From: DxSCULLYxx Date sent: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 08:54:36 EDT Subject: Just Another Day In The X Files Universe (1/1) by Dx TITLE: Just Another Day In The X Files Universe AUTHOR: Dx CATEGORY: XRA KEYWORDS: Mulder/Other, Mulder/Scully friendship, 'Mulder ring' RATING: PG-13, with strong language warning SPOILERS: Unusual Suspects, Emily, Travelers DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, but make sure you E me to let me know FEEDBACK: Oooooh, I wouldn't mind... COMMENTS: Okay, so this is another 'ring-fic'. But I swear to you, this is only partly inspired by Travelers. (Namely the certain disgusting habit that might help explain Mulder's oral fixation...) I began thinking about this after Unusual Suspects was aired. I saw Travelers, and my fingers took on a life of their own. Please keep an open mind. I tried really hard. DISCLAIMER: Mulder and Scully and all the character names and concepts you recognize are not mine, I use them without permission. The characters you don't recognize belong to me. If, for some obscure reason, you wish to use any of them for stories of considerably higher caliber than mine, then you have to ask nicely or I'll set my cat on to ya. Grrr. Oooh, I feel like a hypocrite now. Oh, and Thomas Jefferson doesn't belong to me either... just in case you didn't realize that... XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX Just Another Day In The X Files Universe By Dx XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX The silence was broken by the sound of footsteps. Two pairs, one of which was female. The occupant of the room focused on the steady clips as heels connected with the concrete floor of the cold basement corridor. It was the only way she could keep from screaming out in terror and escaping through the air vent. So much can be discovered about a person from the way they walk. This woman was small, the quick succession of steps indicated she had short legs. She was also confident, hard, and determined - just like her strides. The other, decidedly masculine, gait was familiar. Achingly familiar. Soft, almost skipping steps made with expensive Italian soles. She would recognize the sound anywhere. The voices increased in volume as the couple approached the office. His office. The office with the door that bore his name on a brass plaque. A name that hadn't left her thoughts for one single day of those painful seven years. "...And is that your professional opinion?" A slightly throaty feminine voice jested. "Nah. That's just a theory I came up with last night somewhere in between The World's Funniest Home Movies and Letterman." The woman in the office found herself reeling at the sound of that voice. The melted honey over gravel sound permeated the air and sent shivers of an excitement she never thought she would feel again coursing through her. He was in playful mode. She remembered when he used to speak to her like that. "So what *is* your professional opinion, Agent Mulder?" The female voice asked him as the tap of nail against wood could be heard along with the jangling of keys. "It was the butler." He deadpanned. "Seriously." She finally succeeded with throwing the lock. The dark figure only sat and awaited their entrance. "Serious? Me? Never, Scully." The door began to open. "I am the personification of joviality. I am a bastion of... spunkiness." "Spunkiness?" "Sure, Scully. I'm spunky." "And on what do you base that astute assumption?" Fox Mulder couldn't answer her. The slender brunette who sat in the computer chair felt her heart skip a beat at the sight of him in dark pants and a wrinkled white shirt. His eyes were wide with an intoxicating blend of shock, hurt and fear. He was older, but the years had been kind to him. He still had the appearance of being younger than his true age. Fox was just as beautiful as the day she'd watched him leave for work in 1990. The owner of the low, feminine voice stood by his side, her expression one of confusion. "Mulder?" She questioned him, her hand only a twitch away from snatching the weapon out of her shoulder holster. "My God..." He whispered. His face was ashen. "Fox." The brunette found her voice and rose from her chair to greet him. Mulder shook his head as he stumbled backwards. "It's okay, Fox." She reassured the petrified man. "A.... Amanda?" His voice was tentative as his tall, lanky frame swayed. He reached out for support, and even as the brunette moved to steady him, the short redheaded agent had grasped his shoulders. Mulder shrugged her hands away and slid to the floor. "Jesus... Mulder, what's wrong? Mulder? Mulder, look at me." The woman he had addressed as Scully left his side and turned to the other female in the room. "What the hell is going on here? Who are you? And what are you doing in our office?" She looked from the woman to her partner. "Mulder?" "You're dead." Mulder stammered, Amanda watched his long, slender fingers tremble as he pointed to her. "You are dead." "What?" Scully frowned, crouching in the space between Mulder and the woman. "Fox, I..." "You are dead." He repeated, his eyes expelling droplets of salt water. Their path along smooth, tanned skin and dark stubble mesmerized Amanda. "You are dead. You are dead." He drew his impossibly long legs up to his chin and rocked on his buttocks. "You're dead. You are DEAD! YOU ARE DEAD!" "Fox..." "What the hell is this?" Scully slowly straightened. "Fox, I have to explain." "No." Mulder covered his ears with his hands, shaking his head. "You're dead, Amanda. I buried you seven years ago this April." "Fox, calm down." Amanda dropped to her knees before him and he screamed. For all the world he looked like a frightened child. "I'm sorry, I am so sorry." She reached out a hand to brush a stray lock of dark hair from his forehead. "Who are you?" Scully shouted, moving directly in front of Mulder. The petite younger woman blocked Amanda's view of the obviously disturbed man. "My name is Amanda." She told her. "Amanda Mulder." >From behind her, his voice was small. "My wife." Dana Scully felt her jaw hit the tiled floor with a boom bigger than Hiroshima. "Your *what*?" She gasped, barely finding the brain capacity to turn and gape at the man she thought she knew better than anyone did. "His wife." The woman who had recently been introduced as Amanda