Beating the Darkness Back, Part 7
Nov. 2nd, 2008 01:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anjouficTitle: Beating the Darkness Back 7/7
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
comice aka Anjou (Anjou@rocketmail.com)
Posting Date: October 2008
Rating: R for language and sexuality; M for Mature readers
Classification: Mulder/Scully, MSR, post-ep for IWTB
Archive: No archival until the story is completed, please. I'll be submitting to Ephemeral and Gossamer myself.
Spoilers: Through I Want To Believe
Disclaimer: All X-Files personnel belong to 1013 and Fox. All other elements are mine.
Author's Note: And now … the end of the story, including a long-winded end note.
Posts can be read on my fic journal:anjoufic, as well as Ephemeral and other XF fic sites. The whole tale will be archived at my website, No Other … , maintained by the generous dtg, when it is completed.
Thanks to Konrad Frye and especially the fabulouslilydale for not only willingly answering questions about the novelization of "I Want To Believe" that clarified the timeline for this writer, but for being brave enough to have read it in the first place.
As always, my biggest thanks go to my sister and editrix, Suzanne, for her support, and above all, her patience.
Summary: Where do we go from here, now that we are free?
~*~
July 25, 2008
Mulder trudged down the sidewalk on his way to the psychiatric facility that housed the latest patient that Maguire wanted him to see. He’d been questioning his desire to continue on this path almost from the time that he’d begun it, and it was only getting stronger as the weeks passed. He’d literally had to force himself to dress in a professional manner, a struggle he tried to pass off as confusion over the sartorial concept of business casual, before he’d reverted to his predictable standard of a summer-weight suit with a tie. The only unusual thing about his attire was that between the running and the stress that he'd lost so much weight that he'd been able to fit in a suit the same size as one he would have worn a decade before. In truth, the only thing he seemed to have an appetite for was impotently hitting the refresh button on his browser in hopes of news from David, or sifting through the records that the PIs were starting to send.
He sighed as he turned and regarded the building. He was supposed to meet Maguire on the steps, but there was no sign of him as yet. He leaned against the railing and looked absently at the blue summer sky. He and Scully had pretty much spent yesterday in bed, talking, reconnecting physically and emotionally, and crying. They’d done a lot of crying.
It had left him feeling sluggish and exhausted in a way that he felt all the way down to his toes. They’d needed the catharsis, but they were both exhausted by the events of the last few weeks. The move and all the changes that went along with acknowledging that they were truly free to go and do what they wanted would have been enough of a change. However, learning about William … it had made them both feel powerless, but he felt singularly purposeless. Scully had her work to ground her, but he had no such connection to this work. All he felt was inadequate.
He couldn’t save these children that Maguire wanted him to help –- they’d already survived unthinkable horror, sometimes at the hands of those who were supposed to protect them from their original torturers. And he wasn’t sure exactly how he was supposed to counsel them in believing in a happy ending, a peaceful life beyond their remembered pain, when he didn’t trust that such a thing was possible for some people. He’d look into the faces of these children, their eyes and spirits so much older than they should be, and could not help but think of William. It made him physically ill to imagine that if William had somehow escaped the clutches of the Consortium, that he might be in one of these places somewhere, traumatized by losing his parents, and maybe being preyed upon by unscrupulous, thoroughly ordinary humans.
That was his only motivation in coming here today, that maybe by trying to help a child in anguish inside these walls, that he’d be contributing to some kind of karmic cycle, that maybe somewhere, someone would be kind to his child. He looked at his watch, and then pulled out his phone.
No messages. Maguire was notorious for being a bit late to appointments, but this was unusual. He began to scroll through his address book to call him, when he heard his name. He looked down at the sidewalk and then back up the stairs to see Maguire holding open the door at the entrance to the building –- he was already inside. Mulder shook his head and began to climb the steps, taking them two at a time as he cut in and out of others coming and going from the building.
“Did I …” he began, but Maguire cut him off.
“My apologies,” he said firmly, shaking Mulder’s hand. “My last meeting got rescheduled here, and we ran long.”
John Maguire was a small, well put together man in his early sixties. There was something in his look, with his ubiquitous tweed jacket and his neatly kept silver beard, that reminded Mulder of John Byers, but the physical resemblance was only slight. Maguire was one of those indefatigable souls whose energy level was incredibly high. When he talked, he fairly bristled with ideas, and subtle but constant movement. It amazed Mulder that a man with so much nervous energy spent most of his days sitting still and listening. Perhaps it was because he was forced to be constrained during those periods that he was so active at the others.
“Now, something very interesting has happened since we last spoke,” he said. “My original intention was for you to see the Latimore boy, as we’d discussed. However, a new patient has been transferred in, a boy younger than those I usually see.” He pressed a folder into Mulder’s hands but kept talking.
Mulder accepted the folder, but didn’t do more than glance at it.
“It’s a very sad case, but very representative of the kind of magical thinking that we’ve been discussing as a common feature of many juvenile cases. This boy,” he pointed down at the file as they walked briskly down the corridor and turned a corner, “has only been in the system for a few weeks. He’s an only child, adopted by an older couple. The adoptive mother had long been in remission when her cancer recurred fairly recently.”
Mulder looked up at Maguire in surprise, just as Maguire stopped walking and motioned him into a small alcove.
Maguire lowered his voice in deference to the people passing them in the halls, and pointed at a room across the corridor. “He’s in there, but I’d like to fill you in some more. Complicating the matter is the adoptive father’s death, which has essentially orphaned the child again.”
Mulder’s pulse rate began to rise as he listened to Maguire. It seemed improbable, but could it really be this simple? He felt the phone in his pocket vibrate, but let it go to voicemail.
“Mulder?” Maguire asked. “Are you all right?”
“Tell me the rest,” Mulder answered in an urgent tone.
“The mother was admitted to hospice, so the boy was remanded to the system, pending foster care placement,” Maguire continued, watching Mulder intently. “He’s an energetic handful. The mother described him as imaginative and creative, but the foster care reports describe him as delusional and disruptive. We have records from two different situations, both families that have had great success with traumatic placements.”
“Neither worked out?” Mulder asked.
Maguire shook his head. “The boy has proven resistant to any overture of affection or sympathy. In fact, he’s defiant in his assertion that his real father is coming to get him.”
Mulder sucked in a breath. “What’s known about the bio-dad?”
“Nothing,” Maguire said. “The mother refused to name him, and the child was born before the enactment of welfare legislation that made that impossible. There’s no name recorded, no known story.”
“Are we going in?” Mulder was having a tremendously difficult time controlling his enthusiasm.
“Is there something you want to share with me?” Maguire asked.
“I’m simply curious about this child,” Mulder answered, bluffing. “And exploring the roots of his delusion.”
“Let’s be clear, though,” Maguire said, watching Mulder carefully. “Our goal is to try and get this child to a point where he can commit to a new situation, and that’s not going to be accomplished in a day. Today, you’re going to try and establish a rapport with him, recognizing that it’s more than likely that he’s created a false image of this father that will have to be countered slowly, as it’s more than likely tied up with either grief over his adopted father’s death, or disappointment in that relationship.”
Mulder had been nodding the entire time that Maguire was speaking. “Absolutely,” he said. He motioned to the door. “Let’s go.”
~*~
Mulder pushed open the door to the street and moved automatically to the side of the wide staircase, out of the path of the constant flow of foot traffic. He placed his hand on the broad railing to ground himself before he sat down. Then he dropped his head into his hands, grinding the heels of them against his eyes as he fought back tears. Magical thinking. He barked out a bitter laugh. He had more in common with that eagerly hopeful boy than he did with Maguire. He’d pushed that door open fully expecting to see William behind it, only to find a mixed race ten-year-old expectantly waiting for his imaginary father. He’d never forget the way the boy’s face had fallen at the sight of two middle-aged white men in suits, not the rapper hero that he had conjured up in his mind.
