A Winter's Tale, Part 17
Jan. 7th, 2008 06:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anjouficTitle: A Winter's Tale 17/23
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
comice aka Anjou (Anjou@rocketmail.com)
Posting Date: December 2007/January 2008
Rating: R for language and sexuality; M for Mature readers
Classification: Mulder/Scully, UST/MSR, AU
Archive: No archival until the story is completed, please. I'll be submitting to Ephemeral and Gossamer myself.
Spoilers: Through Two Fathers/One Son (S6), then AU. In other words, no Arcadia and beyond. Mytharc-y.
Disclaimer: All X-Files personnel belong to 1013 and Fox. All other elements are mine.
Author's Note: FYI, tomorrow's post is likely to be after 9:00 pm EST. Sorry, but it can't be helped!
Daily 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.
As always, thanks to my sister and editrix, Suzanne, for her support.
Summary: Cast your memory back to the dark days of Season 6, to the period immediately following the confrontation between Mulder and Scully in the Gunmen's Office. It is late winter, dark and cold, the landscape obscured and transformed by snow and ice. One must step carefully, for the very ground can be treacherous. This is a lesson Mulder and Scully have already learned when the pristine snow in Antartica yielded a long-buried secret. But the winter can hold many secrets, and could tell many tales, if it so chose.
This is but one.
~*~
Mulder made a noise that she'd only heard once, when a suspect's punch had caught him in the solar plexus. She stepped away from Kurt toward Mulder who was staring at the clone in open-mouthed shock. Through the fog of her own surprise, she registered the anomaly of his appearance. Finally, here was a situation that Mulder, the man who regularly believed six impossible things before breakfast, had never considered. As she watched, still stunned herself, Mulder's expression transformed from disbelief to seething rage. In all the years that she had known him, she had never seen him look so angry.
"When?" Mulder gritted out through bared teeth. "How was my sperm acquired?"
Scully could see that Kurt was literally afraid of Mulder, remembering his earlier words about Dr. Calderon and the opinion of scientists involved in the project. "Mulder," she said to him in a low voice, stepping in front of him and putting her hand on his forearm.
His hands were planted on his hips, and he shifted sideways at her touch, almost as if he was going to shake her off, but then thought better of it. He was steadfastly staring at the clone.
"Mulder," she said to him in a sharper tone, holding his arm firmly. "Ellen's Airbase, for one." His head swiveled to hers, but he stared at her blindly. "Think about it, Mulder," she said, "Alaska, Tunguska – there's been plenty of opportunity."
"Scully," he said suddenly, as if seeing her for the first time. "Hannah …" his voice was choked, and he couldn't continue.
"I know, Mulder," she said softly, her own eyes filling with tears.
"So Scanlon made her to be a hostage?" Mulder demanded of Kurt.
Scully bit her lip, trying to find the words to remind him that Hannah had not always been alone in that hospital room in Albany, but Kurt spoke first.
"As I indicated to Agent Scully earlier, I believe the motivation would be replication of your immunological system."
"Scully?" Mulder's look was accusatory.
"A few minutes ago, Kurt told me that you've been infected with the black oil virus multiple times."
Mulder was shaking his head in denial before the words had finished leaving her mouth. "That's not true," he said.
"It's extremely well-documented," the clone said. "From your earliest tests until the most recent ones."
"What are you talking about?" Mulder demanded. "What early tests?"
"You were first infected in 1967," the clone answered. "You were hospitalized and given a small dose of the black oil, and then given what they thought was a vaccine at the time."
"That did not happen," Mulder said in a certain tone. "I'd remember that."
"Mulder," Scully soothed. "Do you remember being in the hospital when you were six?"
"I was five," he snapped. "It was in June. We drove to Boston, and I had my tonsils out."
"They may have also taken your tonsils out," Kurt said, "but you were most certainly infected with the black oil. You were the only child to survive the treatment. They thought they were on the right track with the vaccine for years because you survived. Later they realized that you were simply resistant."
Mulder gaped at him. "What are you talking about?"
