Date sent:        Sun, 22 Jun 1997 10:51:28 -0400 (EDT)
From:             ShellMSX14@aol.com
Subject:          Deception at Gethsemane


By Shell
Disclaimer: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, and everyone else
who has appeared on X Files belong to Chris Carter and
1013.  Everyone else is from my own head and my
twisted mind. Spoilers: Gethsemane, End Game Summary:
There's more to Mulder's death than Scully thinks.  Is
he really dead? Rating:G Categories: XSA Notes: First
of all, this is my first piece of fan fiction going
onto the Internet, so please be gentle.  I'm working
on some other stories with Joeba (who also wrote
'Connections', read it, its in Gossamer) and they may
be appearing here soon.  Anyway, about the story.  I
was shocked at what happened during the season finale,
but I read somewhere that Chris Carter or someone
involved with the secrets of our favorite show said
that 'it was all a hoax'.  I'm really hoping this is
true.  Even though Mulder is supposedly dead and
Scully is dying of cancer, without the two of them
together, the show would never be the same.  On with
the show!! :-)

Deception at Gethsemane
By Shell
Chapter One
 Agent Dana Scully walked once more through the
 doorway of her partner's apartment.  No, Fox Mulder
 was more than her partner, he was her best friend. 
 Other agents who knew how close they were couldn't
 believe that the Agent Scully even associated with
 Mulder.  She was down to earth, scientific, and
 required proof for all of her conclusions.  Mulder
 was, well, strange.  'Spooky' Mulder's reputation
 followed him everywhere.

But that didn't change Scully's feelings for him.

 This wasn't the first time she had walked through the
 door to Mulder's apartment, but she was afraid it
 would end up being the last.  She looked around.  The
 surroundings had become familiar, but tears came to
 her eyes as she realized why it looked different: no
 Mulder.  Mulder was in a body bag, heading down to
 the morgue...
She didn't want to think any further than that.  His
apartment was empty now, though earlier it had been
filled with more people than Mulder had probably ever
had in there at once.  She had walked in, and
positively identified his body.  Yes, it was his body,
but it wasn't Fox Mulder anymore.  There was no
teasing, lopsided grin warning her he was about to
announce some bizarre theory to her she was sure to
disagree with.  The life was just gone.  The whole
time it had seemed like some kind of waking nightmare.
 Mulder couldn't be dead.  How many times had she seen
him bounce back from something that would probably
kill any one else?  That alien retrovirus had nearly
killed him, but within a few days after waking up, he
had been talking non stop, asking her when she was
going  to get him out of the hospital.  She was
surprised the nurses hadn't kicked him out, the way he
got on everyone's nerves.  
 But the one thing that had defeated him was of his
 own doing.  Even though he refused to listen to what
 he was being told, of all the lies he believed to be
 facts, she knew him to well not to see through his
 tough, outer layer to the vulnerable person beneath
 it, someone who had lost his sister when he was
 twelve to a never explained light, someone who had
 watched his father die.  This was the caring person
 who was willing to put his life on the line for her,
 who had nearly driven himself over the edge when she
 had been abducted.  She had already suspected he was
 falling apart, and that horrible phone call she had
 gotten earlier  had only confirmed it.  the tears
 that filled her eyes had begun to overflow, and she
 quickly went home.  She had to get away from here.

 Sitting on her couch in her own building, in an
 entirely different state from where Mulder's
 apartment was didn't make her feel any better.  In
 the back of her mind, she knew a funeral would be the
 next thing to deal with, she and Mulder's mother. 
 Scully wasn't sure how well Mrs. Mulder was doing,
 she had simply left after identifying the body,
 unable to take anymore.  She fell asleep on the
 couch, worrying about a problem that would never go
 away.