Mulder confirmed. Mulder had dropped his forehead to his knees, as if he was physically incapable of looking at either woman in his company. "Mulder, you don't have a wife." She reminded him, half expecting her pain-in-the-ass partner to start laughing and the leggy woman dressed in a red shift dress to remove a mask revealing herself as a certain Melvin Frohike. It didn't happen. "What is going on here?" She repeated for the third time. Fox Mulder only let out a small moan. Scully gave up on expecting a coherent explanation from the gibbering heap in the corner of The X Files' office, and turned instead to the silently weeping woman by her side. "Amanda? That's your name?" Scully pushed a curtain of auburn hair out of her face and behind her ear. "It was." The woman nodded, unable to take her eyes off the man who was sobbing his heart out. "Was?" "Before..." She swiped at tears with fingers tipped in perfectly manicured scarlet nails. It was then that Scully's memory kicked into gear. A few years back, she and Mulder had been getting down and dirty with some pretty heavy paperwork at his apartment one Tuesday evening. As per usual, Mulder couldn't find a single writing implement to complete the forms with, and she had gone on a pen-hunting mission. Upon opening a cluttered desk drawer, she came across a bundle of photographs. The photos were hidden towards the back under several road maps and a few newspaper clippings. They were fairly recent pictures, perhaps taken four or five years ago at the time. Pictures of Mulder and a woman. A woman with long, dark, chestnut curls and glittering green eyes. She had asked him who she was, and he had snatched the pictures from her hands, giving her some mumbled story about an ex-girlfriend and how he thought he'd "already thrown these goddamn things out." Yet, they were replaced back in the drawer, and the flash of pain behind his eyes did not go unnoticed. Scully saw the same pain behind the woman's bright green irises at that moment. "I think I have a lot of explaining to do." Amanda admitted quietly. Mulder's soft, ironic laughter caught both women by surprise. "Oh, I would say there are a few things in need of clarification, yes." He kept his voice dark and carefully controlled. "Like exactly who's grave I have visited every September first for the past seven years." Mulder paused to take a deep, calming breath. "And what I did that made you hate me enough to let me think I had lost my wife and child." xXxXxXxXxXxXx "Hey, Mulder! Phone for ya!" Fox Mulder lifted his head from the pillow where he had just spent his first three minutes sleep in two days. "Shit, man. Lemme sleep." "It's Amanda..." Mulder groaned and heaved his exhausted body onto its side as he took the plastic handset from his roommate. "Hey babe." He sighed hoarsely into the mouthpiece. "How are ya?" "Fine." The breathy voice was like a fist clenching tight around his heart... not to mention other places. He made a soft humming sound at the back of his throat, before he felt another yawn approaching. "I hope you don't mind, Mand, but I'm totally wiped. I've been on my feet all day, I was out hunting down Frosty the Satanic Snowman all last night, and I'm losing consciousness by the nanosecond. Can we make this quick and I'll call you in the morning?" His right hand came to rest on his half-unbuttoned mud-streaked shirt. "Oh, poor baby." She giggled down the phone. "I'll bet if you were here I'd make you forget all about your being tired." Mulder's mouth curved into a lazy lop-sided grin as he imagined what she looked like at that moment. Soft, brown curls tumbling from the single barrette she wore to work and sitting loosely on her slender shoulders. White shirt open at the neck revealing the rounded curves of full breasts. Make-up removed and soft skin smooth and moisturized. Maybe he wasn't feeling so tired after all... "Really?" He made a point of keeping his voice husky. It had nothing to do with the fact that he was almost ready for a three month long coma. Really, it didn't. "Mmm-hmmm." "How exactly?" He said in a sultry whisper. Malcolm Reeves just rolled his eyes and turned back to his sports magazine. "Are you alone?" Amanda asked. Mulder glanced to his right. "Why do you want to know if I'm alone or not?" "Because I want to talk to you." "Reeves can't hear what you're saying." Mulder watched as the black man's eyebrows lifted clear off his forehead. "So." "What do you mean 'so'?" "I mean, I want to talk to you." "Then talk." "I can't talk. Not with someone else in the room." Mulder sighed, however talented he knew his wife was at 'taking his mind of the case', he just really couldn't be bothered. "I'm not in the mood, anyway, Mand. Why don't we just say goodnight?" "Fox..." She pleaded, using the tone she knew he couldn't resist. Mulder chuckled softly. "Hang on a sec." He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. "Reeves, feel like taking a walk?" "Nope." "Ah, come on Reeves." Malcolm Reeves shook his head. "It's like the fucking Antarctic out there, Mulder. I'm not going out to freeze my ass off just so your wife can get you off down the phone." "Reeves, don't be a bastard." "Fine." Reeves sat up. "I'll go turn myself into a Popsicle while you jerk off." "I'm not gonna jerk off." Mulder rubbed his eyes with his hand. "Amanda wants to talk, and she won't do it while you're in the room." "Whatever." Reeves threw on his jacket while he opened the door. "I'll be no more than five minutes, boy-wonder. So make sure you're finished by the time I get back." "Fuck you, Reeves." "No thanks, Mulder. I'm not into married men." And with a final flash of brilliant white teeth, Reeves departed. "You still there?" Amanda's voice questioned from the other end of the line. "Yeah." "Alone?" "Yes." Mulder watched the door close. "Now, you gonna tell me what's up?" "I've got some news." "What kind of news?" "Important news." Mulder yawned. "Well that's helpful. Is it about the promotion? Did it come through?" "No... No, it's more important than that..." "What then?" Mulder reached onto the table by the side of his bed and pulled a cigarette from the pack. "Are you sitting down, Fox?" "I'm lying flat on my back in case you're interested." He struck a match and lit the cigarette, taking a long draw. "Hmmm... That position has possibilities..." He