronts: the disease and the unconsciousness/ memory loss. A radical Islamic terrorist group had claimed responsibility for the latter. The science was hard for even Scully to follow. It had to do with the electric power grid and a massive solar flare. NASA had confirmed the solar flare was historic. The worse news. A bigger one was expected in one week. This could easily occur again. NASA had been monitoring these high solar flare storms for several years and developing models for how they could affect the power grid, but hadn’t expected actual manipulation of the power grid by an outside source. The NASA monitoring systems had itself been hacked as part of this plan. Scully remembers Mulder talking about the Solar Flares and how it could impact the electrical grid. This was before their return to the X-files, about a year ago, over a birthday lunch for him. She remembered rolling her eyes and asking him if he had taken his meds. NASA scientists were working on a scientific way to guard against another attack, but the more immediate need was to take down the terrorist group. Homeland security was coordinating with CIA, FBI, and other international sources. Recognizing that this type of attack could occur more globally, international cooperation was the most positive thing occurring as part of this. The medical crisis was not a crisis really. It was odd for Scully to be applauded and commended for something she didn’t remember, but the cure was being synthetically reproduced and distributed with amazing efficiency. The concern was there was no proper trials to know what the side effects were. Could a vaccine be developed? Scully was proud of Skinner who asked pointedly if the terrorist group had claimed responsibility for the disease attack as well. When the answer was no, but the assumption was made the two things were connected, Skinner argued for a separate investigation and for the possibility to be considered of alien involvement or of a human conspiracy using alien technology to be considered. He was told the FBI had a department responsible for investigating aliens and supernatural occurrences. “A department?” Scully wondered again where Mulder was.

Now Scully is sitting across from a CDC representative who keeps talking about the anomaly in her DNA which must be from some sort of mutation and if they could determine if it was a environmental or genetic mutation…. If they think she’s going to be tested and prodded, they’re wrong. She is eager, though, to spend time examining the records from yesterday. While Scully is happy to help the CDC, of course, perhaps those records would help her reconstruct her day. Had she talked to Mulder at all?

Skinner walks into the room apologizing for interrupting. Scully has seen that look before. Mulder has been found. He was located ill with the disease still untreated and bad enough to need special intervention, bruised from a possible beating, naked, hypothermia was also an issue. “But he is alive?” Her voice quivered. Skinner couldn’t help thinking of a similar situation when Mulder had not been found alive. “He is…for now. The prognosis is not good.” “Where is he? Where was he found?”

Can this be happening? He was found in NW Oregon. Scully stares at Skinner. ‘He was found in the identical location of where he had been abducted…” Skinner voice trails off. Scully knows…before the last time he was returned dead, but he is not dead now, not yet. “I need to get to him”. “He’s been flown to a hospital in Seattle. We have a plane waiting for us.” “Sir, I know you have a major effort going on.” “According to the emergency personnel he was talking about the epidemic yesterday, said he knew who was behind it, muttering about a space craft. If he remembers yesterday, I need to talk to him.”

Scully sits in the government plane. The documents recreating her history from yesterday are in her lap, but she is finding it hard to concentrate. Mulder, abducted again? What is it about Oregon? Would they have…torn his chest open, experimented with him? Last time they had tried to make him a super soldier. What if they’ve done something to him? What if he dies? This cannot be happening again.

Chapter 4: Mulder has a family

Feels like he has been here before, Skinner thinks. Not Seattle. Of course, he’s been to Seattle, but at this moment in time regardless of the city. Rushing with Scully to a hospital for Mulder. Watching her trying to keep her emotions together. He’s never understood the strange bond between them which seemed to exist from day 1 and continued regardless of their relationship status. He had once thought Facebook invented the status “It’s complicated” for his two odd but brilliant agents. Someday, he thinks, Mulder will be dead and he won’t come back from the dead. He can’t image Scully in a world where Mulder doesn’t exist.

They rush into the hospital. Bursts through doors as they have done before. He has his badge out to show the emergency desk nurse. Introduces himself and Agent Scully, also a medical doctor. We need to see Agent Fox Mulder. An agent from the Seattle FBI Field office and an hospital administrator comes forward to greet them. This is not the only thing that the administrator is dealing with today of this day of major crisis. He has been counting the patients in his hospital who died yesterday and today, dealing with a staff crisis as so many people are missing, and now, suddenly, FBI swarming around the building, putting up perimeters and the odd matter of the agent’s treatment, on top of that.

The FBI agent gives Skinner and Scully a report. The administrator stands stiffly beside the agent to provide answers as needed and to protect his hospital’s protocol.

“He was brought in near death, no traditional treatments were warranted and he was too far gone for the treatment Dr. Scully developed yesterday, so they are treating him with a completely new radical treatment. Stem cells treatment but since the stem cells didn’t have the DNA anomaly that I guess you have, Agent Scully, the cells were treated so they would mimic the anomaly.”

“My God, how did you develop a way to do that so quickly?” Scully asks the administrator the question.

The administrator looks annoyed. “You realize if this wasn’t a crisis situation we would never have agreed to it, but the man was going to die and so we followed the instructions you had given.”

“I gave?”