Mulder had made it through the intake and initial discussion by force of will, hoping that the boy’s obvious disappointment masked his own. He shook his head in memory, and angrily unknotted his tie, stuffing it in the outside pocket of his jacket. He unbuttoned his collar. He needed to tell Maguire that he was ending his practicum. He wasn’t suited to this work –- he couldn’t fix anyone, or anything. He had been better off in that room in their house in Virginia, cutting out bits of newspapers and plotting long-distance with MUFON to stop the end of the world.
He drew out his phone to leave a message for Maguire and saw a voicemail from Scully. He sighed. Maybe he’d just go for a walk instead. He didn’t relish telling Scully what had happened today, that was for sure. He knew that she'd worry about how aimless he was, and he couldn't deny that she had reason to be. He was drifting straight into despair.
He dropped the phone into the breast pocket of his shirt, and stood up, taking off his jacket. It was an unusually beautiful summer day, warm without being oppressively humid. It would be a long trek, but he could walk home from here, and just ignore the world for a while. He'd rolled up one of his sleeves and started down the long staircase, when he heard someone call his name. Not feeling like confronting Maguire just yet, he continued downward after a momentary hesitation, but the voice called his name, his full name, more insistently. He turned around in irritation and almost fell backward down the staircase.
Father Joe was standing at the doorway to the building, his spectral self outlined fuzzily against the black doors. “Don’t give up, Mulder,” he said earnestly.
Mulder shook his head in consternation –- it had been years since he'd seen a ghost, and of all the ghosts to see – and took a step back up the staircase, but Father Joe had already disappeared.
His phone rang in his pocket, and he pulled it out. Scully.
This time, he took the call.
~*~
Mulder made two wrong turns before he finally located the right kind of oncological floor at the massive Johns Hopkins complex. At her request, he'd called Scully when he got to the front of the building, even though she still steadfastly refused to tell him why.
"Just come here, Mulder," she'd said stubbornly. Her voice was urgent, but strangely relaxed at the same time. He turned the corner and found himself standing at the edge of the solarium, which was filled with those being treated for cancer, and those who'd come to be with them. He began to scan the crowd for Scully's bright hair when he heard the excited voice of a child clearly above the din of conversation and the buzz of the omnipresent TV sets.
"There he is!"
His head swiveled toward the voice, but he couldn't quite see where it was coming from.
"That's him!" The boy's voice sounded more excited, exultant even. "That's him, right over there!"
Mulder registered the blur of the dark-haired boy in jeans running at him only after he'd already dropped to his knees and held out his arms to receive him. "William!"
He wrapped his arms around his son, and the weight of him in real life, the impression of him over his heart, was exactly what he remembered from his dream world. William's precious skull was cradled in the palm of his hand for the first time in years, and Mulder pressed a kiss of thanks to the top of William's head as he held him. It took a monumental effort, but he made himself loosen his arms so as not to overwhelm the child when William began to move away.
William didn't entirely break away from Mulder, but leaned back far enough so that he could look at him. "Wow," he said, in a wondering tone. "You really are a real guy."
Mulder laughed in delight, dislodging some of the tears from his eyes. "And you're a real boy."
"Just like Pinocchio?" William shot back immediately. "Actually, I think that story's kind of creepy."
Mulder smiled at William, letting him stand on his own. "You'll have to tell me all about it." He still had a hand on William's arm, not wanting to lose contact with him, afraid that his vision of him now in what appeared to be the real world would fade as surely as the ethereal world of his dreams.
"OK," William said, "but first you have to come meet my mother." He grabbed Mulder by the hand and pulled until Mulder was upright, excitedly dragging him in his wake as he wove through the people whose curiosity about them had been momentary at best.
As they worked their way across the room, he could see Scully sitting on the edge of a couch, next to a woman in a wheelchair. She was holding the woman's hand as she smiled softly at Mulder, her joy tempered by her obvious concern for the ill woman next to her.
"Mama," William said, bringing Mulder to his mother's side. "This is my other Dad, the one from my dreams."
The woman in the wheelchair smiled warmly at William, patting his face. "I'm sorry I doubted you, sweetheart," she said. She looked up at Mulder, and he could see that she had that same horrible look of fragility that Scully had had so many years ago. She was as brittle as glass, and so pale that she looked ghostly even while still breathing. Her eyes had the fever brightness that he associated with the very ill, as if the knowledge of imminent death made some interior spirit burn at a heightened pitch. "I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Mulder," she said softly.
"It's just Mulder," he answered automatically, and dropped into a crouch next to her wheelchair, picking up her other hand gently. He didn't shake it, just held it.
She smiled, but it was fleeting. "So your wife has told me. I can't say that I blame you." She squeezed his hand lightly.
He could see how she was struggling with this situation, on top of everything else that had happened to her in the past few months.
"Did your parents really name you Fox?" William asked.
"Yep," he nodded, turning to look at him. William was tall for his age, obviously intelligent and very poised. Mulder imagined that he had spent a tremendous amount of his young life talking to adults. He glanced at Scully, to find her eyes fixed on their son. Her expression was slightly dazed, although her professional veneer was mostly in place.
"Why?" William asked, flummoxed.
Mulder shrugged while his mother chided him for being rude. "Beats me," he said. "It's a pretty dumb name."
William agreed, and Mulder dropped Mrs. Van De Kamp's hand to pull a chair closer to her other side. His knees couldn't take being in that position for too long anymore. "Mrs. Van De Kamp," he said. "I'm so sorry about your husband."
Her eyes filled with tears, but she nodded. "He was a wonderful man," she said. She reached out to William, who was looking worried and solemn, and ruffled his dark hair, pushing his too long forelock out of his eyes. "He was a good papa."
William nodded. "I miss him," he said to Mulder.
William's hands were restlessly playing with the string ends laced through the neck of the red hooded sweatshirt he was wearing, probably in deference to the cool, conditioned air of the hospital.
"Of course you do," Mulder answered easily, hearing both the challenge and need for reassurance in William's statement. "I'm sorry that I never got a chance to meet him."
"He didn't believe you were real," William said matter-of-factly. Mulder heard his mother make a small noise in dismay. "He said that you were only in my imagination."
"I probably would have said the same thing," Mulder said.
William cocked his head and looked at him searchingly, a gesture so reminiscent of Scully that Mulder had to wonder about the true reach of genetics. William's eyes were not the pure blue of Scully's, but an unusual mixture of his own hazel at its most green, leavened with blue. "Really?" William asked skeptically. "I don't think that's true."
Mulder chuckled as William's mother chided him.
He and Scully shared a wry glance over their son's head.
"He's probably right," Mulder said, as William protested his innocence. "I do have a habit of believing a lot of unusual things."
This time, it was Scully that huffed out a strangled chuckle.
William looked a bit astonished at the sound.
"I don't understand, though," Mulder asked. "How did we end up here? Scully?"
He looked over at his partner, but she shook her head, pointing at William.
"I found you," he announced proudly.
Mulder shook his head, mystified. "How did you know we were looking for you?"
William shrugged, covering his mother's legs with a blanket and then tucking it around her carefully. Mulder could see how the conversation was distressing her, but she didn't try to stop William from speaking. "Mama needed to go to a hospital in a big city, and we had to pick. First, I thought we should go to Boston," he said, looking at his mother as she nodded.
Then, he turned toward Mulder, who had noted that William had not actually answered his question. "But I went on the internet and I looked at pictures, and it wasn't the right city next to the water. Like the city in the dream?"
Mulder nodded, somewhat surprised by William's explicit acknowledgment of their dream world. "Did you build that city?"
William shook his head. "No, it was just there when I got there, so I made myself stop and look at it, even though I was upset." He paused, and Mulder was sure now that there were things he was omitting, in deference to his mother. "I wanted to see you because my Papa was dead, but I couldn't find you."
"You found Scully," Mulder said.
"It's weird that you call her that," William observed. He looked over at Scully, who smiled at him.
"William!" his mother reproached.
"She was asleep," William said, shifting back into his story. "But I recognized her."
"You did?" Mulder said, astonished
William nodded. "It was like … suddenly I remembered her from when I was a baby. I knew she was my other mom."
Mulder glanced from Scully, who had clearly heard the story before, to William's mother.