could hear her smile. "What kind of possibilities?" He looked around for an ashtray, and just flicked the ash onto the carpet when he remembered it was a non-smoking room. "The kind that got me in this situation in the first place." "What situation?" Then it hit him. "Oh my god...." He dropped his cigarette on the bed, swearing when it burned a hole through the comforter. "Yeah." Fox Mulder sat up ramrod straight. "Amanda, you are shitting me." "I'm pregnant." "You can't be pregnant. Mand, you're on the pill." "I guess I forgot to take it." "You forgot? You forgot! How can you forget something as important as that, Mand? Are you an idiot?" He jumped to his feet, pulling the flex tight. "Stop it right now." Amanda shouted. "Just stop it." "Stop it? You want me to stop it? You tell me you're pregnant and you expect me to react calmly?" "Fox, this isn't the end of the world!" "I'm not ready to be a father." Fox's breathing had escalated from 'panic' to full-blown 'help me Jesus I'm gonna die' hyperventilation. "I'm not getting any younger, Fox. I'm thirty now. My biological clock is ticking..." "But it's still a long way to go 'till midnight Cinderella." Mulder interrupted her. "What are you saying?" "I'm saying, Amanda, that I thought we agreed we would wait." "Wait until when? How many years? What is there to wait for?" "It's not the right time for me." "It's never 'the right time'. You're twenty-eight, Fox. How much more growing up have you still got to do?" Fox collapsed back down on the bed. "What are you going to do, Mand?" "What?" She gasped "There is no question over what I am going to do. Do you think I'm gonna get rid of it?" "I..." "Oh, I get it. You want me to have a termination, don't you?" Mulder made a small sound as if he was trying to speak, but not succeeding. "No way, Fox Mulder. No fucking way. I want this baby, and if you don't then you can just get the hell out of my life because there are just some things I will not give up for you. Like my right to be a mother." "Mand! Calm down. This is just... a shock, that's all." "What, you think I'm not shocked too? Excuse me, but this has come of as much as a surprise to me as it has to you. Don't be a selfish bastard all your life." "Shit, Mand." "I know." Amanda sighed. "I know how you're feeling. I feel exactly the same, and believe you me, having you practically reach for the knitting needle the second I tell you isn't helping matters much." Mulder heard the key in the lock. Reeves was on his way back. "Mand, I didn't mean it. I swear I didn't. Oh, shit, Mand, Reeves is back... I-" "I'm not getting rid of it, Fox." Mulder jumped to his feet nervously. "No. No, of course not. Amanda, I'm so sorry. Please, look, we need to talk this out properly. I'll see if I can get home and..." "No. I think we both need some time to come to terms with the fact we're gonna be parents." Mulder blinked. "Parents?" Malcolm Reeves made a complete U-turn and headed back out the door. "Yeah. Mom and Dad Mulder." "Fuck me..." Mulder whispered, the realization of what was actually happening just setting in. "Get some sleep, Hun. I'll speak to you tomorrow." "Yeah." "G'night." "Yeah." "I mean it. You need rest." "Yeah." "Are you okay, Fox?" "Yeah." Amanda kissed the mouthpiece. "Mand?" He whispered before she hung up. "What?" "I love you. 'Kay?" "Ditto." "Night." "Bye." There was a click at the other end when she replaced the receiver. "A baby?" Fox Mulder whispered as he fell back against the pillows. "Shit." xXxXxXxXxXxXx "I don't hate you, Fox. I never did. It was a choice I had to make, and it was the hardest choice a woman should ever be faced with." "What choice?" Mulder pulled himself to his feet. "What did they offer you, Amanda? Was it money? A trip to Disneyland?" "They offered me protection." "Your protection?" "Yes." Amanda nodded. "And that of my child." "What did they say would happen, Mand? What did they say that you believed enough to do this to me?" "You were in over your head, Fox. I could see it happening. You had been out of the hospital for less than eight months, and you were already on your way to a relapse. The X Files had become an obsession to you. You would talk about nothing else but how close you were to getting them opened. About how much it meant to you. About how you would finally know what happened to Samantha." Amanda rested against the desk. "I was heavily pregnant, Fox. I needed something back from our relationship." "So you thought you'd fake your own death? Amanda, I know we were having problems, but they weren't *that* bad. Shit, I'd just had a nervous breakdown. What did you expect it to be like?" Scully massaged her temples and sighed. She'd thought Mulder had a strange past before - now she had just found out he had a dead wife and child who were, in fact, not dead and that he had suffered a nervous breakdown *before* he discovered this. Well, there could only be more surprises on the way. "It wasn't the relationship, Fox. You know I love you." "Love?" "Yes." Mulder smiled a humorless smile. "Fox, I still love you. I always have loved you, and that isn't going to change." "How can you say you ever loved me, Amanda. You do not let the person you love live for seven years thinking his family is dead." Amanda couldn't answer him. Scully suddenly realized that they were still sitting in the dark. She moved to flick the light switch on when Mulder noticed she was still in the room. "Scully." He cleared his throat. "I'm gone." She headed towards the door. Mulder stopped her with his hands and she looked up at him expectantly. "I don't want you to go." "It's not my place to hear this, Mulder." "Why not? You've been the biggest part of my life for longer than *she* ever was." Scully could only wish that he meant those words, and wasn't attempting to hurt the woman who had broken him. "Well then, Mulder, I think we have to discuss why you never told me you were a widower." "Touch', Scully." Mulder let a wave of guilt cloud his senses before he remembered the anger. "But this isn't a conversation I want to have in front of *her*." Amanda strode through the door, her face parallel with the floor. "Mulder..." Scully whispered, taking in his expression of fury. "Go after her." "I can't handle this right now." His voice broke on the last syllable. "I can't handle this, period." Scully