“Yes, he came in with written instructions from you on how to modify the cells. The instructions were signed by you. Since you were the doctor who developed the treatment yesterday, we agreed to the unusual nature of the treatment.”

Scully thinks about everything she doesn’t remember from yesterday, but Mulder had instructions from her! “But where did you get the stem cells?”

The agent answered, “From his son, William.”

Skinner reaches out to steady Scully. “You found, William.”

“He found Mulder it appears. They flew in together.”

“I need to see them.” Scully thinks her son, William, is somewhere in the hospital.

The administrator says, “Dr. Scully. I appreciate your concern, but we are following your instructions specifically. The physicians involved are already under stress and pressure. No one will be going in to monitor the procedure.”

Skinner applies pressure on Scully’s shoulders. He still has his hands on her shoulders helping to steady her and give her strength.. The pressure is intended to tell her to let him take over from here. “Does the procedure put the boy in danger?”

The agent looks confused. “The boy?”

“Agent Mulder’s son?”

The administrator, “Not if the physicians are allowed to do their jobs without interruption.”

The agent says, “Just to be clear, though, Agent Mulder’s son is not a boy, maybe a couple of years younger than me.”

“That’s not possible. Oh, my God, it's not his son.” She doesn’t care how much pressure Skinner puts on her shoulder.

“Dr. Scully, I can assure you we matched the DNA. William is Mulder’s son, a young man, I believe to be 25.” The administrator’s voice is cold.

Skinner quickly interrupts Scully. “Tell us how he was found.”

The agent looks at his notes. “He was naked, cold with hyperthermia, had taken a beating of some kind from appearances, conscious but not coherent, asking for you, agent Scully, and talking about the epidemic, knowing who was behind it, a space ship. This is according to the reports of the two people who found him. When he got here he briefly gain consciousness, but didn’t remember being found or who had found him. Seemed surprise when we said he was found by his son and his wife.”

“His son and his son’s wife?” Skinner is confused.

“No, his son’s and Mulder’s wife.”

“Wife!” Scully pushes away from Skinner. “Mulder doesn’t have a wife.”

The agent swallows. Scully is small but looks at this moment as fierce as anyone he has ever seen. “I know his personnel record said he was single, but she had a wedding certificate, legal paperwork related to the changing of her name since it's not the same as on the wedding certificate. Also when Mulder was surprised his wife had found him I asked him if his wife’s name was Felicity and he said yes before he lost consciousness again.”

Skinner notices Scully’s posture changes when the agent says the name Felicity.

“Agent,” Skinner is harsh spoken with Scully just to get her back in this moment and focused. “What do you know about Mulder being married?”

Scully speaks in a monotone, processing to herself as she talks to Skinner. “He was married decades ago, before he knew me, for a year. She left him and disappeared without a trace. There was no son and they have not been in contact since she left.”

Skinner takes charge of the situation. “First is Mulder’s health. From here on out we are kept informed of all medical decisions and how he is doing. Scully is his physician on record. She is to have access to all records, results, these instructions you mentioned, we all lost some memory. She has access to it all. She is working closely with the CDC. Agreed?”

The administrator looks at Scully remembering his debt to her. “I think we would all be dead without you, Doctor. Whatever you need.”

The agent to Skinner. “Sir, do you want to talk to Mulder’s wife?”

Chapter 5: Two Mothers

Skinner says he would talk to her alone, but Scully wants to come. The hospital arranges a private meeting room. As they follow the administrator to the meeting room, Scully tries to remember how Mulder had described his wife to Scully.

“You two are alike in that you are both intelligent, analytical, career women. Felicity was an attorney. She was usually really laid back and mellow. It's none of my business if you don’t make it my business, she would say, but if you got her angry she could be every bit as ferocious as you can be, but I knew she was really mad when her voice got calm and controlled. I guess I like my women strong, Scully.”

She stops when they get to the door of the meeting room. She remembers the first time she had tried to seduce Mulder and he had declined. She was so mortified. The next day he came to her apartment. She tried to dismiss it, said she was drunk, but he said, “Scully , you know I want to, but we’re partners.” “You were partners with Diana. Is it her? Can’t you move on?” “Scully, you are always so hung up about Phoebe and Diana. Do you think they are the only women I have ever loved?” “Mulder, I’m not asking for a list of your sexual conquests. I’m asking why we can’t have a relationship?” “Scully, I was married, or I am married, I don’t know actually if I’m still legally married or not. She’s the reason…”

Scully looks at Skinner and nods. She’s ready. They enter the room. Felicity’s back is towards them. Her hair is long, past her waist, thick and multi-colored to the extreme-red,black, purple, green, orange. Her hair is startling and almost seems like a shield. They walk closer to her and she turns to them. Scully sees an ordinary face of a middle aged woman. Her eyes are a striking blue and she has been crying. She is holding in her hands a photograph and Scully sees with a glance that it is one Mulder also has, Felicity in white, Mulder in a blue tux and an Elvis impersonator who had married them.

“You’re the agents who work with Fox?”