"We've always told Will that he was adopted," she answered. "He always insisted that his other mother had red hair, and since he had reddish hair when we first got him, we never doubted it. But it wasn't until he was three that he told us about his other dad." She shrugged. "We thought he was just imagining you."
Mulder nodded. "Then what happened?" He asked William.
"I looked on the computer and found the right city by the water, and told Mama that we needed to come to Baltimore."
Mulder shook his head in consternation. Why hadn't he recognized the skyline? "How long have you been here, Mrs. Van De Kamp?"
"Helen, please," she said quietly. "We got here at the end of May."
Mulder scrubbed at his face as the coincidences piled up. "This is really …" he had no words to describe it, and stopped trying. "So, you just bumped into each other?" he asked incredulously.
"No," Scully said firmly. "I was paged here by William."
Mulder turned and looked at their son in shock.
"I was over there on the computer," William said. "And I was waiting for a page to load, and there's a newsletter." He ran over and picked it up, showing the front page where a picture of new hire Dr. Dana Scully was featured, with an article about her promising pediatric oncology research.
"Oh my God," Mulder said, looking from Scully's sad and weary face in the photo to her now. She still looked stunned, but there was no hiding the joy that radiated from her every pore as she looked back at him, while William leaned companionably against his leg.
"I think so," said Helen softly. She cleared her throat. "I got a package yesterday, forwarded to us by one of William's aunts, from a David Truesdale. It outlined our legal situation."
"Oh, no," Mulder began. "That was not my intention at all …"
"Regardless," Helen said, and he stopped, cognizant that this conversation was incredibly difficult for her. "The fact is that God, or someone, has interceded when I was beginning to truly worry about what to do next." William looked very upset at her words and moved back over to his mother. She patted his cheek. "There is a reason that all of this has happened now."
"Helen," Scully said, "I don't think that we're at that point yet."
"I can't wait until we are," she answered softly. "I have been so very worried about what will happen. Tom was a wonderful man, but his family … they're not suitable for a boy like William. Now, I don't have to worry anymore." She paused, stroking William's hair while the boy looked at her, lips trembling.
Mulder had no doubt whatsoever that William knew exactly what his mother wasn't saying, and that she knew it as well.
"So, when I'm through with my pre-treatment screening today, we'll go back to the hotel and pack up William's things," she said slowly, but with an air of finality, then looked first at Mulder, and then at Scully. "Monday, I'll check in so that they can begin the stem cell transplant. I only ask that you bring him frequently to visit me both when it's allowed, and …" Helen hesitated, and William pressed up against her side, seeking a hug. She dropped Scully's hand and wrapped her arms around him. She continued quietly, "And then after the treatment is over." Helen looked at Scully for a long time, and Mulder knew by the expression on Scully's face that Helen did not expect to survive.
"No," Mulder said firmly into the silence.
Helen looked shocked, but Scully's eyes swung to his and she looked at him searchingly before she nodded.
"I mean, yes, I'll go back to the hotel, and I will pack up both of your things," Mulder said, in the same assured tone. "And then I will come back and take you both home. Monday, William and I will bring you to the hospital for your treatment, and when you're through with it," Mulder continued, "you'll come home with us."
Scully was positively beaming at him.
"Oh, Mr. Mulder," Helen said, "No, I couldn't impose—"
"It's just Mulder," he said, "and there is no imposition here. You are family. This is what family does." He smiled at Will, who was bouncing next to his mother's wheelchair.
"See, Mama?" he said. "I told you."
"Mulder," Helen said. She was on the verge of tears, but trying to hold it back. "I don't think you realize what you're signing yourself up for. I'm sure that your wife …"
"Unfortunately, I have a very clear idea of what I'm in for, as does Scully." He looked over at Scully and back at Helen. "As far as I'm concerned that's all the more reason for you to be with us."
Scully nodded as she wiped away a tear. "I totally agree with Mulder. You should be with us." She moved closer to Helen and put her hand over hers, her expression imploring.
Helen looked helplessly back and forth between them, tears pooling in her eyes. "You have to know how hard this is going to be …" she whispered to Scully.
"I do," Scully answered. "I do. But it's the right thing to do."
"Please, Mama," William said. He dropped to his knees, wrapping his arms around his mother's legs and laying his head in her lap. "Please say yes."
Helen looked from her son to Scully and then to Mulder, searching their faces. She must have seen the same brand of determined implacability, because she suddenly leaned against the back of the wheelchair and sighed. "This is absolutely crazy," she said. The tears she'd been holding back began to spill over, but she was smiling. "Thank you."
Scully leaned forward and took Helen's hand. "No," she said. "Thank you." She was smiling, but tears were coursing down her face. "We owe you so much."
Helen smiled back at her tremulously, her other hand on William's head. She shook her head. "You owe me nothing," she said softly, then added, "Someday, I'd like to hear the whole story."
"You will," Scully said firmly, wiping away her tears as a nurse called Helen's name from the doorway. She stood and waved her hand, and the nurse began to cross the room.
"OK, then," Helen said. She pulled a key card in a paper case with the hotel name on it from a pocket in her purse. "William, can you help Mulder pack up our things?"
"Yes!" he said enthusiastically, jumping up. He hugged her again.
"Neatly, my friend," Helen said, laughing. She looked up at Mulder. "I guess I'll see you later."
He nodded. "William and I will be back to pick you up …" he looked at the nurse.
"I would say four hours from now," the nurse answered, glancing at her watch. "Maybe three if we're very lucky." It was clear that she wanted to get started, although her expression was kind.
"I'm ready," Helen said softly. She released the locks on the wheelchair, and the nurse moved to push her toward the door. William followed, holding her hand until they got to the door of the solarium.
Mulder found himself standing, watching his small figure anxiously, not entirely sure that he was ready, would ever be ready, for William to go beyond arm's reach. He felt Scully's arm circle his waist as they both watched their son. William kissed his mother at the doorway and then stood there watching after Helen had disappeared from their view.
Mulder wrapped his arms around Scully, bending so he could speak into her ear. "Is this really happening?" he whispered.
He felt her nod as she tilted her head to whisper back. "I'm not really sure."
At the doorway, William waved, and then turned and walked toward them. He smiled at them a little shyly until Scully opened her arms to him. William was tall enough that his head came up to just above Scully's waist. As Mulder watched, her expression became beatific as she held William to her breast.
Scully opened her eyes and looked up at him as Mulder put his arms around them both. Her eyes were asking him a question, wanting to know if it was wrong to feel so happy when there had been so much pain, and there was still so much more to come.
He shrugged helplessly. He had no answer for her, because he knew that the darkness would always find them, no matter what. But there had to be a reason that they were here now, together, as improbable as it was. He bent and kissed her tenderly.
They both looked down at William, who was watching them curiously.
"I missed you so much," Scully said.
"I know," William said solemnly. He broke out of their hold and stepped back a little. "I could feel it sometimes."
She nodded, her eyes filling up with tears.
"How come I could come visit you and not Mom?" William asked Mulder. Mulder saw Scully start at William's easy use of the word 'Mom'.
Mulder shook his head, running his hand through his hair. "I really don't know, William," he said. "I don't understand how all this ..." he gestured helplessly, "works."
"Oh," William said, clearly disappointed. He looked reflective for a moment before he said, "Jeremiah says that sometimes the answers are not obvious, so we have to pay attention."
"Jeremiah?" Scully asked sharply.
At the same time, Mulder asked "Who's Jeremiah?" in a neutral tone.
William looked up at him, and there was a familiar arch to his eyebrow. "Mama says that Jeremiah is my guardian angel, but he's more like a teacher."
"What does he teach you?" Mulder asked quietly.
William shrugged. "Things he said that I need to know."
Mulder held onto Scully's hand before she could cover her mouth with it. He could feel her escalating tension. "He teaches you in your dreams?"
William nodded. "He told me that he'd met you a couple of times," William continued. "He's a real guy, too."
"You've met Jeremiah?" Mulder asked. "Jeremiah Smith?"
William nodded.
"He came to Papa's funeral," he said. "Mama didn't see him, but we talked for a while."
Mulder nodded. "Did Jeremiah have a message for your Mom or me?"