nodded. "But you need to know, Mulder." "I think I can guess..." xXxXxXxXxXxXx "Holy shit, Mulder, how did you know that?" James Mustill came scurrying into the office like a rat with its tail on fire. "Know what?" Mulder didn't take his eyes from the book in front of him. "Know that Arlan was ex-military?" Mulder smiled and pushed his reading glasses further up his nose. "I just knew." "What do you mean 'you just knew'? You can't have found that out. He was secret-ops, Mulder. His records were classified." Mustill threw the folder containing military service records on Mulder's cluttered desk, tipping a photograph frame over. "My father was military for a while. He had friends in the armed forces. The man just reeked of the military, Musty." "Mulder, we have been chasing him for the past six months without so much as a public sighting. For all we know, he's a drag queen by trade... how would you know what he did for a living when we didn't even know his name until yesterday?" "He drove a Dodge." "So?" "Trust me. I notice these things. So, I was right?" Mustill's chipmunkesque features oozed envy. "Damn right. It took me all night to get clearance, but he was definitely one of America's finest." "Right, so we have background information. That should give us some fresh material to work with, shouldn't it?" "Michael's on to it now." "Great." Mulder turned back to his book. "Whatcha readin'?" Mustill moved to stand behind him. Mulder displayed the cover. "The Comprehensive Guide To Choosing Baby Names." "Ooh. Interesting?" Mulder smiled. "Yeah actually. Did you know, there are eighteen variations of the name Gustave?" Mustill nodded in mock appreciation. "So, how's she holding up?" "Oh, we've passed the Capers and Marmalade pancakes at three a.m. in the morning, and we've moved on to the 'I'm fat, I'm ugly, and I don't want to talk to you' stage." "Seven months, right?" Mulder nodded. "It's getting closer by the day... scares the shit out of me to think I'm gonna be a father by summer." Mustill laughed and patted Mulder's shoulder. "You got the nursery sorted yet?" He poured himself a cup of three-hour-old coffee from the pot on the warmer. Mulder sighed. "Nope. We don't even *have* a nursery. We rent a crappy little one-bedroom apartment in Alexandria with no heat in winter and no air-con in summer. We both have minuscule salaries, so we can't afford a mortgage for a house." "Have you tried a bank loan?" Mulder cleared his throat and studied his fingernails. "They won't... not so soon after the breakdown..." To his credit, Mustill didn't linger on the subject. "I heard somewhere that you're from a wealthy family. Couldn't your father..." "My father and I don't speak. We haven't for a long time, and I'm not about to change that just because I need money. Amanda and I will find a way." Mulder rose from his seat. "You know that, if it ever gets bad enough, that you can always ask me, Mulder. I'd give you the money at a drop of a hat. I swear." Mulder seemed to be embarrassed by Mustill's declaration. "Thanks Musty, but... like I said, I'm coping." He took a beat. "I'm coping." Mustill didn't quite believe him, but nodded anyway. "I'm going to use the bathroom." Mustill watched as the tall, skinny young agent trudged out of the office. The poor boy had problems. Mustill just hoped Mulder was sharing them with that lovely young wife of his. A shrill ringing sound attracted his attention, and he quickly ascertained that it came from the office telephone. He sat on his lumpy office chair and lifted the receiver to his ear. "Agent Mulder?" A gruff, male voice inquired. "No, this is Special Agent Mustill. Agent Mulder's just stepped out for a second, can I take a message." "Mustill, it's the Assistant Director. I... how long will he be?" Mustill glanced at the door. "Depends on whether he's taking a leak or a dump." There was a short silence at the other end of the line. "Uh... yeah..." "He'll be back shortly." "Can you tell him I need to see him in my office right away?" "Sure, sir." Mustill replaced the receiver on its cradle. He had heard about some rumor involving Mulder and some obscure department with the VCS that he wanted re-opened. Perhaps the hapless young guy had finally landed a break. God knew he deserved it. "Hey, Mustill. Head out of the clouds, ass into gear." Mulder reappeared at the doorway. "That's my line." Mustill laughed. "I'm your superior. You can't talk to me like that." "I'm your intellectual superior, and I will speak to you how I want thank you very much." "Up yours, Spooky. The AD wants to see you." Mulder took his jacket from the back of his chair. "Really?" "Yeah. Do you think it could have anything to do with these X-Files?" A light glittered in Mulder's dark eyes. "I don't know. I haven't been a naughty boy, lately, so I don't think I'm in trouble..." "Good luck is all I can say, Mulder." Mustill threw him a grin, and opened the book on baby names as Mulder left the office. "Assina?" He said aloud. "Dear god. I'd hate to hear what they'd call the poor kid for short..." xxx Fox Mulder left that office not so much shocked as he was dazed. In one fell swoop, his life had been destroyed yet again. Just as it had been when he was twelve years old. Distractedly, he pulled a pack of Marlboro from his pocket and lit a cigarette, holding it to numb lips with trembling hands. "Put that out, buddy." A security guard ordered him as he passed. Mulder couldn't hear him. He was too busy replaying the conversation he had just shared with the AD in his mind. "Hey, Mulder. No smoking." The guard tried again. "Leave him be, Jack" Walter Skinner told the young blond man. The Security Officer paused before inquiring after Mulder's well being. The AD only nodded, then disappeared into his office again. \\I'm sorry, Agent Mulder, but I have some bad news. \\ Bad news. Was there a term which understated the facts that had been disclosed to him after that announcement more? As Mulder approached the office he shared with James Mustill and Malcolm Reeves he longed for the tears to fall. He wanted to cry more than anything. He didn't know why he couldn't. "How'd it go?" Mustill asked, running his fingers through sandy brown hair. Mulder just sat at his desk. "With the AD, I mean. Did you get a wrist slapping, or was it good news." Mulder spotted the picture lying face down on his desk. "Oh, I take that to mean it was bad news." Mustill aughed. \\bad news.