Skinner introduces himself as Mulder’s boss and Scully as his long time partner. They sit at a conference table. It is formal. Felicity has no way of knowing about Scully and Mulder’s romantic history or that Scully has her own son named William. “Agent Scully, I’ve been told you are, also, Fox’s physician.” Scully nods. “I’m so glad. I don’t have any of his medical knowledge to tell the doctors here. We’re separated. I haven’t seen him in a few years.”

“Decades,” Scully cannot contain her rage. “Decades ago you left him with just a note and disappeared.”

“That’s correct.”

“Yet, you are here today still claiming the right to call yourself his wife.”

“When a spouse is missing, the remaining spouse can easily divorce the spouse through posting the legal notifications in major newspapers. Did Fox ever take the steps to legally divorce me?” Her voice is calm and controlled. Scully shakes her head. “Then, I am, as a legal point of fact, his wife.”

“You abandoned him.”

“I went into hiding because my son’s life was in danger. I don’t know if you are a mother, Agent Scully, but if you are, then you can understand. A mother will do anything to protect her son.”

Skinner touches Scully on the arm again with his right hand and holds his left up in front of him. “I never knew Mulder was married. Can we start from the beginning?”

Felicity tries to tell them in a precise way the details they needed to know, but with each statement she experiences the flashes of memory she had been having all day; memories so strong and so vivid.

“We were high school sweethearts.” Friends forever, swear, swear! “We had made a childish pact that if we weren’t married to anyone else by October 5, 1989 we would marry each other.
Of course, we dated other people in college.” Fox calling her from England- Phoebe had broken his heart. Her walking down an aisle in white and seeing Fox in the pews. She had invited him not expecting him to come. Their eyes met and she turned leaving her fiancée at the aisle. Fox and her talking about it later. It wasn’t Fox’s fault. He just isn’t the one. Fox asking if it was because the other offer on the table was better. His mischievous, smug grin! “We saw each other in May 1989 over Memorial Day. He was home to visit. He told me he was beginning to explore these cases called the X-files. He was so excited and he was in love with a woman named Diana. I didn’t remind him about the deadline coming up because I thought he was telling me he had found someone. Then, October 5 there he was asking me if I was ready. Diana and him had asked to officially be assigned to the X files and he didn’t want to be partners and romantic.” He had told Felicity besides he thought the other offer on the table was a better one…if the offer was still on the table. “So we flew to Vegas.” She looks at the picture in her hand.

“How long were you together?” Skinner cannot believe Mulder never mentioned this.

“Exactly a year. Diana and Fox had received permission to begin the X-file full time by November 1990- giving them a month’s notice in their other departments. We were going to have a big celebration dinner in honor of our anniversary and the X-files. I had gone to the doctor in the morning because I thought I had a bad flu bug, but I was pregnant. I was so happy knowing that Fox would be happy. We just moved into the first house we were buying because we had decided to start trying.”

“What happened?”

“As I was leaving the doctor’s two men grabbed me. They took me to see a man. He said he was an old friend’s of Bill Mulder’s. I could see he was evil. I kept asking him to put out the cigarettes because I was gagging.” Scully and Skinner exchanged looks: the cigarette smoking man. “He said the work Fox was doing now with the X-files was critical and there were men who would stop at nothing to keep him from being distracted. He said they would kill my baby. I believed him. He told me he would help me change my identity and we could go underground. It was the only way to keep my baby safe. So I went home, packed up some belongings, wrote a note to Mulder and walked away from my life. “

Scully bangs her hand on the table. “You didn’t just write him a Dear John note. You were specifically cruel.” Scully remembers Mulder, again on the night he told her about his marriage, telling her that Scully was his everything. If they became romantic and he screwed it up and she left, they would lose the friendship. He was so afraid of that. It had happened to him before and Scully was his everything. He was so afraid of losing her.

Felicity is having a similar memory of a 17 old Fox begging her: friends forever, swear. “I had to make sure he didn’t look for me. Fox and I ..if I was unhappy with our marriage, thought we made a mistake, I could have told him and we would have stayed friends. He would never buy that kind of letter. So I told him that during our year of marriage I had grown to hate him so much that not only did I want a divorce but I never wanted to see him again. As long as I was throwing away our wedding vows, I was also throwing away the promise I had made to him in high school to be friends forever. I hated him.” Felicity gets up from the table. She is getting the impression Scully is more than Fox’s work partner. She doesn’t need anybody reminding her of how much she had hurt Fox. She has thought of it daily for 26 years. “I didn’t want him looking for me.”

“He did look for you -for months. Him and Diana both.” Scully remembers another night a few months after he had told her about his marriage; her promising Mulder that nothing would ever hurt their friendship, but they had a chance for something more. Please trust her even if all these other women had hurt him, please! Her taking his hand and taking him to bed.

“Diana knew exactly where I was.” Felicity spits Diana’s name out with contempt “She came to me in the hospital the day William was born. She wanted to make sure I didn’t change my mind and try to contact Fox. She said he had sold our house and moved into an apartment. The night…the night I left him…he was back in bed with her. She had pictures in case I didn’t believe.”

Scully remembers Mulder telling her. He was so afraid of being alone and Diana and him had a history. He just escaped in her until she left him, too. “You named William after Mulder’s father?”