Scully looked at him, startled by his sudden question. Her eyes were fearful.
William looked at him, surprised. "Yeah, he did," he said. "I almost forgot until just now. He said …" William closed his eyes and concentrated. "He said, the darkness can be vanquished if you are steadfast." He opened his eyes. "Don't give up."
Scully was very still next to him, her eyes fixed on their son's face. "Do you know what that means?" she asked William very softly. Unconsciously, her hand went to the cross at her neck, and she traced it softly.
William shook his head and his too long hair fell into his eyes. "No," he said easily, pushing it aside. "But Jeremiah said that I don't always need to understand what things mean right away. That if I pay attention, and watch carefully, that I'll be led the right way. And he was right!" He pointed at them. "I paid attention, and I found you!"
William's smile was bright and wide, and for the first time Mulder could see that his front teeth were crooked, and that one of his eyeteeth was growing in at a slant, just like his own had done before he'd had braces.
"Yes, you did," Mulder said firmly. "You did a great job." He knew that Scully had a million more questions, as did he, but now was not the time for them.
They had time for all of that later. They had time.
"Scully," he said conversationally, leaning toward her and pointedly changing the subject. "Did you have braces?"
"For years," she answered. "You?"
"Oh yeah," he said.
William looked puzzled at this topic, but then grabbed Mulder's hand and pulled. "Are we going to the hotel now?"
"Impatient?"
"I don't like the hotel," William said. "It smells funny and there are so many sad people. Everybody there is sick or scared." He shook his head, a small shudder running through his frame.
Scully put her hand on William’s head, alarmed at his distress, and looked at Mulder.
"Then let's go," Mulder said. He gestured with his other hand toward the door, then watched in amazement as William hesitated, before he launched himself at Scully, hugging her and saying, "I'll see you later."
"Yes, you will," she said to him tenderly.
"Will you sing to me?" he asked shyly.
Scully laughed out loud, a full-throated laugh that Mulder hadn't heard for ages, maybe forever. It sounded free. It sounded full of light, and it pierced him through with joy. "If you really want me to," she said.
William nodded, his cheeks a little pink. "I do."
Scully ruffled his hair and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Then I will," she promised.
William turned and took Mulder's hand again.
"OK," he said, then he smiled and began to lead Mulder out of the solarium.
They stopped at the door and waved at Scully, who looked like she was going to dissolve into tears at any second, but was smiling when she waved back at them.
"You know," William said to Mulder in a confidential tone, as they walked down corridors and staircases that Mulder hadn't noticed before, but was paying attention to now. "I've never really been to the beach."
"I'll take you," Mulder said immediately.
Mulder felt as if the whole world had shifted, and lay open like a ripe pomegranate at his feet. Anything was possible.
This morning he had been drifting, without purpose, but now … he saw how the pieces of the puzzle fit together, and this jumble of a path he'd been on for the past few years made sense. All of it, from Scully's decisions to his own, had led them here. He had a flash of memory of Scully speaking to him years ago saying 'What if there was only one choice and all the other ones were wrong? And there were signs along the way to pay attention to?'
He smiled, and felt the weight of William's smaller hand in his, the trust inherent in that placement. All their choices, good and bad, had led them to this. Mulder knew what he needed to do.
He was going to call John Maguire tomorrow morning and thank him sincerely for the opportunity to work with him, and for the training that he had a feeling was going to come in handy for the next few years. Then he was going to respectfully decline to continue.
Today, however, he was going to call David Truesdale and tell him to call off the dogs, and to figure out a solution to their legal conundrum that would work for all of them. Most importantly, Truesdale needed to arrange for Mulder to get a concealed carry license, ASAP.
But before he did that, Mulder was going send Walter Skinner a case of scotch, an abject apology and an invitation to dinner. They needed to discuss what was to come. If he was lucky, Skinner would consent to re-train him on hand-to-hand combat techniques without putting him in the hospital.
Then, after William was asleep, he was going to call Maggie Scully and tell her that he'd booked an open ticket for her to get on a plane and come east to meet her grandson.
And when Mulder finally got Scully alone in their bed tonight, he was going to have a serious conversation with her about when, exactly, she was going to make their union legal. For entirely prudent reasons, of course.
William tugged on his hand, refocusing him on the present. He asked, "Will you teach me how to swim?"
"I'll teach you whatever you want to learn," Mulder said easily.
When they reached the front door of the hospital, Mulder stepped in front of William and placed a hand on his chest, stopping his forward progress. He moved his son behind him. For the first time in years, Mulder longed for the reassuring weight of his gun at his side. He pushed the door open and his eyes swept the outside landscape in sectors, carefully noting the people and the cars. He had to pay attention, to be ever vigilant from this moment forward. All the weeks of worrying about William's safety made perfect sense to him -- it had all been preparation for this, his new purpose.
Once he had ascertained that the coast was clear, at least for now, Mulder reached back and took William by the hand. "Stay close," he said to William.
William smiled up at him, and nodded. "OK, Dad," he said.
Mulder fought back tears as he struggled to stay focused. He leaned down and kissed his son on the forehead, then turned to open the door to whatever came next.
Together, Mulder and William stepped outside into the abundant sunshine.
The End
Author's End Note:
A couple of things really surprised me as I watched I Want To Believe. The first was the explicit sense of intimacy between Mulder and Scully and all of the evidence of their shared life which we were shown. With all of the fandom speculation about them having been separated for a long period of time, and perhaps estranged, it was wonderful to see them so clearly together, partners still. Their conversations, especially the last one about the role of the darkness in their lives, was one that I reflected on a great deal as the idea of this story was forming in my imagination.
The second, larger surprise to me was the overt acknowledgment of William, and the loss of him, in the conversation that they had in their bed. I had not expected William to be mentioned at all, or even really to be part of the subtext. But with Scully requalified as a pediatrician (which would have been a subtextual acknowledgment, in and of itself) and the discussion of William in the text of the movie, I began to wonder what it all could mean.
Of course, I've always believed that William has a seminal role in the X-Files mythology, a belief that was solidified by conversations with the brilliant and much-missed Ambress. Sometime in Season 8, she, Suzanne and I had a long, involved discussion about the mytharc that I've never forgotten. Ambress, with the unerring eye of the scholar that she is, argued that the mytharc of the X-Files owed an enormous debt to the modern school of horror begun by Mary Shelley whose novel Frankenstein, with its focus on reproduction and the attempted usurpation of its mysteries by the protagonist, can be read as a feminist fable about how some men fear the power of women's bodies.
The X-Files mytharc, with its consortium of men literally stealing the essential elements of reproduction from women, and trying to control and improve reproductive outcomes for their own aims, was a modern twist on the same kind of fable, with a justification for those efforts that fit the tenor of post-modern times. From Ambress' perspective, the fitting end to the story was the creation of William, the natural child of a woman who was supposed to have been rendered powerless, and the man who had spent his life trying to stop the consortium's unnatural aims.
Ambress also rightly predicted that such a child, born of conditions that were supposed to preclude his birth, would be super-natural (in the literal sense), and that his creation would herald the downfall of the consortium's long-term aims.
For those reasons, I've always believed that William is key to the events of 2012. In fact, I believe that if there ever is an X-Files movie about those events, William must be a major factor in the successful repulsion of colonization.
So, if he's going to come back to his parents eventually, why not now? Mulder's got time on his hands, and who better to protect William than his father?
Besides, years ago, I asked Suzanne how she envisioned Mulder as a father, and she promptly answered, "Sitting next to the crib with a gun in his hand." Put a stiletto in his pocket, and I could not agree more.
I hope that you enjoyed my flight of fancy. I can honestly say that I had a marvelous time writing it, even when it drove me crazy and kept me up at night. Thanks to all of you who have written to me as I've been posting this tale. It means a great deal to me.
As always, I thank my incredibly indulgent and patient sister Suzanne for her thoughtful insights, and eye for grammar.
Author:
comice aka Anjou (Anjou@rocketmail.com)Posting Date: October 2008
Rating: R for language and sexuality; M for Mature readers
Classification: Mulder/Scully, MSR, post-ep for IWTB
Archive: No archival until the story is completed, please. I'll be submitting to Ephemeral and Gossamer myself.