"When no one else survived the experimentation, your pediatrician was replaced with a project-approved doctor in 1971." Scully felt Mulder start. "You were injected with small doses of the vaccine, which also proved to have no effect on you. I told Agent Scully earlier that virtually no one who has received the vaccine as a preventative has survived. You are the exception."
"This has got to be a lie," Mulder insisted. "My parents …"
She could see the thoughts cascading through his mind, but couldn't even guess at where he was going with them. From her perspective, his parents had never protected either of their children from harm. She couldn't believe that he was defending them more than reflexively.
"Your parents consented to the first test without truly understanding what it entailed," the clone answered. "None of the parents did. It was a test of their loyalty to the project."
"But if I was resistant," Mulder said, his voice rising, "then why take Samantha? Why not take me and test me?"
"They did test you, Agent Mulder," the clone said. "You must have noticed that your pediatrician drew blood when you went for your frequent check-ups."
"I was anemic," Mulder whispered, "that was why I had to go so often. I had to take those … " Mulder stopped and stared at the clone. "Those weren't iron pills that we kept in the freezer, were they?"
"No," the clone said levelly. "They were not. And no matter how many times or ways they tried to infect you, you shed the virus. They took your blood to figure out how and why. It was your blood that led to the vaccine that you administered to Agent Scully in the Antarctic."
Mulder was shaking his head 'no'. "This doesn't make any sense!" he yelled. "If this is true, then why take Samantha? Why take any of them? Why not just take me?"
"That was proposed," the clone answered, "but they didn't make you resistant."
"I don't understand," Mulder said, but Scully believed that she was starting to.
"Mulder," Scully said, "there is always a minority that is immune to a virus."
He stared at her, clearly not comprehending.
"Why didn't the Black Death kill everyone who was exposed to it?" she asked. "Some people, a few people, were infected and survived. That's you. They infected you when you were a child, and somehow you survived it. The problem is that they don't know how your body fought off the original infection; they thought you had responded to their vaccine. They were trying to formulate a process for making a resistant human, but your body fought off the infection and became resistant without them having done anything. They didn't know how you made the antibodies to the virus, just that you did."
Mulder was still shaking his head 'no', but he was listening to her. He raised the arm that she wasn't holding onto and raked it through his hair, then broke away from her hold and began to stalk back and forth in the hallway. Occasionally, he would stop and stare at Kurt, then turn and look at her with an inscrutable expression on his face.
After a few minutes of this, she finally broke the silence. "Mulder?"
"So, this is why they never killed me, isn't it?" he addressed the question to Kurt. "All these years, I could never understand why they didn't just shoot me in the head and dump my body someplace where it would never be found. It's not like they haven't made people disappear." He was as still now as he'd been frantic before, but the air around him was coiled with tension. "That's it, right? If all of their plans failed, and colonization started, I'd still be alive. I won't be changed, and I'd still be able to fight the aliens."
"That is the argument that's been forwarded, yes," the clone said. "My understanding is that your continued existence has been a subject of much discussion for years, with many dissenting opinions."
"Such as?" he demanded.
"Some project directors felt that you should be killed, that the risk of letting you discover what was going on was too high. Some felt that you should be captured for study."
Mulder nodded. "I assume that whoever took my sperm at Ellen's was in that latter category."
"Yes," the clone answered. "I understand that you were released only because your disappearance would have been difficult to cover up. You had been very visible at the base."
"And where does Dr. Scanlon fit into this?"
"When he heard that another division of the project had gotten some of your genetic material, he was determined to have it."
"And he obviously did!" Mulder shouted. "How many other children do I have?"
Kurt shrank backwards at Mulder's raised voice, and Scully stepped between them. In the long corridor that ran back toward the front door, she could see a dizzying number of clones, all of them looking fearfully back at her.
"Mulder!" she said sharply. "Kurt told me that he has never participated in the creation of any clone other than himself."
"And you believed him?" he asked incredulously, his voice cracking in strain.
"You're scaring him," she said firmly and then held up her hands when it seemed he would keep speaking. "I know how you feel," she reminded him. "I know."