Felicity shakes her head. ‘It's Fox’s middle name. Soon as I heard I was pregnant I wanted a boy and for him to be a junior, but that was too dangerous so my son is William M Fox and my name became Moondance Fox. I wanted to keep whatever I could of Fox in our life.”

“Ladies, let's get to today. How did you find him today?” Skinner’s cell phone has not stopped beeping and buzzing. He needed facts about who had been behind Mulder’s abduction and then to turn his attention to other things.

“A man came to me. He told me that Fox had been abducted to save him from the memory loss. They told me where to find him, but that only my son could save him. They gave me the instructions you had given them on the treatment.”

A nurse interrupts: “Excuse me. Agent Mulder is awake and asking for Agent Scully. Also Mrs. Mulder, you can see your son now.”

“Agent Scully, I sense you and Fox are close. Please try to make him understand that everything I did was to protect our son. A mother will do anything for her son. Please ask him to forgive me.”

“I am close to Mulder. I call him Mulder. I think he will understand.”

Chapter 6: Women always leave Mulder

The nurse walks both Felicity and Scully to the respective patients’ rooms. “How did your son take learning about his father?” Scully is thinking about her son William who she gave up for adoption. “He’s known about his father forever.. That he was a hero fighting crimes in the FBI and made some enemies, that he never knew he had a son, but that he should be proud his father was such a great man. My son went to the police academy, but had trouble with authority. He takes after his father. Now he’s a private detective. He reminds me so much of Fox. I’ve told him everything I could think of about Fox.” The nurse stops at a room and tells them it is William’s room. “Do you want to meet my son, Agent Scully?” Scully says some other time. She turns and follows the nurse to Mulder’s door. “I need a moment,” she says and sits on a chair by the door.

For years she had hated Felicity on principal almost as much as she hated Diana. The two women who had broken Mulder’s heart and made it so hard for him to love her. It was hard to blame Felicity now. Besides who is she to judge. She remembers Mulder yelling at her. “Go ahead and leave me like every other woman!” When she was packed and ready to drive away Mulder was sitting in the dark in the living room. She went back in. “Mulder, are you going to be ok?” “Why do you care, Scully?” “Mulder, I care.” “You are my only family, Scully. I have no one else.” “We are still family.” Mulder laughed in that way he had picked up recently; that mirthless laugh. “I’m not leaving you in the same way the other women did.” “It looks the same. It feels the same.” “No, Mulder, we will still see one another. We will have dinners and see movies and still be friends.” “Pity dates?” Scully shook her head. “But not real dates?” “Mulder, we will be friends. We are friends.” “Remember when you were so desperate for me, Scully?” When they argued, Mulder never let her forget that she had propositioned him, made the first move after years of innuendoes, glances and stolen touches. “Mulder, I will never be sorry for being your lover, but couples break up. Still we are friends, we are family, we always will be.” She stood up to leave and he stopped her as she was at the door.”Scully, thank you for saying that.” “Call me, Mulder.” That night at 11:21, he had called her. “Scully it's me. I wanted to make sure you were safe.” “Mulder, I’m fine. Are you ok?” “I suppose you don’t want to tell me what you’re wearing?” Then the next night to tell her about a documentary on television, but the phone calls and the dates became fewer and farther apart. Until Skinner called and the X files were opened again. Then suddenly it was ok for them to hug, hold hands, be there for one another without romance because they were working together again. Breathe, Scully. Put one foot in front of the other. Mulder is alive.

She hadn’t expected the change in his physical appearance. She remembered seeing him two days ago, but now he was slim, gaunt and the hair at his temples were gray. How had that happened so quickly? She picks up the chart to read it.

“Back from the dead again?”

‘Mulder, I have never found you joking about the time you were dead funny.”

“But how many people can joke about the time they were dead? Come hug me, Scully.”

She hugs him quickly and returned to looking at his chart. “Scully, is something wrong?” “No, it looks like you are going to live.” “It's because of you. So many people are alive today because of you.” “Over a million are dead.” “Scully, what’s the matter?” “I just told you, more than a million people are dead.” “But we’re here. I expected more emotion from you. Have we cheated death so often that this is passé to you?” “Mulder, you are the only person in the whole country who remembers yesterday. I need you to tell me everything you remember.”

Mulder tells her of his encounter with the cigarette smoking man. He was behind all of this. He tells her of Miller rescuing him and when they were stuck on the bridge Scully coming to him. He had heard Scully talking to Miller about William. Mulder stops . He waits for Scully to say something. “Then what, Mulder?” “A ship appeared and pulled both you and I up into it.” “Both of us?” “When I first saw the ship I thought, no, not again. I couldn’t take it again. Then, when I remember you were there I thought, please take me instead. Then they took both of us and I thought, well, at least we’ll be together.” Scully couldn’t help but smile. “Always the romantic, Mulder.” “Well the couple that travels together they say stay together. But they weren’t the bad guys. They are a small group fighting the cancer man.” Mulder shut his eyes for a minute and Scully rushes over to him. ‘Mulder, you’re tired. This is too much for you.” He smiles weakly. “I just wanted to get you closer to me.” Scully sits beside him now holding his hand. “I’m here. Finish telling me.”

