By Rachel Anton
RAnton1013@aol.com
 

Category: S, X

Rating: R

Keywords: M/S UST, myth arc, angst

Summary: The temporal lobe of the brain controls auditory and visual memories as well as fear and some aspects of the personality. Synonyms for temporal include transitory, ephemeral, brief and fleeting.

Spoilers: Up to and including Closure

Distribution: Okay for Gossamer, ChronX and Spookys. Others, please ask first.

Disclaimer: Most of these characters don't belong to me.

Notes at the end
 

xxxxxx

Temporal Functions
By Rachel Anton
 

She's back in that apartment, standing in front of that couch, talking on the phone recording words she doesn't understand on the answering machine that belongs to a man she's sure she knows, but whose name she can never remember. The fact that she knows what happens next doesn't lessen the impact. It doesn't scare her any less when the window breaks and the hands grab her and she is tied- tied so tight it hurts and the thing is on her mouth and she can't breathe and then the trunk- God, the trunk again.
 

This is the part that terrifies her the most, chills her. She's always been claustrophobic and this, this is just too much. The dark and the air in here and the smell. It smells like rotting flesh.
 

Then the car is moving and she's sure she'll vomit. What if she vomits? The tape over her mouth- she'll choke to death on her own puke.
 

She starts to cry.
 

Next she's on the mountain. The man rips the tape from her mouth and he's laughing.
 

"Where are we?" she demands.
 

"Skyland Mountain," he tells her though his maniacal giggles. And then again, "Skyland Mountain!"
 

Skyland Mountain Skyland Mountainskylandmountain. She runs it through her head over and over, knowing it's important, but not understanding why.
 

Then they come and she is floating, floating away and it feels good, like she's flying, but she knows she isn't going to a good place. She isn't going to heaven like she should be.
 

Now she's back on the table, the slab, and when she sees the needle and the man (not a man, a monster) who's holding it, she screams.
 

xxxxxx
 

Dorian woke up biting her pillow. She'd trained herself to do that, to stifle her sleep screaming. The first couple of times it had frightened Daniel and Steph and she'd forced herself to learn how to stop. She didn't want to frighten them.
 

That's why she'd never told them, or anyone, about the dream. It had been the same dream every night for close to six months now. The apartment, the man, the creatures and the probing. Scenes straight out of those alien abduction books Steph was so fond of reading. Sometimes Dorian wished Steph would get the dreams instead since she was so damn interested.
 

Always the same dream, but this time there was something new. Skyland Mountain.
 

She reached over to the night stand and sleepily scrawled the two words on the notepad she kept next to her bed. It had seemed important during the dream, but now it was just more nonsense. Oh well. It was time to get up anyway.
 

She turned off the alarm seconds before it was set to go off and headed for the shower.
 

By the time she was dressed and ready for work, Daniel was practically bouncing off the walls. He'd already inhaled nearly half a box of cereal and now he was ready to go.
 

She'd been taking him with her to The Black Sheep lately. Steph was always willing to baby-sit since she worked nights, but Dorian was starting to feel guilty. Besides, Daniel was getting to be a lot to handle. He was always hyper and wanting to go somewhere, hated being cooped up in the house which was where Steph liked to spend the majority of her time. It seemed like the best solution was for Dorian to take him to work with her until he started pre-school in the fall.
 

"Mommy Mommy, less' goooooo," he whined, pulling at her pant leg as she tried to put together a quick bagel for breakfast. She smeared some butter on both halves and stuck it in a plastic baggy and then into her purse.
 

"All right, Mommy's almost done," she reassured him. She took his hand in hers and took him to the closet, bundled him up for the cold. It was snowing again today. Sometimes she thought it would never stop.
 

As she fumbled with her own coat, she looked enviously towards the couch. Steph and Elaine were crashed out, the TV quietly droning "Good Morning America" as they slept peacefully, their arms wrapped tight around each other. Must've fallen asleep watching that stupid horror movie marathon last night.
 