\\ He reached out a hand to lift it from the table, turning it over to study the image of his wife riding the rope swing in the garden of his childhood home at their wedding reception. "So, what was it this time?" He traced the shape of her oval face with the tip of his finger. "Expense reports or shoddy paperwork?" Mulder tried desperately to disappear deep inside himself, the way he would when his father used to beat him. Instead, he took a toke on his smoke. The thickness of fumes entered his lungs, leaving the more bitter than sweet aftertaste in his mouth as he exhaled. "Hey, I thought you'd given up? Something about Amanda not wanting either one of you smoking for the baby's sake." His eyes ached with unshed tears. "Mulder?" "Amanda's dead." He whispered, and waited for the floodgates to open. They never did. xXxXxXxXxXxXx "You think it was Them, don't you? The shadow government?" Scully asked. Mulder didn't even bother nodding. "Around the time of her death, I became involved with the X Files. I think... it was either an attempt at putting me back in the mental hospital, or, as Amanda said, they gave her a deal." "You mean they would have hurt her and the baby?" Mulder turned away. "At the time, I didn't think anyone would ever do this kind of thing. But now I know... and I have no doubt that they would have done absolutely anything to hurt me. Just look at what they did to you, Scully. Everything that has ever happened to you has been because of me. Maybe Amanda could see what was going to happen, maybe that's why she got out when she could." "Mulder, you say that like you understand. How can you understand?" It was then that Mulder noticed a slim band of gold glinting on the desk. He moved to pick it up. "I don't understand, Scully. I don't want to understand." Scully watched him as he pocketed Amanda's wedding ring. She wondered where its mate was. "What about the baby, Mulder?" "The..." Suddenly, he turned on his heel, and sprinted out of the door as fast as his well-trained runner's legs would take him. Scully's lips froze in formation of his name as she moved to chase after him. She let him go. It was up to Mulder to get through this alone. xXxXxXxXxXxXx Mulder listened to the quiet sobs of the congregation as they watched him walk down the aisle of the church to take his seat at the front. It was less than three years ago that he had watched a radiant, vivacious Amanda proudly walk the same path to stand with him at the altar. Now, instead of his wife-to-be, he was looking at the white box adorned with beautiful flowers. Along with a second, miniature coffin that held the body of his baby boy. He had been forced to make the decision whether or not he wanted a funeral for his child. During the autopsy, in which they had discovered Amanda had died from a brain aneurysm, the fetus had been removed. Mulder had been told that the baby was fully formed, with slightly under-developed lungs and digestive system. He didn't want to see his dead son. He let Amanda's brother identify his wife's body. All Mulder wanted to do was spend his life at work. Unfortunately, the FBI put him on mandatory leave while he mourned his loss. Mulder hadn't even cried, never mind mourned for his wife and son. He remembered the way she used to smile and throw her arms around him when he returned from work. He remembered the way she would curl up in his lap while he watched the baseball and the way the strands of red- brown silk would slip through his fingers as he stroked her hair. He remembered the way she would wriggle in bed and keep him awake. He remembered the way she looked at her distended abdomen and frowned, declaring that she would never fit into her old clothes and how he had slipped his arms around her stating that he didn't mind because he "preferred her naked anyway". He remembered the way it felt to get up in the morning and know that you had a wife to spend the rest of your life with. For a moment he forgot what it felt like to spend sleepless nights thinking of how you were going to spend the rest of your life alone. He was sure it was a beautiful service, however he hadn't heard a word. He had been escorted out of the church and into the churchyard before he even realized it was time to say goodbye. It was the fresh spring breeze tousling his hair that brought him to his senses. It was then that he felt the warmth of tears on his cheeks. Before he hadn't known how to cry. Now he didn't know how to stop. The minister spoke as both Amanda's coffin and that of his tiny son were lowered into the ground. He couldn't let them go. "Fox, honey..." His mother took his hand as he stepped towards the holes in the ground. Holes that reminded him of the gaping chasm in his life. "Mom?" He choked out. "Is this really happening, Mom? Is she really dead?" His mother sobbed in response. "Please tell me I'm gonna wake up from this." He begged, his voice louder with escalating panic. "I can't live this anymore. I can't do this anymore. It want to wake up now." Around him, eyes were torn from the minister to this painfully thin young man dressed in a charcoal suit that hung from his wasted frame. He hadn't eaten a meal since his wife's death four weeks ago. "Hush, baby." His mother drew him close, but he pulled away. "No." He sobbed, imagining a different scene where all these people had come to watch his son christened with the name Mulder had been forced to choose alone. Dylan. After the poet Dylan Thomas. Thomas' poems had contained elements of surrealism and personal fantasy. Mulder's son, although initially unwanted, had become a fantasy after his death. Just as Amanda was. Mulder found the idea of himself in a family situation downright ludicrous. Now that he knew he wouldn't have it, he realized that he never really could have. Perhaps it was better this way. Perhaps it saved him from becoming his own father - desperately trying to maintain something that vaguely resembled a relationship with his son. Mulder had failed his father as a child, he didn't want to fail his child as a father. It was better this way. Then why did he feel like his insides were being pulled out through his nostrils? Mulder held his face in his hands, standing over his wife's open grave. When he opened his