Mulder tells her that “Old Smokey’s” plans were ruined by Scully finding a cure, but he wanted to divert attention, throw the blame elsewhere, so Smokey gave the information about the solar flare and power grid to the terrorist group to help them set up the charge that would cause everyone to pass out and lose their memory. No way could this group have the technical skills without the CSM and his subordinates’ help. Both incidents would be rolled up into one and the terrorist group would be blamed for both. “Oh my god, Mulder, it's happening. That is exactly what is happening.” “We need to stop him, Scully.” “Then what happened.” “There were scientists on board who said they were close to changing stem cells from non alien DNA to mimic alien DNA. You worked with them and found the answer, Scully. Scully, have I ever told you how brilliant I think you are?” “So how did I end up back on the bridge?” “They had developed only one prototype box to protect a person’s memory from the power charge, but there were some dangers to it. It was more important for you to be alive to help with the recovery. The world would lose so much more if you were gone than me. So you went back to the bridge. The ship flew to Oregon. The box and I were transported down and the plane went to wherever it was going to land. Scully even the pilots of the plane don’t remember yesterday because they gave me the box, but they wrote down where I was and the details of yesterday so they would know once they woke up.” ‘‘Mulder, you weren’t found in a box.” “I said there were dangers, Scully. When the charge occurred the box bursts into flames, a coolant inside the box released putting out the flames. It also froze my clothes so I had to get out of them and then I wandered away until I passed out.” “Mulder, why didn’t you tell the scientist everything you knew and had one of them get into the box? Why did it have to be you?” “I want to be one to take down that bastard.” Scully wants to scream at him that he could have died from immolation, then hyperthermia and all that before radical stem cell treatment. Did he know how lucky he was to be alive? She refrained. It was the reason she left him. It was her hell. He was always going to put himself in danger. Leaving him hadn’t changed him and hadn’t stopped her caring about him getting hurt. “Mulder, there’s another solar flare in one week..” “Yes, so much time will be focused on either taking out the terrorist attack, developing a way to develop a defense or in preparation, everyone will forget the disease attack that started the whole thing.” “Mulder, I have to get this information to Skinner.” Scully gets up and begins to leave.

“Scully, damn.” She turns around surprised. “You really are not going to tell me you found our son?”

She comes back to him shaking her head. “The nurse told me the stem cells came from my son, William, and he was doing ok. You found our son?”

“Mulder, no. Do you remember being asked this morning if your wife’s name was Felicity?” “I thought it was a dream.” “Mulder, Felicity found you this morning and she was pregnant when she left you….”

Chapter 7: Fox, Foxy Fox, Fox

Mulder wakes. Felicity sits in a chair by his bed. She has pulled up another chair to use as a table and has laid out tarot cards on them. She doesn't notice Mulder is awake. He gazes at her. She is a woman he has loved, hated, mourned, assumed he would never see again. He understands now he doesn’t have the same right to hate her as he once thought, but still seems to have some residue of anger unprocessed. It is interesting to look at a woman he met at the age of 17 now at the age of 56. He realizes it is impossible for him to think of her as anything but beautiful and that he has no objectivity in that conclusion. ‘If you are reading my future, I don’t see a death card.” It startles her to hear his voice and when she quickly turns to look at him, she is startled to look into his eyes. She is startled twice and then sits frozen unable to do anything but stare; wondering how long he will let her stay and expecting he might immediately throw her out. It is her first opportunity to see him awake in 26 year. Mulder expects her to say something first. Presumably she is here to talk to him, right?

After several minutes he says “ well, it's been great visiting.” She immediately gets up and begins to put her cards away and he says, “I’m kidding.” She sits down again but doesn’t say anything still for several minutes. They both sit not looking at each other directly but trying to take side ways glances at each other. “I thought I would never see you again.” He says it in an accusatory voice. ‘I’m so sorry” she begins. He holds up his hand to stop her After waiting so long for her to speak, he is not sure now he wants to hear anything she has to say. “Scully told me. I went to both of your parents’ funeral to see if you would show up. I expected that you would at least show up for that.” Felicity had never wrote to anyone but the one note to Fox. He was left to tell her parents she had disappeared and to listen to their recriminations and blaming him. Felicity sits up straight and looks at him fully. There are things she will be blamed for and things she will not. In a calm, cold voice she says, “I would like to believe that if my parents knew the reason I did not attend their funeral they would understand and forgive me. Just as I hope you would.” “There was never an opportunity to contact me?” She fixes her bright blue eyes on him. “Can you tell me he wouldn’t have harmed our son? Did I over react?” Mulder thinks that the man is responsible for more than one million deaths yesterday. Mulder shakes his head. “What I haven’t had the knowledge to understand is why he wanted me out of your life so badly?” Mulder thinks. “I think it was so Diana would have more access into my life, be able to report back, be able to manipulate me more.” Felicity nods. She still doesn’t understand but she doesn’t want to talk about Diana.