Dorian couldn't understand how they could sleep through Hurricane Daniel, or even how they managed to fall asleep in the first place. They were so close to each other, so snuggled up. She'd never been able to sleep with someone sprawled over her, suffocating her. Maybe that was part of the reason she hadn't shared her bed with a man in close to eight months.
 

Dorian sighed, allowing for a moment of loneliness and self pity. But only a moment. There were more pressing concerns at hand. Or rather, hands pressing into her leg. Sticky ones.
 

"Maah-MEE!"
 

"All right, all right. Let's go."
 

xxxxxx
 

Once they got to work, Daniel calmed down considerably. She sat him at his favorite table by the window and gave him a book, and he was content. He liked to read so much, such advanced material for a four year old.

Hell, reading at all was advanced for a four year old. Sometimes Dorian thought he was some kind of child prodigy. She didn't want to think about that, though. She was proud of her son's intellect, but she wanted him to have a normal life. Not like her.
 

The new morning baker she'd hired the week before was already there and everything was ready. He was sort of a hulking guy and he'd flirted with her during the interview. She'd been flattered and mildly excited until she realized he was nineteen years old. He was going to UMass at night, trying to get a degree in mechanical engineering or something. She didn't know much else about him, but as long as he could make decent coffee and muffins and showed up on time, she didn't really care.
 

"Morning, boss," he greeted her when she came behind the counter to count out the register. She laughed a little at the title. She wasn't really the boss, just the manager. Everyone who worked at The Black Sheep cafe was beholden to Mrs. Tomlinson, the cranky bitch who owned the place. Thankfully she didn't come around too often.
 

"You don't have to call me boss, Kirk. Dorian's fine."
 

"Hokay." He grinned and nodded and carried on with his business. Once she was finished counting the money and he was through putting up the coffee, they still had about twenty minutes left before they had to open.
 

"Hey, Dorian. Wanna see something funny?"
 

He opened his backpack and pulled out a newspaper. Not a newspaper, she realized upon closer examination. It was a copy of the Weekly World News. Dorian suppressed the urge to roll her eyes and said, "Sure."
 

He handed her the paper, open to a page with a photo that nearly made her gasp. It was a drawing obviously, not an actual photo although the paper claimed that it was. But God, it looked just like the things in her dreams. More so than any other renderings she'd seen.
 

ALIENS SET TO INVADE ON NEW YEAR'S EVE 2001

The headline announced ridiculously. On the opposite page was the story Kirk seemed to find so amusing- something about a man born with twelve testicles, but she was more interested in the other article. She skimmed through it, looking for the words Skyland Mountain. She was about to put the paper down, realizing how silly she was being, but something caught her eye.
 

-If you've had experiences with alien visitors or think you've been abducted, you're not alone.-
 

There was a name and an address at the bottom of the page, someone to contact if you had a story to tell. She wouldn't have thought twice about it if the name hadn't looked so familiar. And if the address hadn't been the place where she knew the FBI was housed. FBI. Couldn't be a total crackpot, right?
 

Maybe she'd have to write to Fox Mulder, FBI, one of these days.
 

xxxxxx
 

Two weeks later
 

Fox Mulder, FBI, woke up with a hard-on. That wasn't unusual of course, but it was unusual for there to be someone's mouth on it. It was even more unusual for that mouth to belong to Dana Scully.
 

God, could life get any better, he wondered as the woman of his dreams continued to ease him into consciousness with a blow job.
 

He knew it never would for him, anyway. This was the happiest he'd ever been.
 

She must've been doing this for some time while he slept because he was already very close. He reached down and pulled the blankets off of them so that he could view the final moments.
 

"Mmm...morning, Scully," he muttered through a groan, watching her little head bob up and down on his cock. She squeezed his balls lightly in response.
 

Oh yeah, he could get used to this. No problem.
 