 Scully woke up in the middle of the night, and heard
 rain falling heavily outside.  She also heard
 something else.  Someone was knocking frantically on
 her door, trying not to wake up the neighbors, but
 trying to get her attention.  She opened the door
 without peeking through the peephole (something she
 as an FBI agent was normally very careful to do) and
 nearly passed out when she saw who was there. 
 Standing in front of her door, shivering and wet from
 the rain was her partner, a very cold and very alive
 Fox Mulder.
"Scully?" he said weakly, before he collapsed.  

Chapter Two
 For a minute, Scully just stood there, staring at him
 in shock.  It looked like Mulder, and it had sounded
 like Mulder, but she knew it couldn't be Mulder. 
 Mulder was dead, she had seen his lifeless body,
 which had a nasty looking gunshot would in his head. 
 But here he was, lying on the floor in front of her,
 unconscious, but very much alive.  She snapped out of
 her astonished trance and thought about what to do. 
 She checked his pulse.  It was a little bit weak, but
 obviously there.  She grabbed his feet and pulled him
 into her apartment.  He still didn't wake up.  She
 managed to get him onto the couch, and figured that
 wouldn't be an unusual place for him to be,
 considering he slept on his own couch every night..
 Now she looked at him again, this time a little
 suspiciously.  How could this be Mulder?  She had
 seen his body, dead from a gunshot wound in his head.
  If someone at the hospital had somehow managed to
 bring him back to life, she would have been called
 immediately, and even if they have, he would have
 been in no condition to walk to her apartment, even
 just down the hall.
What was going on?
 Suddenly, she heard him groan, and he moved a little.
  His eyes fluttered open, and he coughed.  He stared
 at her, as she had been staring at him, and slowly
 smiled.  "Mulder," she asked," how-what-" "I guess
 you want to know why I'm here when I'm supposed to be
 dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head,"
 he said. Scully just nodded. "Well, that wasn't me."
 Scully looked at him strangely.  "Okay..." she asked
 slowly, "then who was it?" "A clone." Scully's eyes
 widened.  That could explain everything.  But how did
 cloning and a frozen alien come together? She told
 this to Mulder. "Well," he said," it's a long story"
 "I have time", Scully answered.
Mulder began: "Well, actually that frozen alien has to
do with more than you think.  Naturally, another
government conspiracy.  Even on my clone, that wasn't
a self-inflicted gunshot wound.  It was just set up to
look that way.  While I was driving back to my
apartment, some men stopped me.  They told me some one
was trying to kill me, to get me out of the picture
for good.  It would be the perfect scenario- not to
many people would doubt that I would be one to put a
gun to my own head.  After all, I do have my
reputation.
 'So they told me they wanted to put someone else in
 my place for my safety.  I asked why the government
 was so interested in my safety, and they didn't
 answer.  They wanted to put this other person in my
 place while they caught the would be killer.  I asked
 who this other person was, and they showed him to me.
  It was me!  Or, at least, someone who looked like
 me-a clone.  I tried to ask how they made a clone of
 me without me knowing about it, but I didn't get an
 answer to that question either. 'The clone got into
 my car and drove back to my apartment.  After he was
 gone, they told me that they weren't planning to stop
 the killer, but instead to get the clone killed so
 that who ever was behind this scheme would think I
 had been knocked off and was out of the way.  I was
 starting to trust them, but as soon as they got word
 that my clone had been killed, they knocked me out. 
 I woke up a couple blocks away from your apartment,
 in an alley.  It was raining, and I didn't know what
 to do, so I came here." Finished with his story, he
 sat in silence, waiting to see what she thought. 
 Scully didn't know what to say.  He looked at her,
 and saw that she had a small smile on her face and
 was crying.  She reached over and hugged him tightly.
  "Fox Mulder cheats death again," she said softly. He
 hugged her back, and the two of them just sat there
 for a while, glad to be in each other's presence.
THE END

Well, what did you think?  I know it was kind of
short, but I'll write more if I get responses. 
Speaking of which, please Email me at
ShellMSX14@aol.com.  I'd love to hear if I have a
future in fanfic.