“We have a son?” Felicity smiles “ and a granddaughter.” Mulder is stunned. ‘I’m a grandfather?” “Samantha in honor of your sister.” Mulder smiles. “I tried to provide as much of you as I could in our son’s life. He knows all your family stories I knew and all of ours. He’s probably going to ask you to recite Yeats when you meet I have told him about our meeting so often.” “His last name is Fox?” “William M. Fox. No actual name for the M so every time someone asks him what it means he has a different smart Alec name. He is a lot like you in his humor and wit.” “Your last name is also Fox?” “Moondance Fox.” Fox smiles again. He can’t help but smile at the memories. “You never remarried?” “We’re still married, Fox. You could have divorced me, but I would have had to come out of hiding to divorce you.” Mulder nods. “But there were other men?” Felicity shakes her head “you know I can’t be in a relationship if I can’t be honest. So, I never. I never.” She said the last part in a way he would understand. “My god, Moondance, it's been 26 years. Weren’t you lonely?” “I had a part of you in our son.” He asks her the question he didn’t think he could have asked any other woman, even Scully, “Weren’t you horny?” She laughs, “what do you think?” He is beginning to absorb how much she sacrificed. “Your career?” “Law? I had to give it up.” “You gave up everything.” “No, I had William and I kept him safe,” she says this with some pride, but Mulder can feel the loneliness coming off of her.

He reaches out to touch her hair. “What’s with the hair?” “I find its best to hide out loud and outrageous. If you do, no one will ever know you’re hiding.” “I was in hiding for many years myself.” He suddenly wants to tell her everything. “I had another son, but his mother gave him up for adoption because it was dangerous.” “Your family?” “They’re dead, too.”

He realizes he is no longer simply stroking her hair but has both hands entwined. The colors are mesmerizing, the length and the texture. He lifts up a handful of her hair and slowly drops it to see the colors blend together. She laughs. “Feel free to play with my hair as much as you want. Our granddaughter does that same thing by the way,”. Mulder finds himself smiling broadly and laughing loudly. He has a granddaughter. 26 years of anger and hate fades away and he is giddy with lightness this brings to him. He remembers the summer they were seventeen sitting on her bed with the door open; finishing up one board game and looking around to decide what else to play. Mulder bends towards her and lightly and quickly touches her lips with his. She is surprised. It is exactly how he had first kissed her fearful her parents would walk in. She smiles at him so broadly. “Do you know what I would like, Moondance?” He says her new name slowly, enunciating every sound, teasing her about the choice while letting her know he approves of it. She shakes her head. She would give him anything. The only man she has ever loved seems ready to forgive her and she will give him anything he wants in return. “Say my name the way you used to say it.” “Fox, Foxy Fox, Fox.” He bends his lips to her in the adult way he had once routinely kissed his wife.

Chapter 8: Retrospection

Skinner has been on the phone since Scully went to see Mulder. The coordination required with so many agencies and countries involved! In all his years, Skinner has never seen any cooperation and coordination quite like this. All leaders including the ones in the Mid East understood that their self-interest was the same. The attack(s) had been on the US, but it could have occurred anywhere-anywhere people were vaccinated and anywhere a power grid was connected. He has made Scully wait while he finished his phone calls.

She tells him all that Mulder has told her.

“Agent Scully, there is going to be a major take down of terrorists internationally tomorrow evening. All orchestrated so only people with top security clearance know the details and with major initiatives simultaneously timed to the second. I’ve just made arrangements to give you that security clearance. I will need your help tomorrow night.”

“Mulder should be released tomorrow.”

“I have not increased his security level. I need you to help me with this, Dana.”

She nods.

“I filled the CDC in on the stem cell treatment that cured Mulder. They are waiting for a full analysis from you still on your review of documents and now a report on this treatment as well. You realize it has implications for other diseases. They are talking about nominating you for the Nobel Prize in science.” Scully doesn’t say anything. “How are you doing with all this, Dana?”

“It would be different if I could remember doing the work I’m being praised for. As it is my mind is just onto other things that need to be taken care of, sir.”

Skinner wants to know how she is doing with the presence of Mulder’s wife and a new son, but he has never pried into their relationship.

“This box that Mulder was in and the scientists who created it. NASA and homeland security will want to know more about that and as quickly as possible. We know that taking down this terrorist cell doesn’t put the genie back in the box. The disease, the anomalous DNA issue, that will be ongoing with the CDC.”

“Mulder is right then. The real monster who masterminded this will just be forgotten.”

“Agent, if we focus our resources on him then the terrorist cell or any terrorist group has us by the balls. What would you have us do?” Scully doesn’t say anything. “I’m not saying we forget about it. Just that the terrorist group is the FBI’s focus for the next 48 hours, but we opened up the X-files again to assure that Mulder and you would be focused on the extreme possibilities and there will be time to focus again on CSM. Assuming you still want to be part of the xfiles?”

“Sir?”

“Dana, your medical career has just hit a pinnacle. Name your price…any hospital, the CDC, university, Grant research. Think of how many lives you saved yesterday! You want to work in a basement office as an FBI agent instead? Whatever your loyalty to Mulder! I don’t know that I can have a Nobel prize winner working underneath me. How would I ever keep you in line?”

“I don’t have the answers to my questions about what happened to me.”

“Don’t you trust Mulder to look for those answers without you? Are those answers more important than the other contributions you can give to your country?”