He came into her mouth just as the alarm went off. And then he woke up again, coming onto his pillow.
 

"Fuck," he grumbled, shoving the pillow over the side of the bed. Another stupid dream. You'd think that after seven years of lusting after somebody, eventually the wet dreams would stop.
 

It wouldn't bother him so much if it weren't for the laundry. And the laundry wouldn't bother him so much if the fluids he had to wash out came from the two of them together rather than just him.
 

Soon, he told himself. It would be very soon. That's why the dreams were happening so frequently lately. They were closer to it than ever. Soon he would take her to this bed and make love to her. Just as soon as she told him to.
 

He kicked away the sheets, pulled the pillowcase off of his nighttime friend and tossed it in the hamper. It was time to get ready for work.
 

xxxxxx
 

Scully was there, early as usual and smiling when he came in. He smiled back, genuinely happy to see her. He couldn't remember exactly when things started to get so good between them again, but it didn't matter. He was just glad it was happening.
 

Maybe it was because he'd finally kissed her. Seemed to have cheered up her disposition considerably. They'd always had an advance and retreat sort of relationship, but lately it was just advance advance advance.
 

Soon.
 

He took a seat at his desk and started chomping on the muffin he'd brought with him, flipping through his mail.
 

"Anything interesting today?" she asked him. She was typing something up on her computer. Probably the case report for that guy with twelve testicles thing. Who knew something like that would drive a person to murder?
 

"Apparently I may have already won twenty-five million dollars."
 

"Good. You're gonna need it when I turn in this expense report."
 

Yep, had to be the testicle guy.
 

He found himself wondering, for what had to be the millionth time, if Scully had any interest in anal sex. Any at all.
 

He was just about ready to dump the whole pile of junk mail into the trash when something caught his eye. It looked like a letter from a real person, something he rarely received. Especially with a return address.
 

Dorian Mayes. From Northampton, Massachusetts.
 

He searched for the letter opener and prayed that Dorian Mayes wasn't a friend of the family.
 

The letter was typed on stationery from a business called The Black Sheep. There was a little picture on the top of a black sheep sitting on a stool, crossing its legs and holding a tea cup. Mulder wondered what the hell kind of business had a picture like that on their stationery.
 

Mr. Mulder,
 

You don't know me, but I saw your name in a newspaper. This sounds very peculiar and if I'm mistaken, I apologize, but it said that you helped people who've had alien abduction experiences.
 

If that's not the case I'm sure you've thrown this in the trash by now, but if it is, I'd really like to talk to you, I think. The thing is, I've been having these dreams almost every single night for six months. When they first started, I thought it was stress or too much imagination, but at this point I'm starting to wonder if it's not something more.
 

The dream starts in what feels like my apartment, but I've never actually been there. I'm leaving a message on someone's answering machine and then a man breaks my window and kidnaps me. He takes me to a mountaintop and I'm sort of levitated onto this ship. I'm laid out on a metal slab and there are these little gray men with big heads who stick me in the belly with a very long needle. That's usually when I wake up.
 

The dreams are so frequent and so terrifying that I'm almost afraid to go to sleep at night. Does any of this mean anything to you? I really don't know what to think of it.
 

Oh, and in a recent dream the kidnapper told me in that we were on Skyland Mountain. I don't know if that's important or not.
 

Anyway, it's probably nothing, but I was just wondering what you think.
 

Thanks for your time.
 

Dorian Mayes
 

Mulder stared at the letter for several minutes, watched the words bleed together, turned it over and over in his hands.
 

Skyland Mountain.
 

Skyland Mountain.
 

"Mulder, what is it?"
 

Scully was looking at him, her head tilted to the side in a show of concern. The disturbance he was feeling must have been reflected in his expression.
 

"N-nothing. Just some crackpot."
 

Her eyes were full of disbelief, but she let it go and went back to her work. He felt sick to his stomach, didn't want to lie to her, but couldn't even say the words. It had been so long since they'd last spoken about what happened to her. He wasn't even sure what her feelings were about it anymore.
 