eyes, he found that his sight was no longer misty with tears, but that his world had become a swirling mass of color. It was his father who scooped him into his arms and held him as he lost consciousness to hypoglycemia. It was the first time his father had more than shook his hand in more than ten years. It gave him no comfort. xXxXxXxXxXxXx Mulder tore along the corridor, up the stairs and out of the building. He had to catch up with her. She couldn't have gone far - she couldn't drive. At least she couldn't in 1990. For about the 13 billionth time in his life, Mulder thanked God and his old track coach for giving him leg muscles that could practically outrun a horse when given the chance. Would she have taken left or right? Mulder just gave up on thinking and ran for the hell of it. What was he going to do when he caught up with her? Why was he doing this? Did he really want to see her again? A few years ago he would have given anything for one more chance to hold her. One more chance to smell the familiarity of her perfume. One more chance to tell her that he loved her. Now he wished she *had* died because the loss of someone through death was a hell of a lot less painful than the loss of someone through deception. As he raced through the humidity of a DC summer, he almost didn't see the tall woman dressed in red standing by the Jefferson memorial. He stopped, his chest heaving with racking breaths. "Amanda!" He hollered, sweat trickling from the back of his neck to soak his shirt. She spun to face him, tempted to turn and walk away, but drawn to him in a way she couldn't explain. "The baby." He panted, resting his hands on his knees, bending at the waist to catch his breath. He was getting old. He should be this exhausted. "I want to know what happened to the baby." Amanda pulled her red jacket tight around herself, even though the heat was sweltering. "Dylan... he's seven in July." "Dylan..." Mulder whispered. "You named him..." "I knew, Fox." She nodded. "I knew everything. It was a condition of the deal. I knew what you named him, and I couldn't call our child anything else." "What if it was a girl..." Amanda laughed. "Then I'd have paid for the therapy." "Does he look like... does he look like me?" Mulder felt his eyes moisten again as he walked towards her. This still didn't seem real to him. However, he should have expected it really. Amanda curved her red lips into a smile. He could always tell when she gave a genuine smile. This was definitely not some fake grin. "He's beautiful. He's perfect, Fox." "Then he couldn't have inherited my nose." Amanda pushed her shoulder-length hair back and widened her smile to a toothy grin. "I always liked your nose." "Yeah, only 'cause you heard the rumors." Mulder returned the smile. "The rumors?" Mulder leered at her. "Oh." She nodded. "I see the sense of humor's still the same." "It's the only thing that's still the same." Mulder's gaze dropped to his feet, every trace of the smile disappeared. "Not the only thing." Amanda stated. Mulder walked towards her, shaking his head in disbelief. Why was he talking to her? He had things he needed to know. "I'm right, am I not? It was the government, wasn't it?" "You know who it was, Fox." Amanda watched him wince. "Look, Amanda, it's Mulder, okay? It's Mulder, not Fox. Ghosts don't have the right to call me by my given name." "I'm not a ghost, Fox." "Then what are you?" Mulder could feel the tension grating between his shoulder blades. "You're not my wife, Amanda. My wife died seven years ago." "Fo-Mulder, I... I had to choose between the man I loved and the child I was carrying inside me." Amanda pleaded with him. "I chose my baby, and not a day has gone by where I haven't paid for my choice." "You've paid?" Mulder hissed. "*You've* paid? You have no idea what it is like to pay, Amanda." "I know what you've been through." "You have no idea." He hit his wrists against his thighs. " I blamed myself. They told me you'd died of a brain aneurysm. The last time I spoke to you, we had argued..." Amanda closed her eyes briefly. "You filled the coffee pot with Colombian instead of de-caff, and I hit the roof. I told you I couldn't drink caffeine while I was pregnant. I asked you if you were deliberately trying to harm the baby. It was the same old 'you don't really want this' argument." Mulder sighed. "I thought I had caused the stress that had brought it on and I spent the next few months trying to convince myself that I had killed you." "Did you?" "Of course I did." There was a short silence as Amanda contemplated how to translate the story from picture form to words. "He came to me that morning after you left." Amanda began. "I was getting dressed in the bedroom when I smelled cigarette smoke coming from the living room. At first, I thought it was you. I was ready for chewing your ass out for smoking in the house again... but... it wasn't you." "What's his name." Mulder asked. "How the hell should I know? " She shrugged. "Everyone refers to him as the smoker... which gets confusing because almost everyone I know now smokes." "Is it like, some gang initiation thing?" "No. I believe it is a condition though." "That, and to have caused me or my family a significant amount of pain." Mulder mumbled. Amanda could only shrug. "He told me you were a liability. That you were unpredictable. That you were a danger to yourself... to me, and to the baby..." "I would never have hurt you, Amanda. I have a violent streak, you can pin that one on daddy dearest. I have a temper that I have to control... but I would *never* have laid a finger on you." Mulder looked to his feet. "And if you think I would have ever touched the baby then you never knew me at all." "I don't think he was referring to you personally, Fox-- Sorry--Mulder." "You think he was talking about the X Files." "I'd say it's a certainty. Just look at what happened to your father, Mulder. Look at what happened to Scully's sister. To Scully. To Emily..." Mulder felt his head spinning. "You know everything. You really do, don't you Amanda. You really work... you' re really one of them." "When I gave you up, I gave up myself. I did it for Dylan, Mulder. I wouldn't let him be affected by your work in the way the smoker told me he would be. I wouldn't sacrifice my right to be a mother." Mulder crossed his arms. "You told me that