Scully couldn’t process the accomplishment. She couldn’t remember the events or the work. She was just herself, the same as she was two days ago. Skinner wanted to get Mulder’s statement recorded and transcribed. He had a highly classified intelligence device delivered for that purpose. He wants to be sure that –whatever happens there are record, electronic and hard copy paper, of Mulder’s memories.

Scully and Skinner enter Mulder’s hospital room to see Mulder’s hands playing with Felicity’s hair. They hear him say, “say my name the way you used to.” “Fox, Foxy Fox, Fox.” They see the kiss. Scully wonders: Is that the reason he doesn’t let me call him by his first name? Mulder had told Scully even his parents didn’t call him by his first name, but that wasn’t true. His mother did. He let her mother call him Fox. Diana had. Mulder had told Scully about his marriage. He had talked from time to time about Felicity, but never shared the intimacies; the simple things between couples that become part of their routine, part of their secret message of love. She has just witnessed an intimacy between Mulder and his, God help her, his wife. He had a romantic, sensual reaction to the way she said his first name.

Skinner clears his throat loudly. Moondance gets up to leave. Mulder holds onto her hand. His eyes question her. “After this with the FBI and you rest, William and his wife want to come to meet you.” His eyes still questions and he still grips her hand. “I will be with our granddaughter so they can come.” He isn’t letting his grip or gaze go. “You will see me again.” He releases his grip then and reclines back on his pillow for a moment.

Moondance leaves. Skinner pulls Mulder’s table tray across the bed. He sits in the chair by the bed near the tray. Scully sits in the other chair between Mulder and Skinner but away from the bed. Skinner pulls the small packet that has been delivered out of his coat jacket, opens it, removes the contents and puts it on the tray. Scully watches Skinner. Mulder stares at Scully. She finally lifts her eyes to his. “Scully, do you remember that weatherman who said I used to gaze at you?” She nods. “I did. All the time. Whenever I thought you weren’t looking. I still do.”

Skinner clears his throat again. Mulder smirks at him. “Hello, skin man.” “Mulder, don’t call me that.” “Can we just take a second to appreciate this moment? A million dead, but after all this time we are still here. The three of us! Like a band that can’t seem to stay broken up. Should we do a reunion tour?”

Skinner looks at Scully. “If he is on pain medication, his statement might be questioned.” Scully shakes her head, “Nothing that wouldn’t make him lucid, sir.”

“I just think we should appreciate any time three good friends can be together.” In fact, Mulder feels a little high, but not from medication. It is like an acid trip where everything seems clear and confusing at once and time speeds up and slows down simultaneously. He has so much to process. Yesterday he was about to die beside a woman he loved, but with whom he was no longer romantically involved. Today he is alive. A woman he used to love who he thought he hated, but now remembers he had sworn that even if he fell in love with someone else he would still love her, has suddenly given him a son and granddaughter. Scully saw him kiss that woman and a part of him doesn’t care because she walked out on him and another part would rather die than hurt Scully, but he isn’t sure that Scully cares if he loves someone else. But if Scully is anywhere near him he is going to gaze at her and wish there was a way back to her. Also, he is ridiculously happy to see Skinner. When he is uncomfortable he hides it with humor. He is uncomfortable now, but, also remarkably at ease because life doesn’t make any sense and you have in fact no control, really, of anything. It is a revelation and a floating sensation, being so confused about everything, but seeing this one issue of lack of control so clearly.

Skinner says, “I don’t have time, Mulder. I need to prevent more losses and devastation.”

Mulder thinks how often they have all ran with no real sense of direction, often just instinct, to try and help mankind. It is kind of cute, really, Skinner and Scully being so serious when everything you love can be taken away senselessly and everything you could want given to you in a blink of an eye. “What can I do?”

Skinner explains he wants to record his statement about yesterday and then he had some questions. Skinner hands Mulder a headset which includes a microphone placed in front of his face. Skinner sits up the smaller than palm size square device. He looks through a small optical device which does not seem to be connected to the square device, but he moves the square device on the tray as he looks. He tells Mulder that once he hits a button on the device a camera will record him. The microphone is for the transcription which will occur simultaneously. The device is encrypted and will download directly into a Homeland security document database-both the recording and transcription. When he turns off the button the transcription will print out in a Washington office and the hard copy will be filed immediately. Skinner explains it is used by intelligence officials in highly sensitive cases during interrogation when having real time access to information is critical. The device is small enough to be easily hidden.

Mulder blurts out, “I miss having techno geek friends.” Scully and Skinner stare blankly at him. “I mean, I miss the lone gunmen for a lot of reasons. They were my drinking buddies and watched movies with me Scully wouldn’t and just my guy friends, but I miss them for keeping me up to date on techno stuff. Don’t you think it's ridiculous that someone as intelligent and nerdy as me can’t figure out phone apps?”