And this woman, what did she want? Was this even real or just someone taunting him? She didn't seem to want him to come out there, or even to call her. There was no phone number in the letter, no way to contact her other than the address of the place she apparently worked. Mulder got the sense that if this was real, all the woman was looking for was for him to write back and tell her she was okay, she hadn't been taken by aliens.
 

If it was real she probably had no idea what those words meant to him, what Skyland Mountain meant to him. And to Scully.
 

"I think...I think I'm gonna go check this out, Scully."
 

"What is it, Mulder?"
 

"Probably nothing. Nothing you need to worry about. I just want to see if there's a case here."
 

When he stood up to leave his legs felt like jelly. He was actually frightened.
 

"Well, where are you going?"
 

"Massachusetts. I'll probably be back tonight. I'll call you if anything comes up."
 

He was out the door before she had a chance to ask any more questions.
 

xxxxx
 
 

There were days when Dorian loved her job. She enjoyed interacting with the customers, being constantly enveloped in the aroma of coffee brewing and cookies baking, the cozy, family-like atmosphere she and her co-workers had managed to create. The pay wasn't bad, all things considered. She didn't dread getting out of bed and coming to The Black Sheep every morning, didn't let it bother her when the occasional irate individual with too much time and misery on his hands would demand to see the manager because his coffee was too hot or his muffin too doughy. She always handled it with grace and diplomacy, if not without an edge of sarcasm.
 

Yes, she liked her job well enough, but sometimes she wondered if she might be missing out on something. She wondered if maybe she weren't a little bored.
 

As she typed the weekly order into her computer, she pondered these questions. What kind of job was she really meant for? What had she wanted for herself before? Surely it couldn't have been this.
 

She was lost in thought when Kirk poked his head into her office.
 

"There's someone here to see you, Dorian."
 

She figured it would be one of those cranky customers, looking for someone to blame for...well, everything, and she couldn't help rolling her eyes. Couldn't help it today for some reason.
 

She went out to the store and scanned the crowd, looking for the troublemaker. She could usually spot them a mile away, but there didn't seem to be anyone with that trademark puss in the vicinity.
 

There was something out of place, though. Something wrong. Someone was talking to Daniel.
 

She always tried not to be one of those overbearing, overprotective, bordering on insane mothers, but it was hard sometimes. She couldn't help it. Seeing her only son talking to strangers made her very nervous.
 

Kirk pointed towards the table, indicating that the man talking to Daniel was the one who'd wanted to see her.
 

Dorian rushed over to them, getting more concerned by the minute. It turned out that Daniel was talking to the man about his new favorite book, "James and the Giant Peach". He was chattering on and on in his usual sing-song tone, telling this man everything he never wanted to know about peaches.
 

"Danny, why don't you go to Mommy's office and play on the computer now," she interrupted. The boy looked up at her defiantly.
 

"But I wanna stay out here and talk to Mister Mouldy!"
 

Mister Mouldy?
 

"Daniel, what did Mommy say?"
 

He put on his best, most over-used pout, but he obeyed her.
 

"You're being mean today," he told her as he scampered towards the counter. Once he was safely in the office she turned to the stranger. He looked like some kind of insurance adjuster or a vacuum cleaner salesman. Suited up and slick as hell. He didn't look like he belonged in Northampton at all, never mind at the Black Sheep.
 

And he was looking at her *very* strangely.
 

"Did you need to see the manager?" she asked him. He continued to stare blankly at her, as if she were some kind of mutant whose existence completely befuddled him.
 

"Are you the new Karp's rep? They told me they were sending someone over here today."
 

He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Just a peculiar squeaking sound.
 

She wondered if he was mentally ill or just bedazzled by her beauty. Either way he was getting on her nerves.
 