Spoilers: Through I Want To Believe
Disclaimer: All X-Files personnel belong to 1013 and Fox. All other elements are mine.
Author's Note: And now … the end of the story, including a long-winded end note.
Posts can be read on my fic journal:
anjoufic, as well as Ephemeral and other XF fic sites. The whole tale will be archived at my website, No Other … , maintained by the generous dtg, when it is completed.Thanks to Konrad Frye and especially the fabulous
lilydale for not only willingly answering questions about the novelization of "I Want To Believe" that clarified the timeline for this writer, but for being brave enough to have read it in the first place. As always, my biggest thanks go to my sister and editrix, Suzanne, for her support, and above all, her patience.
Summary: Where do we go from here, now that we are free?
~*~
July 25, 2008
Mulder trudged down the sidewalk on his way to the psychiatric facility that housed the latest patient that Maguire wanted him to see. He’d been questioning his desire to continue on this path almost from the time that he’d begun it, and it was only getting stronger as the weeks passed. He’d literally had to force himself to dress in a professional manner, a struggle he tried to pass off as confusion over the sartorial concept of business casual, before he’d reverted to his predictable standard of a summer-weight suit with a tie. The only unusual thing about his attire was that between the running and the stress that he'd lost so much weight that he'd been able to fit in a suit the same size as one he would have worn a decade before. In truth, the only thing he seemed to have an appetite for was impotently hitting the refresh button on his browser in hopes of news from David, or sifting through the records that the PIs were starting to send.
He sighed as he turned and regarded the building. He was supposed to meet Maguire on the steps, but there was no sign of him as yet. He leaned against the railing and looked absently at the blue summer sky. He and Scully had pretty much spent yesterday in bed, talking, reconnecting physically and emotionally, and crying. They’d done a lot of crying.
It had left him feeling sluggish and exhausted in a way that he felt all the way down to his toes. They’d needed the catharsis, but they were both exhausted by the events of the last few weeks. The move and all the changes that went along with acknowledging that they were truly free to go and do what they wanted would have been enough of a change. However, learning about William … it had made them both feel powerless, but he felt singularly purposeless. Scully had her work to ground her, but he had no such connection to this work. All he felt was inadequate.
He couldn’t save these children that Maguire wanted him to help –- they’d already survived unthinkable horror, sometimes at the hands of those who were supposed to protect them from their original torturers. And he wasn’t sure exactly how he was supposed to counsel them in believing in a happy ending, a peaceful life beyond their remembered pain, when he didn’t trust that such a thing was possible for some people. He’d look into the faces of these children, their eyes and spirits so much older than they should be, and could not help but think of William. It made him physically ill to imagine that if William had somehow escaped the clutches of the Consortium, that he might be in one of these places somewhere, traumatized by losing his parents, and maybe being preyed upon by unscrupulous, thoroughly ordinary humans.
That was his only motivation in coming here today, that maybe by trying to help a child in anguish inside these walls, that he’d be contributing to some kind of karmic cycle, that maybe somewhere, someone would be kind to his child. He looked at his watch, and then pulled out his phone.
No messages. Maguire was notorious for being a bit late to appointments, but this was unusual. He began to scroll through his address book to call him, when he heard his name. He looked down at the sidewalk and then back up the stairs to see Maguire holding open the door at the entrance to the building –- he was already inside. Mulder shook his head and began to climb the steps, taking them two at a time as he cut in and out of others coming and going from the building.
“Did I …” he began, but Maguire cut him off.
“My apologies,” he said firmly, shaking Mulder’s hand. “My last meeting got rescheduled here, and we ran long.”
John Maguire was a small, well put together man in his early sixties. There was something in his look, with his ubiquitous tweed jacket and his neatly kept silver beard, that reminded Mulder of John Byers, but the physical resemblance was only slight. Maguire was one of those indefatigable souls whose energy level was incredibly high. When he talked, he fairly bristled with ideas, and subtle but constant movement. It amazed Mulder that a man with so much nervous energy spent most of his days sitting still and listening. Perhaps it was because he was forced to be constrained during those periods that he was so active at the others.
“Now, something very interesting has happened since we last spoke,” he said. “My original intention was for you to see the Latimore boy, as we’d discussed. However, a new patient has been transferred in, a boy younger than those I usually see.” He pressed a folder into Mulder’s hands but kept talking.
Mulder accepted the folder, but didn’t do more than glance at it.
“It’s a very sad case, but very representative of the kind of magical thinking that we’ve been discussing as a common feature of many juvenile cases. This boy,” he pointed down at the file as they walked briskly down the corridor and turned a corner, “has only been in the system for a few weeks. He’s an only child, adopted by an older couple. The adoptive mother had long been in remission when her cancer recurred fairly recently.”
Mulder looked up at Maguire in surprise, just as Maguire stopped walking and motioned him into a small alcove.
Maguire lowered his voice in deference to the people passing them in the halls, and pointed at a room across the corridor. “He’s in there, but I’d like to fill you in some more. Complicating the matter is the adoptive father’s death, which has essentially orphaned the child again.”
Mulder’s pulse rate began to rise as he listened to Maguire. It seemed improbable, but could it really be this simple? He felt the phone in his pocket vibrate, but let it go to voicemail.
“Mulder?” Maguire asked. “Are you all right?”
“Tell me the rest,” Mulder answered in an urgent tone.
“The mother was admitted to hospice, so the boy was remanded to the system, pending foster care placement,” Maguire continued, watching Mulder intently. “He’s an energetic handful. The mother described him as imaginative and creative, but the foster care reports describe him as delusional and disruptive. We have records from two different situations, both families that have had great success with traumatic placements.”
“Neither worked out?” Mulder asked.
Maguire shook his head. “The boy has proven resistant to any overture of affection or sympathy. In fact, he’s defiant in his assertion that his real father is coming to get him.”
Mulder sucked in a breath. “What’s known about the bio-dad?”
“Nothing,” Maguire said. “The mother refused to name him, and the child was born before the enactment of welfare legislation that made that impossible. There’s no name recorded, no known story.”
“Are we going in?” Mulder was having a tremendously difficult time controlling his enthusiasm.
“Is there something you want to share with me?” Maguire asked.
“I’m simply curious about this child,” Mulder answered, bluffing. “And exploring the roots of his delusion.”
“Let’s be clear, though,” Maguire said, watching Mulder carefully. “Our goal is to try and get this child to a point where he can commit to a new situation, and that’s not going to be accomplished in a day. Today, you’re going to try and establish a rapport with him, recognizing that it’s more than likely that he’s created a false image of this father that will have to be countered slowly, as it’s more than likely tied up with either grief over his adopted father’s death, or disappointment in that relationship.”
Mulder had been nodding the entire time that Maguire was speaking. “Absolutely,” he said. He motioned to the door. “Let’s go.”
~*~
Mulder pushed open the door to the street and moved automatically to the side of the wide staircase, out of the path of the constant flow of foot traffic. He placed his hand on the broad railing to ground himself before he sat down. Then he dropped his head into his hands, grinding the heels of them against his eyes as he fought back tears. Magical thinking. He barked out a bitter laugh. He had more in common with that eagerly hopeful boy than he did with Maguire. He’d pushed that door open fully expecting to see William behind it, only to find a mixed race ten-year-old expectantly waiting for his imaginary father. He’d never forget the way the boy’s face had fallen at the sight of two middle-aged white men in suits, not the rapper hero that he had conjured up in his mind.
Mulder had made it through the intake and initial discussion by force of will, hoping that the boy’s obvious disappointment masked his own. He shook his head in memory, and angrily unknotted his tie, stuffing it in the outside pocket of his jacket. He unbuttoned his collar. He needed to tell Maguire that he was ending his practicum. He wasn’t suited to this work –- he couldn’t fix anyone, or anything. He had been better off in that room in their house in Virginia, cutting out bits of newspapers and plotting long-distance with MUFON to stop the end of the world.