Skinner says, “if you are not going to take this seriously.” Scully stands up, angrily and confronts Mulder. For just a moment all Mulder can think about is how sexy a fierce Scully is. “Damn it, Mulder, we need a record that it was that smoking bastard behind this. Think about all he has done, all he took away.” Scully storms out of the room. Mulder does think- he thinks about it all. Now he adds to the list the years he could have spent with Felicity raising their son. The pain he caused to her. He has two sons he didn’t raise and two women he loves who have been hurt by that son of a bitch. Mulder’s high is gone. Reality sinks in palpable as the wet on a rainy day. He is ready to give his statement.

Chapter 9:Family Leave

By the time Skinner finds Scully she is calmer, but contemplative. She is relieved to know Mulder has cooperated fully; giving Skinner a complete and clear statement and answering all of Skinner’s questions. Skinner is heading back to DC and wants Scully to come back as well. Mulder is on his way to a remarkable recovery. There is something about the modified stem cells that speeds recovery. There is no need for her to stay. She wants to return tomorrow with Mulder once he is released.

Skinner reminds her that he wants her to lead the raid against the terrorist cell in DC. 15 simultaneous operations will be going on in cities across the US and 27 globally. He does not need Mulder to be part of this. Let Mulder concentrate on working with NASA. Scully insists she wants him on her team, under her command. “Agent, he might not be strong enough yet, and he’s never worked as a subordinate to you.” Scully has never led this type of action. She would just feel more comfortable if Mulder is involved.

She waits until after Mulder has met his son and his son’s wife before she goes to see him again to say goodnight. His eyes are closed. She reads his chart. She goes to his bedside and just gazes at him. Without opening his eyes he says her name. She kneels down on her knees so her face is directly at his face level and says “yes?” “I love to hear you say, Mulder, you know.” She sighs wondering if Skinner had told him she had heard his and Felicity’s conversation and had seen the kiss. Of course he had. Mulder opens his eyes and looks at Scully. “I’m sorry if any of this is hard for you.” Scully runs her fingers through his hair. She looks at the doorway and sees Felicity standing there. Felicity walks out of the room. Mulder is still looking at Scully. “You should sleep, Mulder.” He closes his eyes again.

Scully leaves the room and sees Felicity by the door. “He needs to sleep.” “I will just say goodnight.” Scully unconsciously positions herself to block the door. “I told him I would see him again. I don’t want him to think I forgot.” Scully nods and moves away from the door. She peaks back into the room as Felicity goes to the side of the bed. In the reflection in the hospital window she sees Mulder’s broad smile as he says the word “Moondance.” Scully leaves the hospital.

Scully spends the rest of the evening reviewing the records from yesterday and instructions she had given related to Mulder’s stem cell treatment. She realizes that she might well have been the only one who could have created the cure, but it wasn't because of any genius. It was the combination of her medical knowledge, her DNA and her X file experience that gave her the belief. She writes her reports and sends to the CDC with a copy to Skinner. What she is being asked to do by Skinner has nothing to do with any expertise. She will lead a group of armed agents against a group of terrorists. Skinner wants her because of a calm head and an ability to handle crisis and because he wants someone he could trust. She knows that he is right that Mulder is not the correct person for this job. He has other attributes; an ability to see patterns, read people, passion and instinct, arrogance to push back bureaucracy and walls. She doesn’t need Mulder tomorrow, she realizes, but she feels a stubbornness about leaving together. If they leave tomorrow together, they will be Scully and Mulder united in fighting the bad guys. There is no logic to it, just symbolism, that they are still a team.

The next day on her way to the hospital Scully remembers to stop and buy Mulder a suit. He was found naked. When they had lived together he had gladly allowed her to take over the task of buying his clothes, so she knows his size, his style preference, the color that best brings out the green in his eyes. It is a wife like duty she thinks, but pushes the thought out of her mind. It is a partner’s duty.

At the hospital desk she stops: Mulder! Her mind goes back to the first time she had went to the basement office and a ridiculously good looking man with glasses swiveled his chair around to greet her. It must be Mulder’s son: 6 ft tall, brown thick hair, same profile wearing glasses. When he turns to look at her his eyes are not Mulder’s.. They are the blue eyes of Felicity. His arm is around a woman her height with frizzy red hair and Scully smiles to think Mulder’s son married a woman who resembled a younger version of herself. “Dr. Scully,” he reaches for her hand. “Your picture has been all over the news.” He tells her that both him and his father have been cleared for discharge. He is just signing the paperwork. Scully startles a little to hear Mulder referred to as “father.” Scully asks about Felicity. She flew home on a commercial flight last night after saying goodbye to “dad.” They have chartered a private plane today, a little bit of a luxury, and will be leaving this morning. They all live in Portland. Scully’s heart soars. Soon her and Mulder will fly back to DC and his “family” will be in Portland and, for at least a couple of days, they can forget about this drama and focus on their jobs.

She walks to Mulder’s room. He is up. He is wearing jeans and a brown sweater with a green scarf. A red headed toddler sits on his lap playing with the scarf as Mulder makes google noises and faces at her. He turns and sees Scully. “Come say hello to my granddaughter, Scully”. Granddaughter! Mulder can tell by Scully’s face that she is disturbed by the sight of him and his granddaughter. His hands tighten around the child as if to shield her from any negativity. “What's with the suit, Scully?” “I bought it so you would have something to wear. You’re meeting with folk

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