Mulder sagged at her words.
"He didn't do this to us," she added softly.
"Scully …" he said in a low murmur that only she could hear, his eyes closing in pain. Her throat constricted at the agony in his voice. She reached out to touch his face, but for the first time that she could recall, he withdrew from her. "I can't," he said to her, opening his eyes and pulling away. "I just can't." He turned away from her, only to face the door to Hannah's room.
"Mulder," she said, in surprise.
"I can't," he said again, and then as she watched in disbelief, he began to walk rapidly down the long hall that led outside, while the clones who had been watching in the doorways ducked out of his way.
"Mulder!" She couldn't believe that he was doing this to her. He broke into a run as she called his name, and then disappeared through the doorway that led to the reception room and the winter's twilight beyond.
"Mulder …" she exhaled his name in a sigh of disappointment, but he was already gone. She closed her eyes, her body heavy with exhaustion and sorrow.
"Scully?" It wasn't Mulder calling her name. She could hear the fear in Hannah's voice, and she felt an ache that this would be the first time that Hannah had ever called for her. She felt the weight of all that had happened bearing down on her, but Hannah called for her again.
She squared her shoulders, opened her eyes, and walked into their daughter's room.
~*~
Part 18
Author:
comice aka Anjou (Anjou@rocketmail.com)Posting Date: December 2007/January 2008
Rating: R for language and sexuality; M for Mature readers
Classification: Mulder/Scully, UST/MSR, AU
Archive: No archival until the story is completed, please. I'll be submitting to Ephemeral and Gossamer myself.
Spoilers: Through Two Fathers/One Son (S6), then AU. In other words, no Arcadia and beyond. Mytharc-y.
Disclaimer: All X-Files personnel belong to 1013 and Fox. All other elements are mine.
Author's Note: FYI, tomorrow's post is likely to be after 9:00 pm EST. Sorry, but it can't be helped!
Daily 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.As always, thanks to my sister and editrix, Suzanne, for her support.
Summary: Cast your memory back to the dark days of Season 6, to the period immediately following the confrontation between Mulder and Scully in the Gunmen's Office. It is late winter, dark and cold, the landscape obscured and transformed by snow and ice. One must step carefully, for the very ground can be treacherous. This is a lesson Mulder and Scully have already learned when the pristine snow in Antartica yielded a long-buried secret. But the winter can hold many secrets, and could tell many tales, if it so chose.
This is but one.
~*~
Mulder made a noise that she'd only heard once, when a suspect's punch had caught him in the solar plexus. She stepped away from Kurt toward Mulder who was staring at the clone in open-mouthed shock. Through the fog of her own surprise, she registered the anomaly of his appearance. Finally, here was a situation that Mulder, the man who regularly believed six impossible things before breakfast, had never considered. As she watched, still stunned herself, Mulder's expression transformed from disbelief to seething rage. In all the years that she had known him, she had never seen him look so angry.
"When?" Mulder gritted out through bared teeth. "How was my sperm acquired?"
Scully could see that Kurt was literally afraid of Mulder, remembering his earlier words about Dr. Calderon and the opinion of scientists involved in the project. "Mulder," she said to him in a low voice, stepping in front of him and putting her hand on his forearm.
His hands were planted on his hips, and he shifted sideways at her touch, almost as if he was going to shake her off, but then thought better of it. He was steadfastly staring at the clone.
"Mulder," she said to him in a sharper tone, holding his arm firmly. "Ellen's Airbase, for one." His head swiveled to hers, but he stared at her blindly. "Think about it, Mulder," she said, "Alaska, Tunguska – there's been plenty of opportunity."
"Scully," he said suddenly, as if seeing her for the first time. "Hannah …" his voice was choked, and he couldn't continue.
"I know, Mulder," she said softly, her own eyes filling with tears.
"So Scanlon made her to be a hostage?" Mulder demanded of Kurt.
Scully bit her lip, trying to find the words to remind him that Hannah had not always been alone in that hospital room in Albany, but Kurt spoke first.