He drew out his phone to leave a message for Maguire and saw a voicemail from Scully. He sighed. Maybe he’d just go for a walk instead. He didn’t relish telling Scully what had happened today, that was for sure. He knew that she'd worry about how aimless he was, and he couldn't deny that she had reason to be. He was drifting straight into despair.
He dropped the phone into the breast pocket of his shirt, and stood up, taking off his jacket. It was an unusually beautiful summer day, warm without being oppressively humid. It would be a long trek, but he could walk home from here, and just ignore the world for a while. He'd rolled up one of his sleeves and started down the long staircase, when he heard someone call his name. Not feeling like confronting Maguire just yet, he continued downward after a momentary hesitation, but the voice called his name, his full name, more insistently. He turned around in irritation and almost fell backward down the staircase.
Father Joe was standing at the doorway to the building, his spectral self outlined fuzzily against the black doors. “Don’t give up, Mulder,” he said earnestly.
Mulder shook his head in consternation –- it had been years since he'd seen a ghost, and of all the ghosts to see – and took a step back up the staircase, but Father Joe had already disappeared.
His phone rang in his pocket, and he pulled it out. Scully.
This time, he took the call.
~*~
Mulder made two wrong turns before he finally located the right kind of oncological floor at the massive Johns Hopkins complex. At her request, he'd called Scully when he got to the front of the building, even though she still steadfastly refused to tell him why.
"Just come here, Mulder," she'd said stubbornly. Her voice was urgent, but strangely relaxed at the same time. He turned the corner and found himself standing at the edge of the solarium, which was filled with those being treated for cancer, and those who'd come to be with them. He began to scan the crowd for Scully's bright hair when he heard the excited voice of a child clearly above the din of conversation and the buzz of the omnipresent TV sets.
"There he is!"
His head swiveled toward the voice, but he couldn't quite see where it was coming from.
"That's him!" The boy's voice sounded more excited, exultant even. "That's him, right over there!"
Mulder registered the blur of the dark-haired boy in jeans running at him only after he'd already dropped to his knees and held out his arms to receive him. "William!"
He wrapped his arms around his son, and the weight of him in real life, the impression of him over his heart, was exactly what he remembered from his dream world. William's precious skull was cradled in the palm of his hand for the first time in years, and Mulder pressed a kiss of thanks to the top of William's head as he held him. It took a monumental effort, but he made himself loosen his arms so as not to overwhelm the child when William began to move away.
William didn't entirely break away from Mulder, but leaned back far enough so that he could look at him. "Wow," he said, in a wondering tone. "You really are a real guy."
Mulder laughed in delight, dislodging some of the tears from his eyes. "And you're a real boy."
"Just like Pinocchio?" William shot back immediately. "Actually, I think that story's kind of creepy."
Mulder smiled at William, letting him stand on his own. "You'll have to tell me all about it." He still had a hand on William's arm, not wanting to lose contact with him, afraid that his vision of him now in what appeared to be the real world would fade as surely as the ethereal world of his dreams.
"OK," William said, "but first you have to come meet my mother." He grabbed Mulder by the hand and pulled until Mulder was upright, excitedly dragging him in his wake as he wove through the people whose curiosity about them had been momentary at best.
As they worked their way across the room, he could see Scully sitting on the edge of a couch, next to a woman in a wheelchair. She was holding the woman's hand as she smiled softly at Mulder, her joy tempered by her obvious concern for the ill woman next to her.
"Mama," William said, bringing Mulder to his mother's side. "This is my other Dad, the one from my dreams."
The woman in the wheelchair smiled warmly at William, patting his face. "I'm sorry I doubted you, sweetheart," she said. She looked up at Mulder, and he could see that she had that same horrible look of fragility that Scully had had so many years ago. She was as brittle as glass, and so pale that she looked ghostly even while still breathing. Her eyes had the fever brightness that he associated with the very ill, as if the knowledge of imminent death made some interior spirit burn at a heightened pitch. "I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Mulder," she said softly.
"It's just Mulder," he answered automatically, and dropped into a crouch next to her wheelchair, picking up her other hand gently. He didn't shake it, just held it.
She smiled, but it was fleeting. "So your wife has told me. I can't say that I blame you." She squeezed his hand lightly.
He could see how she was struggling with this situation, on top of everything else that had happened to her in the past few months.
"Did your parents really name you Fox?" William asked.
"Yep," he nodded, turning to look at him. William was tall for his age, obviously intelligent and very poised. Mulder imagined that he had spent a tremendous amount of his young life talking to adults. He glanced at Scully, to find her eyes fixed on their son. Her expression was slightly dazed, although her professional veneer was mostly in place.
"Why?" William asked, flummoxed.
Mulder shrugged while his mother chided him for being rude. "Beats me," he said. "It's a pretty dumb name."
William agreed, and Mulder dropped Mrs. Van De Kamp's hand to pull a chair closer to her other side. His knees couldn't take being in that position for too long anymore. "Mrs. Van De Kamp," he said. "I'm so sorry about your husband."
Her eyes filled with tears, but she nodded. "He was a wonderful man," she said. She reached out to William, who was looking worried and solemn, and ruffled his dark hair, pushing his too long forelock out of his eyes. "He was a good papa."
William nodded. "I miss him," he said to Mulder.
William's hands were restlessly playing with the string ends laced through the neck of the red hooded sweatshirt he was wearing, probably in deference to the cool, conditioned air of the hospital.
"Of course you do," Mulder answered easily, hearing both the challenge and need for reassurance in William's statement. "I'm sorry that I never got a chance to meet him."
"He didn't believe you were real," William said matter-of-factly. Mulder heard his mother make a small noise in dismay. "He said that you were only in my imagination."
"I probably would have said the same thing," Mulder said.
William cocked his head and looked at him searchingly, a gesture so reminiscent of Scully that Mulder had to wonder about the true reach of genetics. William's eyes were not the pure blue of Scully's, but an unusual mixture of his own hazel at its most green, leavened with blue. "Really?" William asked skeptically. "I don't think that's true."
Mulder chuckled as William's mother chided him.
He and Scully shared a wry glance over their son's head.
"He's probably right," Mulder said, as William protested his innocence. "I do have a habit of believing a lot of unusual things."
This time, it was Scully that huffed out a strangled chuckle.
William looked a bit astonished at the sound.
"I don't understand, though," Mulder asked. "How did we end up here? Scully?"
He looked over at his partner, but she shook her head, pointing at William.
"I found you," he announced proudly.
Mulder shook his head, mystified. "How did you know we were looking for you?"
William shrugged, covering his mother's legs with a blanket and then tucking it around her carefully. Mulder could see how the conversation was distressing her, but she didn't try to stop William from speaking. "Mama needed to go to a hospital in a big city, and we had to pick. First, I thought we should go to Boston," he said, looking at his mother as she nodded.
Then, he turned toward Mulder, who had noted that William had not actually answered his question. "But I went on the internet and I looked at pictures, and it wasn't the right city next to the water. Like the city in the dream?"
Mulder nodded, somewhat surprised by William's explicit acknowledgment of their dream world. "Did you build that city?"
William shook his head. "No, it was just there when I got there, so I made myself stop and look at it, even though I was upset." He paused, and Mulder was sure now that there were things he was omitting, in deference to his mother. "I wanted to see you because my Papa was dead, but I couldn't find you."
"You found Scully," Mulder said.
"It's weird that you call her that," William observed. He looked over at Scully, who smiled at him.
"William!" his mother reproached.
"She was asleep," William said, shifting back into his story. "But I recognized her."
"You did?" Mulder said, astonished
William nodded. "It was like … suddenly I remembered her from when I was a baby. I knew she was my other mom."
Mulder glanced from Scully, who had clearly heard the story before, to William's mother.
"We've always told Will that he was adopted," she answered. "He always insisted that his other mother had red hair, and since he had reddish hair when we first got him, we never doubted it. But it wasn't until he was three that he told us about his other dad." She shrugged. "We thought he was just imagining you."
Mulder nodded. "Then what happened?" He asked William.
"I looked on the computer and found the right city by the water, and told Mama that we needed to come to Baltimore."