when you called to say you were pregnant." "It wasn't an empty threat." "Huh. You're telling me." "I hate myself, Mulder." Amanda declared "I hate myself more than you will ever know." "Do you hate yourself more than I hate you?" Mulder sat on the steps of the memorial. "Would you believe me if I said 'yes'?" Amanda sat next to him. "I don't believe in anything that readily anymore." Mulder dipped his head, and for the first time, Amanda noticed the tiniest strands of grey in with the golds and reds and dark browns. "I thought you believed in anything?" Amanda rested her chin in her hand. "I know you had success with the X Files. I know that you and Scully found enough proof to make them nervous." "Oh, surprise me why don't you. You probably know more than I do considering who you work for." "I know that he gave you Samantha." Mulder turned to look at her at that moment. "He didn't give her to me." He said. "He showed me a glimpse, and then he snatched her away from me. It was like what my mother had to do to get me to have a bath when I was little. She used to take a lollypop and let me take a lick before taking it into the bathroom. She wouldn't give it to me until I'd gotten in the tub, and by then I realized how much I actually loved taking baths and she had to tempt me with another piece of candy before I'd get out." "He'd have given her to you if you had gone with him." Mulder nodded. "Yeah, but would I have liked the water, Amanda?" "No. No, too many sharks." Amanda saw the sad smile curve his lips. "You're afraid of sharks. Ever since-" "Ever since I watched them filming 'Jaws' on the Vineyard when I was ten." Mulder finished with a laugh. "Yeah. I'm surprised you remembered I told you that, actually. We were both pretty well oiled that night as I recall." "Of course I remembered." She smirked. "That was the first time we actually spent the night together." "Yeah. I remember being woken at seven by the old guy downstairs complaining that we kept him awake all night." "You kept the old apartment, didn't you." She smoothed the skirt of her dress over her thighs. "Yeah." Mulder tried not to notice the legs that had first attracted him to her in the first place. "I couldn't move. Too many memories. I still can't sleep in the bed, though. I take the couch most nights. The others I'm either on a case or the nightmares are too much for me to handle. " "Or you're in the hospital." She added. Mulder didn't need to answer that one. Amanda reached into her purse for a second and Mulder found himself holding a photograph. It was a picture of a little boy. A grinning child of around six, with slanting hazel eyes, a full lower lip and a dimpled chin. "That's..." He stuttered. "Yes." Amanda looked away. "Yes, that's Dylan." "Shit, the poor kid got my godawful chin." Mulder laughed. Amanda shook her head and traced the line of Mulder's square jaw, running her thumb over his rounded chin. Mulder stared at her. His mouth fell open and he nearly whimpered when she touched him. "You know I never stopped wishing I could come back." Amanda told him, stroking the soft skin over his cheekbone. Mulder grasped her wrist and pulled her hand away. "Don't, Amanda. Don't touch me. Don't tell me you never stopped thinking about me. Don't make me start to care for you." "You don't care for me?" "I did until I walked into that office to find you sitting in my chair." He released her arm. "Amanda, why?" "I told you why..." "No. Why come back? Why now? I was over you." "I don't know..." "Yes you do." He laughed. "You know. It was to fuck things up between me and Scully, wasn't it?" Amanda looked away. "You all figured that if my dead wife, who I had never told anyone about, turned up one day, my all trusting partner would blow her nut." Mulder licked his lips. "You thought she would turn her back on me. Or at least some of the trust would disappear." "Fox-" "Or was it another attempt at putting me back in a Sanitarium?" Mulder asked her. She didn't make a sound. "Or is this another attempt at a deal? Are you offering me my wife and child back, Amanda?" She was still silent. "Because none of that is going to make a difference to me. You should know that. I expected more from them." Amanda stood. "Are you leaving, now?" Mulder didn't even look up. "Yes." She pulled a pack of cigarettes from her purse and offered him one. He declined. "I gave up a while ago. I thought you'd know that." "I did. I also know that every now and then you sneak the sly smoke." Mulder raised his eyebrows. "My guilty secret is out." Amanda offered the pack again, and this time he pulled a cigarette from it's cardboard confines. "I only do it when I feel like a bit of self-mutilation." Mulder admitted. "I sit there and take poison into my lungs... and I enjoy it. It makes me think of him... and how I could so easily become him." "So it's not the nicotine that does it for you?" Amanda flipped the lid of her lighter and held the flame to the end of Mulder's cigarette. "Hell no." Mulder looked at the photo in his hand as he exhaled a noxious cloud. "It's the thought of all that lovely cyanide and all those carcinogens doing my body harm." Amanda knew he was more than half-serious. "I'm sorry, Mulder." Mulder just handed her the picture of his son. She pushed it away. "Keep it." Mulder smiled at the picture, and didn't watch as Amanda walked away. "I want you to know that I meant what I said about wanting to come back." Amanda stopped. "I had a new name, a new life, and a kind of protection from everything that I didn't think possible. All I wanted was you." "That's nice to know." Mulder brought the cigarette to his lips. "It's the truth." "The truth? Oh yeah. I'm familiar with that one." Amanda turned her back on him. "Can I see him, Amanda?" Mulder asked, stroking the photo he held in his hands. "I can't let you meet him, Fox. I'm sorry. I won't do that to him. He'll know who you are, and I won't take you away from him." She paused. "I won't take him away from you either." Mulder shook his head, trying not to get up and hit her. "I just want to see him." "You'll see him." She assured him. "I promise you that." And Mulder let her go. Some time later, he still sat in the same spot, watching the sun disappear beyond the DC skyline. The photograph was still clutched in his right hand. Amanda's ring had found a place on