"As I indicated to Agent Scully earlier, I believe the motivation would be replication of your immunological system."
"Scully?" Mulder's look was accusatory.
"A few minutes ago, Kurt told me that you've been infected with the black oil virus multiple times."
Mulder was shaking his head in denial before the words had finished leaving her mouth. "That's not true," he said.
"It's extremely well-documented," the clone said. "From your earliest tests until the most recent ones."
"What are you talking about?" Mulder demanded. "What early tests?"
"You were first infected in 1967," the clone answered. "You were hospitalized and given a small dose of the black oil, and then given what they thought was a vaccine at the time."
"That did not happen," Mulder said in a certain tone. "I'd remember that."
"Mulder," Scully soothed. "Do you remember being in the hospital when you were six?"
"I was five," he snapped. "It was in June. We drove to Boston, and I had my tonsils out."
"They may have also taken your tonsils out," Kurt said, "but you were most certainly infected with the black oil. You were the only child to survive the treatment. They thought they were on the right track with the vaccine for years because you survived. Later they realized that you were simply resistant."
Mulder gaped at him. "What are you talking about?"
"When no one else survived the experimentation, your pediatrician was replaced with a project-approved doctor in 1971." Scully felt Mulder start. "You were injected with small doses of the vaccine, which also proved to have no effect on you. I told Agent Scully earlier that virtually no one who has received the vaccine as a preventative has survived. You are the exception."
"This has got to be a lie," Mulder insisted. "My parents …"
She could see the thoughts cascading through his mind, but couldn't even guess at where he was going with them. From her perspective, his parents had never protected either of their children from harm. She couldn't believe that he was defending them more than reflexively.
"Your parents consented to the first test without truly understanding what it entailed," the clone answered. "None of the parents did. It was a test of their loyalty to the project."
"But if I was resistant," Mulder said, his voice rising, "then why take Samantha? Why not take me and test me?"
"They did test you, Agent Mulder," the clone said. "You must have noticed that your pediatrician drew blood when you went for your frequent check-ups."
"I was anemic," Mulder whispered, "that was why I had to go so often. I had to take those … " Mulder stopped and stared at the clone. "Those weren't iron pills that we kept in the freezer, were they?"
"No," the clone said levelly. "They were not. And no matter how many times or ways they tried to infect you, you shed the virus. They took your blood to figure out how and why. It was your blood that led to the vaccine that you administered to Agent Scully in the Antarctic."
Mulder was shaking his head 'no'. "This doesn't make any sense!" he yelled. "If this is true, then why take Samantha? Why take any of them? Why not just take me?"
"That was proposed," the clone answered, "but they didn't make you resistant."
"I don't understand," Mulder said, but Scully believed that she was starting to.
"Mulder," Scully said, "there is always a minority that is immune to a virus."
He stared at her, clearly not comprehending.
"Why didn't the Black Death kill everyone who was exposed to it?" she asked. "Some people, a few people, were infected and survived. That's you. They infected you when you were a child, and somehow you survived it. The problem is that they don't know how your body fought off the original infection; they thought you had responded to their vaccine. They were trying to formulate a process for making a resistant human, but your body fought off the infection and became resistant without them having done anything. They didn't know how you made the antibodies to the virus, just that you did."
Mulder was still shaking his head 'no', but he was listening to her. He raised the arm that she wasn't holding onto and raked it through his hair, then broke away from her hold and began to stalk back and forth in the hallway. Occasionally, he would stop and stare at Kurt, then turn and look at her with an inscrutable expression on his face.
After a few minutes of this, she finally broke the silence. "Mulder?"
"So, this is why they never killed me, isn't it?" he addressed the question to Kurt. "All these years, I could never understand why they didn't just shoot me in the head and dump my body someplace where it would never be found. It's not like they haven't made people disappear." He was as still now as he'd been frantic before, but the air around him was coiled with tension. "That's it, right? If all of their plans failed, and colonization started, I'd still be alive. I won't be changed, and I'd still be able to fight the aliens."
"That is the argument that's been forwarded, yes," the clone said. "My understanding is that your continued existence has been a subject of much discussion for years, with many dissenting opinions."