Mulder shook his head in consternation. Why hadn't he recognized the skyline? "How long have you been here, Mrs. Van De Kamp?"
"Helen, please," she said quietly. "We got here at the end of May."
Mulder scrubbed at his face as the coincidences piled up. "This is really …" he had no words to describe it, and stopped trying. "So, you just bumped into each other?" he asked incredulously.
"No," Scully said firmly. "I was paged here by William."
Mulder turned and looked at their son in shock.
"I was over there on the computer," William said. "And I was waiting for a page to load, and there's a newsletter." He ran over and picked it up, showing the front page where a picture of new hire Dr. Dana Scully was featured, with an article about her promising pediatric oncology research.
"Oh my God," Mulder said, looking from Scully's sad and weary face in the photo to her now. She still looked stunned, but there was no hiding the joy that radiated from her every pore as she looked back at him, while William leaned companionably against his leg.
"I think so," said Helen softly. She cleared her throat. "I got a package yesterday, forwarded to us by one of William's aunts, from a David Truesdale. It outlined our legal situation."
"Oh, no," Mulder began. "That was not my intention at all …"
"Regardless," Helen said, and he stopped, cognizant that this conversation was incredibly difficult for her. "The fact is that God, or someone, has interceded when I was beginning to truly worry about what to do next." William looked very upset at her words and moved back over to his mother. She patted his cheek. "There is a reason that all of this has happened now."
"Helen," Scully said, "I don't think that we're at that point yet."
"I can't wait until we are," she answered softly. "I have been so very worried about what will happen. Tom was a wonderful man, but his family … they're not suitable for a boy like William. Now, I don't have to worry anymore." She paused, stroking William's hair while the boy looked at her, lips trembling.
Mulder had no doubt whatsoever that William knew exactly what his mother wasn't saying, and that she knew it as well.
"So, when I'm through with my pre-treatment screening today, we'll go back to the hotel and pack up William's things," she said slowly, but with an air of finality, then looked first at Mulder, and then at Scully. "Monday, I'll check in so that they can begin the stem cell transplant. I only ask that you bring him frequently to visit me both when it's allowed, and …" Helen hesitated, and William pressed up against her side, seeking a hug. She dropped Scully's hand and wrapped her arms around him. She continued quietly, "And then after the treatment is over." Helen looked at Scully for a long time, and Mulder knew by the expression on Scully's face that Helen did not expect to survive.
"No," Mulder said firmly into the silence.
Helen looked shocked, but Scully's eyes swung to his and she looked at him searchingly before she nodded.
"I mean, yes, I'll go back to the hotel, and I will pack up both of your things," Mulder said, in the same assured tone. "And then I will come back and take you both home. Monday, William and I will bring you to the hospital for your treatment, and when you're through with it," Mulder continued, "you'll come home with us."
Scully was positively beaming at him.
"Oh, Mr. Mulder," Helen said, "No, I couldn't impose—"
"It's just Mulder," he said, "and there is no imposition here. You are family. This is what family does." He smiled at Will, who was bouncing next to his mother's wheelchair.
"See, Mama?" he said. "I told you."
"Mulder," Helen said. She was on the verge of tears, but trying to hold it back. "I don't think you realize what you're signing yourself up for. I'm sure that your wife …"
"Unfortunately, I have a very clear idea of what I'm in for, as does Scully." He looked over at Scully and back at Helen. "As far as I'm concerned that's all the more reason for you to be with us."
Scully nodded as she wiped away a tear. "I totally agree with Mulder. You should be with us." She moved closer to Helen and put her hand over hers, her expression imploring.
Helen looked helplessly back and forth between them, tears pooling in her eyes. "You have to know how hard this is going to be …" she whispered to Scully.
"I do," Scully answered. "I do. But it's the right thing to do."
"Please, Mama," William said. He dropped to his knees, wrapping his arms around his mother's legs and laying his head in her lap. "Please say yes."
Helen looked from her son to Scully and then to Mulder, searching their faces. She must have seen the same brand of determined implacability, because she suddenly leaned against the back of the wheelchair and sighed. "This is absolutely crazy," she said. The tears she'd been holding back began to spill over, but she was smiling. "Thank you."
Scully leaned forward and took Helen's hand. "No," she said. "Thank you." She was smiling, but tears were coursing down her face. "We owe you so much."
Helen smiled back at her tremulously, her other hand on William's head. She shook her head. "You owe me nothing," she said softly, then added, "Someday, I'd like to hear the whole story."
"You will," Scully said firmly, wiping away her tears as a nurse called Helen's name from the doorway. She stood and waved her hand, and the nurse began to cross the room.
"OK, then," Helen said. She pulled a key card in a paper case with the hotel name on it from a pocket in her purse. "William, can you help Mulder pack up our things?"
"Yes!" he said enthusiastically, jumping up. He hugged her again.
"Neatly, my friend," Helen said, laughing. She looked up at Mulder. "I guess I'll see you later."
He nodded. "William and I will be back to pick you up …" he looked at the nurse.
"I would say four hours from now," the nurse answered, glancing at her watch. "Maybe three if we're very lucky." It was clear that she wanted to get started, although her expression was kind.
"I'm ready," Helen said softly. She released the locks on the wheelchair, and the nurse moved to push her toward the door. William followed, holding her hand until they got to the door of the solarium.
Mulder found himself standing, watching his small figure anxiously, not entirely sure that he was ready, would ever be ready, for William to go beyond arm's reach. He felt Scully's arm circle his waist as they both watched their son. William kissed his mother at the doorway and then stood there watching after Helen had disappeared from their view.
Mulder wrapped his arms around Scully, bending so he could speak into her ear. "Is this really happening?" he whispered.
He felt her nod as she tilted her head to whisper back. "I'm not really sure."
At the doorway, William waved, and then turned and walked toward them. He smiled at them a little shyly until Scully opened her arms to him. William was tall enough that his head came up to just above Scully's waist. As Mulder watched, her expression became beatific as she held William to her breast.
Scully opened her eyes and looked up at him as Mulder put his arms around them both. Her eyes were asking him a question, wanting to know if it was wrong to feel so happy when there had been so much pain, and there was still so much more to come.
He shrugged helplessly. He had no answer for her, because he knew that the darkness would always find them, no matter what. But there had to be a reason that they were here now, together, as improbable as it was. He bent and kissed her tenderly.
They both looked down at William, who was watching them curiously.
"I missed you so much," Scully said.
"I know," William said solemnly. He broke out of their hold and stepped back a little. "I could feel it sometimes."
She nodded, her eyes filling up with tears.
"How come I could come visit you and not Mom?" William asked Mulder. Mulder saw Scully start at William's easy use of the word 'Mom'.
Mulder shook his head, running his hand through his hair. "I really don't know, William," he said. "I don't understand how all this ..." he gestured helplessly, "works."
"Oh," William said, clearly disappointed. He looked reflective for a moment before he said, "Jeremiah says that sometimes the answers are not obvious, so we have to pay attention."
"Jeremiah?" Scully asked sharply.
At the same time, Mulder asked "Who's Jeremiah?" in a neutral tone.
William looked up at him, and there was a familiar arch to his eyebrow. "Mama says that Jeremiah is my guardian angel, but he's more like a teacher."
"What does he teach you?" Mulder asked quietly.
William shrugged. "Things he said that I need to know."
Mulder held onto Scully's hand before she could cover her mouth with it. He could feel her escalating tension. "He teaches you in your dreams?"
William nodded. "He told me that he'd met you a couple of times," William continued. "He's a real guy, too."
"You've met Jeremiah?" Mulder asked. "Jeremiah Smith?"
William nodded.
"He came to Papa's funeral," he said. "Mama didn't see him, but we talked for a while."
Mulder nodded. "Did Jeremiah have a message for your Mom or me?"
Scully looked at him, startled by his sudden question. Her eyes were fearful.
William looked at him, surprised. "Yeah, he did," he said. "I almost forgot until just now. He said …" William closed his eyes and concentrated. "He said, the darkness can be vanquished if you are steadfast." He opened his eyes. "Don't give up."
