From: "Satch X" Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 22:03:08 +0000 Subject: NEW: This Is Happening Source: direct Title: This Is Happening Author: Satch Spoilers: This Is Not Happening, SUZ and Closure Rated: PG-13 Category: S Keywords: Alternative ending Summary: A different, HAPPY ending to This Is Not Happening Disclaimer: These are Fox, 1013 and Chris Carter's characters, not mine Feedback: yes please! xsatch@hotmail.com Author's notes: Does anyone else think it sucked that Scully had to go through so much pain in season 8? I can't stand the way This Is Not Happening ended, and what really bugged me was this: why didn't Jeremiah Smith heal Mulder as soon as they got back to Absalom's place? Why waste time dumping Mulder's body out in the woods instead of curing him straight away? It just doesn't make sense to me, so this fic is what I think should have happened instead. THIS IS HAPPENING 8:16pm The two men carefully set their blanketed burden on a bed. "We must hurry", gasped Jeremiah. "They are coming. I can feel it. We don't have much time left." Absalom nodded uneasily. Jeremiah Smith had been edgy ever since that federal agent had seen them earlier, and had certainly broken the speed limit in his rush to drive back to the safety of their farm. "I'll get some clothes for his body." "I don't have time to wait for you", replied Jeremiah urgently. He pulled the blanket away from the head of the limp body to reveal the face of Fox Mulder. Laying his hands on Mulder's cold face, he closed his eyes and concentrated, using all his energy to will Mulder's recovery. The hardest part was restoring the chemistry of Mulder's body to normal, undoing the biological time bomb created in the man during his unconsenting time on board the alien ship. Slowly, Jeremiah could feel Mulder's health returning as the virus within him died. Absalom, carrying a bundle of clothes, ran back to where his friend was tending the abductee in time to see the last physical traces of torture disappear from Mulder's face. A wave of awed emotion swept through Absalom as he saw that one more person had been saved from a fate worse than death as a result of their efforts. Seeing people miraculously healed by his unearthly friend made Absalom happy in a way nothing else ever could. Jeremiah looked up and smiled. "He is safe now." His smile fading, he continued, "But I am not. I must leave here immediately. I will take this man with me and drive him nearer to his home." "You know him?" asked Absalom, finding himself only mildly surprised after all that Jeremiah had said and done. "I met him a few years ago. He wanted me to heal his mother, but I was prevented from doing so by a bounty hunter. And if I don't leave here imminently, I fear a bounty hunter may find me and successfully accomplish his mission." Absalom nodded and quickly dressed Mulder's unconscious body in trousers, socks, t-shirt and a coat. Together they wrapped him in a fresh blanket and carried him outside, where they placed him in the passenger seat of Absalom's pickup. "I have to go now", Jeremiah said, "But you must stay here. The others will need you." A sudden fear gripped Absalom. "You're coming back, right?" "I doubt I'll be able to. I can sense something approaching, and while I am sure that you and the others will not be physically harmed, I must make myself scarce. Too much depends on me to risk getting caught, which I fear will happen if I linger any longer." "Will I see you again?" "I don't know", sighed Jeremiah. With that, he started the pickup's engine and drove away into the night, leaving Absalom staring helplessly after the dust left in the vehicle's wake. Ten minutes after Jeremiah had turned onto the highway, a convoy of federal vehicles approached the dirt driveway of Absalom's farm from the opposite direction. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 11:21pm Scully wearily entered her motel room. It had been a long day, and having interviewed Absalom, she was sure he was hiding something. The most frustrating thing was that she didn't know what, exactly, he was hiding... though she sensed that what he was hiding was in some way connected to Mulder. Flipping the light switch on her way in, her frustration rose a notch when her room remained dark. Damn! Couldn't anything go right for her? "Are you okay?" came Agent Reyes' voice from behind her. Scully whirled round a little too fast. "Yeah. Just a little tired." "And edgy", commented Reyes. "It's been a long day. I guess we're all tired." Smiling, she said gently, "Hope you get a good night's sleep." "Uh, thanks. You too", replied Scully uncertainly, closing her door. As soon as Scully laid her head down on her pillow, she fell asleep. Scully dreamed. It was a starry night and she was on a desserted highway, which a sign announced was Route 42. A bright light appeared on the horizon, and at first she thought it was a UFO, but as the light came nearer, she saw it was the bright headlights of a pickup truck. Scully stared dumbly as it slowed down and stopped in front of her. A man with fluffy grey hair got out and approached her. "My name is Jeremiah Smith", the man told her, "And all I want to do is help you." "How can you help me?" asked Scully. "I have already helped you by helping Mulder." Walking back towards the pickup, he helped a man out of the passenger side door. The man looked up, and Scully saw, with amazed delight, that it was Mulder. Mulder spoke. "I am back from the dead. All I need now is a ride back home." "But can't Jeremiah..." There was no point finishing the sentence, as Scully saw that the pickup, headlights and all, had disappeared without a trace while Mulder was talking. "I'll be waiting right here for you on Route 42", Mulder said, then started to turn transparent. Scully could hear a bleeping noise as she watched Mulder fade out of sight, and the bleeping was getting louder. Scully awoke with a start, and groggily reached out a hand to silence her bleeping alarm clock. The clarity and benevolence of the dream remained with her like a blanket, and she knew it had been no ordinary dream. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 7:16am Mulder's first conscious thought was that he must be dreaming. Pain, his old and familiar companion of the last three months, was absent, as was Agony, Pain's big brother. But he was not currently in Pain's dreaded embrace, so he must be dreaming, and he didn't want to wake up to find himself once again in the cold metal chair. How damn ironic, he thought. Been chasing spaceships all his adult life and when he finally gets to ride in one, all he wants to do is leave. Maybe once, long ago, he'd had a boyhood dream of going into space, but his abduction was a sick and twisted parody of that dream, a fevered nightmare. This was a very vivid dream. Or was it actually reality? Mulder didn't dare to hope so, yet he could smell fresh air. Actual fresh air, not the deathly smell of decay that lingered onboard the ship. Slowly, he opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the sky, pale blue in the light of dawn. Could this be real? Could he really not be in the alien torture chamber anymore? Was this more than just a hallucination? Mulder cautiously flexed his fingers, expecting to feel a stab of pain in his wrist from the cruel metal bar restraining his arm. He felt nothing, just a slight stiffness. He raised his hand to his eyes, amazed to see no marks, feel no pain, smell no decay. Mulder sat up cautiously, expecting to wake up at any minute. Again, no pain, just stiffness in his muscles, the kind of stiffness that reminded him of sitting up in a hospital bed after not having moved for days. He touched his face and discovered the expected pain of metal piercing his flesh was absent - he could not even feel any marks where the spikes had tortured his face, just the light scratch of unshaved stubble. Mulder pinched himself to see if this was a dream or not, and when the light pain registered in his brain and he still didn't wake up, Mulder decided that maybe this was really happening. He stretched, then stood up on wobbly legs. He was next to a highway, and after a brief moment of indecision, Mulder began to walk along the side of it as the sun peeped over the horizon. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx If not for the case of that poor girl Amber Lynn LaPierre, Skinner may well have dismissed Scully's vivid dream about Mulder as nothing more than wishful thinking. It had not even been light when Scully had banged on his motel room door and convinced him to drive out here. Skinner cast his mind back to that case from a few months ago. He remebered how Amber's mother had claimed to have seen a vision of her daughter saying the number 74 over and over again, although the number had not meant anything to her. And then how Scully had realised that the number referred to a road, which had led them to the sick bastard who had murdered all those innocent children. That hauntingly accurate leap of logic had engraved itself on his memory, so that when Scully insisted they drive to Route 42 because she had dreamed Mulder was there, he had not even questioned her judgement. Not exactly a by-the-book way of searching for a missing person, but Vietnam had taught him that sometimes you had to ignore conventional wisdom and trust your instincts. And his instincts told him to trust Scully's dream. "We've arrived at Route fourty two." Scully's voice pulled Skinner out of his reverie, and he turned onto Route 42. "Sir, could you slow down along here?" Slightly embarassed, Scully added, "It's just that I don't want to risk missing Mulder." Skinner nodded and slowed down to twenty miles an hour. As he did so, the sun started to rise from the horizon in a benevolent blaze of colour. Skinner hoped that this was a good omen. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 7:55am Hunger was what finally convinced Mulder beyond all doubt that he was not in a dream. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so hungry; it was as if a restless tiger had taken up residence in the place where his stomach was supposed to be, a tiger who would not sleep until he had eaten. Despite his hunger, all Mulder could think of was Scully. How had his absence affected her? How long had he been missing for, anyway? What, if anything, had changed while he'd been gone? Would he return to find his Scully with another man? Mulder was so deep in thought that he walked straight into a hard metal post. He glared in annoyance at the offending post to see it was a roadsign proclaiming 'Route 42'. As he was rubbing his banged head, he heard a car approaching in the distance from behind him. He turned around, suddenly full of an intensely positive anticipation. Somehow, he just knew everything was going to be alright. In the passenger deat, Scully was keeping a sharp lookout for any signs of Mulder. As the car reached the top of a small hill, Scully thought she saw the silhoutte of a man in the distance - although it was difficult to tell for sure, as the light of the newly arisen sun was shinig directly in her eyes. As they drove closer time seemed to slow down. As if from a great distance Scully could hear Skinner gasp the exclaim "My God! Is that really Mulder?!" Scully would have replied, but was overcome with an irrational superstition that if she said Mulder's name out loud it would somehow jinx this. As they slowed to a stop in front of the man, Scully felt like she was in a dream as she recognised Mulder's familiar face. She noted with a shiver that Mulder was standing in front of a roadsign which announced this was Route 42. Mulder, from where he was standing, was glad when he saw the approaching car slow to a stop. It reminded him of the kind of rental car he and Scully had often driven during various cases, and the woman sitting in the passenger seat of the car even had Scully's auburn hair. As the auburn haired woman slowly got out of the car, he realised with amazement that he was actually looking at Scully herself! There was a space of a few metres between Mulder and Scully as they stood staring at each other in incredulous delight. Skinner, still in the driver's seat of the car, felt a complex wave of emotions washing over him as he sat watchng the reunion of his two favourite agents. Primarily he felt relief at finding Mulder alive and apparently healthy, and he could feel the guilt of the last few months draining from his system. He almost felt as if he was having a religious experience as he watched Scully slowly approach the man framed in sunlight. She uttered one word - "Mulder" - as she stood a foot away from him, and that one word conveyed so much happiness that Skinner felt his eyes water. Mulder replied in a whisper that Skinner's sharp ears could only just detect, "Scully". Then, reunited at last, the two soulmates embraced each other with a fierce eagerness as the sun continued to rise. END "Eventually the sun always came up." --'Dreamcatcher' by Stephen King Author's notes: About half way through writing this, I realised that this alternative version of "This Is Not Happening" would quite probably have repercussions on the rest of season 8. I'm toying with the idea of writing a longer story that deals with these repercussions, such as Jeremiah Smith still being around to fight the alien colonists. Does anyone actually want me to write a sequel? Please send any comments or constructive criticism to xsatch@hotmail.com :)