his pinky finger. "How are you?" He wasn't startled by her voice. He knew she'd find him eventually. "I'm fine, Scully." He sighed. "Ooh. Where have I heard that one before?" She sat by his side. Mulder continued to stare at the pinks and oranges of the setting sun reflected in the waters of the Potomac. "Mulder-" Scully began, but he cut her off with a hand gesture. "You want to know why I didn't tell you." "Give the boy a gold star." She placed a Styrofoam cup in his hand and he took a sip of the sweet coffee. He grimaced. "I don't take sugar in my coffee, Scully." "It's good for shock." "I thought that was sweet tea?" Scully shrugged. "The machine was out." "Oh." He placed the cup on the step by his side. "How can you have kept that from me, Mulder." Scully splayed her hands. "I just don't understand how you could not tell me something that important." "I didn't tell you in the beginning, Scully, because I didn't trust you enough." He scratched the back of his neck. "You were a spy, you admitted it yourself." "I wasn't a spy. I was..." "A spy." Scully made the small sound of exasperation at the back of her throat that he loved. "But Mulder, we soon established a... a partnership. A friendship. Are you saying that you never trusted me enough?" Scully asked. Mulder looked at her and shook his head almost imperceptibly. "Don't be stupid, Scully. There was just a point that we passed, and there was no way I could tell you after that." "Don't be pathetic." "I'm not." Mulder defended. "Five years, Mulder. Five years. You couldn't have told me?" "I've wanted to." "Even after Emily..." She took in a sharp breath at the raw pain she still felt. "You couldn't tell me after I lost a daughter? You couldn't share your pain with me? You couldn't tell me that you knew what it was like to lose a child?" Mulder worried his lower lip between his teeth. "I remember standing in that church with you, Scully. I watched you turn and take Emily's flowers from her coffin and move to open the lid. I remembered the day of the funeral... Dylan, my son, had a separate coffin. It matched his mother's. It was white, and it was adorned with the same yellow and white lilies that I brought for Emily. It was tiny. So unbelievably small." His voice cracked slightly as he spoke. "I didn't want him when I first found out Amanda was pregnant. I didn't *not* want him, though. I came around to the idea. But I never got to be a father. I never got to know him. I never even saw him." Scully reached out to take his hand. "I'm sorry." "I wanted to tell you then, Scully. But I felt selfish burdening you with my emotions at the time when your pain was so intense." Mulder wiped a stray droplet of salt water from the corner of his eye. "But at least you got to be with Emily, Scully. You got to hold her. You had a chance to love her." "Dylan isn't dead, Mulder, is he?" Mulder looked down at the picture in his hand, and gave it to Scully as answer. "He looks like you." She glanced at him, judging his state of mind by studying his eyes. She had the talent honed to a fine art. Mulder nodded. "What is going to happen, Mulder?" She asked. "I'll never meet him." Mulder took the picture back. "I'll never be his dad." "Do you want to be?" "In a way." Mulder cocked his head to one side. "I'm in love with the idea. But I know, realistically, that it could never happen. It wasn't meant to be. He's not mine." Mulder didn't make sense. He rarely did. It was what she loved most about him. Scully squeezed his hand and released it, turning to look past him. It was then that she saw her. Amanda. And a little boy. "Mulder." She tapped his shoulder. "What?" He looked to where she was pointing. "Scu-" He felt something deep inside him coil tight and clutched at Scully's arm. Amanda held the child's small hand, walking with him past the memorial. "That's my son." He murmured, watching as Amanda led the boy dressed in back jeans and a white sweater along the bank of the river. He was speaking, his eyes bright and his movements animated. Mulder wanted desperately to hear his voice just once. His jaw clenched with the effort it took not to get up and run after his fantasy family. Scully didn't know what to say, so she gave him silent support. Amanda passed by Mulder and Scully as they sat before the beautiful white edifice surrounded by cherry trees. "Are there sharks in the water, Momma?" Mulder struggled to make out the words, and smiled at their familiarity. Eventually, the boy and his mother were lost into the horizon. "She kept her promise." Mulder said, his voice was empty, like he had been drained of feeling. "Mulder, she still loves you. She wasn't lying about that." Scully tried to ignore the pang of jealousy she felt. "There are so many things she could tell you if you'd let her. So many answers she could give you.." "I wouldn't let her even if she offered." Mulder mumbled. "Why not?" "Because they'd punish her." Mulder glanced behind him at the monument erected in memory of Thomas Jefferson. "We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain rights that among these are life, liberty, and a pursuit of happiness." He quoted perfectly. The old eidetic memory at work. "I wouldn't take those rights away from my son." Scully saw his shoulders slump and brought his slender body into her embrace. Why did it always have to be like this? In the movies, Mulder would have realized his undying love for Amanda, they'd have ridden off together into this sunset, and Mulder would have been given the chance to love his child the way he wanted to. Of course, in the movies she'd be 5 foot eight with blond hair and a bust that filled a D cup. Life seldom worked out that way. These ambiguous, pain filled endings were almost getting routine. Just more pain they had to deal with. Just more answers they had to find. Just another day in the X Files Universe. "Mulder?" Scully touched her lips to his forehead briefly before resting her chin atop his head. "Yeah?" His voice rumbled over her shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her. "Have you been smoking?" END Tell me what ya think! Was it worth reading? Did you laugh, cry, puke, all of the above? I need to know! PLEASE send me feedback. PLEASE!!!!!!!! Please? Yeah!! Okay, you want to send that message to DxSCULLYxx@aol.com. Got it? Good. Now, go compose that e-mail!