"Such as?" he demanded.
"Some project directors felt that you should be killed, that the risk of letting you discover what was going on was too high. Some felt that you should be captured for study."
Mulder nodded. "I assume that whoever took my sperm at Ellen's was in that latter category."
"Yes," the clone answered. "I understand that you were released only because your disappearance would have been difficult to cover up. You had been very visible at the base."
"And where does Dr. Scanlon fit into this?"
"When he heard that another division of the project had gotten some of your genetic material, he was determined to have it."
"And he obviously did!" Mulder shouted. "How many other children do I have?"
Kurt shrank backwards at Mulder's raised voice, and Scully stepped between them. In the long corridor that ran back toward the front door, she could see a dizzying number of clones, all of them looking fearfully back at her.
"Mulder!" she said sharply. "Kurt told me that he has never participated in the creation of any clone other than himself."
"And you believed him?" he asked incredulously, his voice cracking in strain.
"You're scaring him," she said firmly and then held up her hands when it seemed he would keep speaking. "I know how you feel," she reminded him. "I know."
Mulder sagged at her words.
"He didn't do this to us," she added softly.
"Scully …" he said in a low murmur that only she could hear, his eyes closing in pain. Her throat constricted at the agony in his voice. She reached out to touch his face, but for the first time that she could recall, he withdrew from her. "I can't," he said to her, opening his eyes and pulling away. "I just can't." He turned away from her, only to face the door to Hannah's room.
"Mulder," she said, in surprise.
"I can't," he said again, and then as she watched in disbelief, he began to walk rapidly down the long hall that led outside, while the clones who had been watching in the doorways ducked out of his way.
"Mulder!" She couldn't believe that he was doing this to her. He broke into a run as she called his name, and then disappeared through the doorway that led to the reception room and the winter's twilight beyond.
"Mulder …" she exhaled his name in a sigh of disappointment, but he was already gone. She closed her eyes, her body heavy with exhaustion and sorrow.
"Scully?" It wasn't Mulder calling her name. She could hear the fear in Hannah's voice, and she felt an ache that this would be the first time that Hannah had ever called for her. She felt the weight of all that had happened bearing down on her, but Hannah called for her again.
She squared her shoulders, opened her eyes, and walked into their daughter's room.
~*~
Part 18
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-01-12 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-12 03:44 pm (UTC)I suppose you could read it that way, although if we're going along with a genetic theory, we know that very little information is conveyed on the Y chromosome beyond maleness in general and um, hairy ears if I remember correctly, and a few other random things. A ton of information is conveyed on the X, however, which would mean that Mulder actually received his resistance (if that's what it is, and if it were heritable) from his mother's X. Samantha would have had her mother's X, no matter who her father was.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 01:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-12 03:44 pm (UTC)Thank you for a great story!
Date: 2008-01-08 01:35 am (UTC)Great story. Looking forward to the rest.
Re: Thank you for a great story!
Date: 2008-01-12 03:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 02:36 am (UTC)Thanks for sharing with us!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-12 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 02:55 am (UTC)I love this fic :)
no subject
Date: 2008-01-12 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 06:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-12 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 07:17 am (UTC)Agora, nesta parte, o que eu mais gostei foi quando Scully tenta consolar e acalmar Mulder, mas este se recusa a ouvi-la e aceitar seu toque. Ela fica surpresa, descrente e desapontada por ele recusar sua ajuda. Mas, como foi dito aqui, tenho certeza de que ele vai pensar melhor e voltará mais arrependido ainda (não é mesmo, Anjou?) ;-) ehehehehe
E mais uma vez parabéns pela ótima fic
Edna - Rio de Janeiro - Brasil
no subject
Date: 2008-01-12 03:50 pm (UTC)I've always wondered why it was that Mulder wasn't just killed outright. It would seem the best way to stop him, rather than trying to discredit him. If they didn't kill him, or wouldn't kill him, he must have had a real value to the Consortium. They went a different direction on the show -- but this was my idea of how it could have been.