Scully was very still next to him, her eyes fixed on their son's face. "Do you know what that means?" she asked William very softly. Unconsciously, her hand went to the cross at her neck, and she traced it softly.
William shook his head and his too long hair fell into his eyes. "No," he said easily, pushing it aside. "But Jeremiah said that I don't always need to understand what things mean right away. That if I pay attention, and watch carefully, that I'll be led the right way. And he was right!" He pointed at them. "I paid attention, and I found you!"
William's smile was bright and wide, and for the first time Mulder could see that his front teeth were crooked, and that one of his eyeteeth was growing in at a slant, just like his own had done before he'd had braces.
"Yes, you did," Mulder said firmly. "You did a great job." He knew that Scully had a million more questions, as did he, but now was not the time for them.
They had time for all of that later. They had time.
"Scully," he said conversationally, leaning toward her and pointedly changing the subject. "Did you have braces?"
"For years," she answered. "You?"
"Oh yeah," he said.
William looked puzzled at this topic, but then grabbed Mulder's hand and pulled. "Are we going to the hotel now?"
"Impatient?"
"I don't like the hotel," William said. "It smells funny and there are so many sad people. Everybody there is sick or scared." He shook his head, a small shudder running through his frame.
Scully put her hand on William’s head, alarmed at his distress, and looked at Mulder.
"Then let's go," Mulder said. He gestured with his other hand toward the door, then watched in amazement as William hesitated, before he launched himself at Scully, hugging her and saying, "I'll see you later."
"Yes, you will," she said to him tenderly.
"Will you sing to me?" he asked shyly.
Scully laughed out loud, a full-throated laugh that Mulder hadn't heard for ages, maybe forever. It sounded free. It sounded full of light, and it pierced him through with joy. "If you really want me to," she said.
William nodded, his cheeks a little pink. "I do."
Scully ruffled his hair and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Then I will," she promised.
William turned and took Mulder's hand again.
"OK," he said, then he smiled and began to lead Mulder out of the solarium.
They stopped at the door and waved at Scully, who looked like she was going to dissolve into tears at any second, but was smiling when she waved back at them.
"You know," William said to Mulder in a confidential tone, as they walked down corridors and staircases that Mulder hadn't noticed before, but was paying attention to now. "I've never really been to the beach."
"I'll take you," Mulder said immediately.
Mulder felt as if the whole world had shifted, and lay open like a ripe pomegranate at his feet. Anything was possible.
This morning he had been drifting, without purpose, but now … he saw how the pieces of the puzzle fit together, and this jumble of a path he'd been on for the past few years made sense. All of it, from Scully's decisions to his own, had led them here. He had a flash of memory of Scully speaking to him years ago saying 'What if there was only one choice and all the other ones were wrong? And there were signs along the way to pay attention to?'
He smiled, and felt the weight of William's smaller hand in his, the trust inherent in that placement. All their choices, good and bad, had led them to this. Mulder knew what he needed to do.
He was going to call John Maguire tomorrow morning and thank him sincerely for the opportunity to work with him, and for the training that he had a feeling was going to come in handy for the next few years. Then he was going to respectfully decline to continue.
Today, however, he was going to call David Truesdale and tell him to call off the dogs, and to figure out a solution to their legal conundrum that would work for all of them. Most importantly, Truesdale needed to arrange for Mulder to get a concealed carry license, ASAP.
But before he did that, Mulder was going send Walter Skinner a case of scotch, an abject apology and an invitation to dinner. They needed to discuss what was to come. If he was lucky, Skinner would consent to re-train him on hand-to-hand combat techniques without putting him in the hospital.
Then, after William was asleep, he was going to call Maggie Scully and tell her that he'd booked an open ticket for her to get on a plane and come east to meet her grandson.
And when Mulder finally got Scully alone in their bed tonight, he was going to have a serious conversation with her about when, exactly, she was going to make their union legal. For entirely prudent reasons, of course.
William tugged on his hand, refocusing him on the present. He asked, "Will you teach me how to swim?"
"I'll teach you whatever you want to learn," Mulder said easily.
When they reached the front door of the hospital, Mulder stepped in front of William and placed a hand on his chest, stopping his forward progress. He moved his son behind him. For the first time in years, Mulder longed for the reassuring weight of his gun at his side. He pushed the door open and his eyes swept the outside landscape in sectors, carefully noting the people and the cars. He had to pay attention, to be ever vigilant from this moment forward. All the weeks of worrying about William's safety made perfect sense to him -- it had all been preparation for this, his new purpose.
Once he had ascertained that the coast was clear, at least for now, Mulder reached back and took William by the hand. "Stay close," he said to William.
William smiled up at him, and nodded. "OK, Dad," he said.
Mulder fought back tears as he struggled to stay focused. He leaned down and kissed his son on the forehead, then turned to open the door to whatever came next.
Together, Mulder and William stepped outside into the abundant sunshine.
The End
Author's End Note:
A couple of things really surprised me as I watched I Want To Believe. The first was the explicit sense of intimacy between Mulder and Scully and all of the evidence of their shared life which we were shown. With all of the fandom speculation about them having been separated for a long period of time, and perhaps estranged, it was wonderful to see them so clearly together, partners still. Their conversations, especially the last one about the role of the darkness in their lives, was one that I reflected on a great deal as the idea of this story was forming in my imagination.
The second, larger surprise to me was the overt acknowledgment of William, and the loss of him, in the conversation that they had in their bed. I had not expected William to be mentioned at all, or even really to be part of the subtext. But with Scully requalified as a pediatrician (which would have been a subtextual acknowledgment, in and of itself) and the discussion of William in the text of the movie, I began to wonder what it all could mean.
Of course, I've always believed that William has a seminal role in the X-Files mythology, a belief that was solidified by conversations with the brilliant and much-missed Ambress. Sometime in Season 8, she, Suzanne and I had a long, involved discussion about the mytharc that I've never forgotten. Ambress, with the unerring eye of the scholar that she is, argued that the mytharc of the X-Files owed an enormous debt to the modern school of horror begun by Mary Shelley whose novel Frankenstein, with its focus on reproduction and the attempted usurpation of its mysteries by the protagonist, can be read as a feminist fable about how some men fear the power of women's bodies.
The X-Files mytharc, with its consortium of men literally stealing the essential elements of reproduction from women, and trying to control and improve reproductive outcomes for their own aims, was a modern twist on the same kind of fable, with a justification for those efforts that fit the tenor of post-modern times. From Ambress' perspective, the fitting end to the story was the creation of William, the natural child of a woman who was supposed to have been rendered powerless, and the man who had spent his life trying to stop the consortium's unnatural aims.
Ambress also rightly predicted that such a child, born of conditions that were supposed to preclude his birth, would be super-natural (in the literal sense), and that his creation would herald the downfall of the consortium's long-term aims.
For those reasons, I've always believed that William is key to the events of 2012. In fact, I believe that if there ever is an X-Files movie about those events, William must be a major factor in the successful repulsion of colonization.
So, if he's going to come back to his parents eventually, why not now? Mulder's got time on his hands, and who better to protect William than his father?
Besides, years ago, I asked Suzanne how she envisioned Mulder as a father, and she promptly answered, "Sitting next to the crib with a gun in his hand." Put a stiletto in his pocket, and I could not agree more.
I hope that you enjoyed my flight of fancy. I can honestly say that I had a marvelous time writing it, even when it drove me crazy and kept me up at night. Thanks to all of you who have written to me as I've been posting this tale. It means a great deal to me.
As always, I thank my incredibly indulgent and patient sister Suzanne for her thoughtful insights, and eye for grammar.
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Date: 2010-10-24 10:29 pm (UTC)I'm just discovering X-Files fanfic after engaging in a complete re-watch of the series on Netflix. I was in high school and college when the series aired, and though I was a huge fan, I wasn't internet savvy and had never heard of fic at the time. I'm having a blast reading your stuff and the work of so many other fabulous authors. Do you have any recs lists you can share with me? TIA, if so!
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Date: 2010-11-26 02:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 03:28 am (UTC)