"I'm Dorian Mayes," she introduced herself, extended her hand in hopes of getting some kind of verbal response from the man. He seemed one step away from catatonia. He'd been talking with Daniel quite animatedly before, but now...
 

Maybe she had a booger hanging out of her nose.
 

After a couple of seconds he took hold of her dangling hand and half-shook it. His palm was clammy and he was shaking. She wondered if maybe he was really sick. Maybe he wanted to talk to her because he'd gotten food poisoning from the place.
 

"I'm the manager here. Can I do anything for you?" she tried again.
 

He pulled his hand back and ran it over his face, squeezing his eyes shut and then opening them again.
 

"I..." he started, but didn't finish.
 

"Look, do you have a card or something? That might make this easier."
 

He nodded mutely and fumbled around the pocket of his jacket.
 

"I...I'm Fox Mulder," he finally managed to spit out and then handed her his wallet. It was opened to what looked like some kind of ID card. A badge, she realized. FBI. Fox Mulder. My God, it was the man from the Weekly World News.
 

No wonder he was such a freak.
 

"Wow, you um..."
 

She laughed a little and sat down across from him.
 

"I didn't expect you to come here. I mean I thought you'd call or write or something, if anything."
 

He just nodded. No explanation whatsoever for his random appearance. She was starting to regret writing that letter in the first place. She really didn't need this kind of weirdness.
 

"Would you like some coffee or something, Agent Mulder?"
 

He shook his head mutely, his mouth slightly agape.
 

She watched a bead of sweat drip down the side of his face and wondered how anyone could be hot in here. She hadn't even been warm since October.
 

"Are you feeling all right, Agent Mulder? We can do this another time if you're ill."
 

"No, no I...I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
 

He shook his head and rubbed his eyes again.
 

"So you, you've been having these dreams?"
 

His voice got higher and higher throughout the sentence, reaching an almost feminine cadence by the time he got to the word dreams. Well, at least he was speaking.
 

"Yes, I have. They're quite horrible actually. There isn't much more than what I wrote in the letter, though. It's pretty much the same dream every single night. What I told you about it is all I can remember."
 

She wanted to ask him how her dream could be remarkable enough to drag him all the way to Massachusetts in the dead of winter, but she was almost afraid of the answer.
 

Besides, he was giving her that blank slate expression again.
 

"How old is your son?" he asked suddenly.
 

"My son?"
 

If her warning bells weren't ringing already, that was enough to set them off. What did Daniel have to do with any of this?
 

"He's four. Why?"
 

"Can you tell me something about your history, Miss Mayes?"
 

Her history. Great. If there was anything she loved to talk about, it was her history. Yet another reason she'd been avoiding relationships like the plague. Men always wanted to know about her childhood, her past jobs, her family. All the things she couldn't talk about.
 

It seemed like it could be at least marginally relevant to the discussion though, to the dreams. And despite her unfamiliarity with this man and perhaps even because of his bizarre behavior, she felt some sort of trust. Like he couldn't deceive or hurt her even if he tried.
 

She supposed it couldn't hurt to tell him her secret. It wasn't like she'd ever see him again after today anyway.
 

"Well, actually, it's funny that you mentioned Daniel," she started. "You see, I...I have amnesia."
 

She whispered the last word, leaned across the table to make sure he heard her, but that no one else did. The last thing she needed was for Kirk to start asking her all kinds of bizarre, soap-opera inspired questions about her condition.
 

She figured Agent Mulder would be surprised. Especially since everything else about her seemed so shocking to him, but he just nodded in response. Almost as if he'd expected her to say that.
 

Maybe it was related.
 

"How long?"
 

"Four years ago I was found wandering around in the woods," she told him, preparing herself to relay a story she'd only shared with Steph before.
 

"Four years ago, huh?"
 

He let out a sigh, like a deflating balloon, and covered his mouth with his hand. She thought he might be turning a little green.
 

"Agent Mulder, are you feeling all right? Would you like a glass of water?"
 

He shook his head, but he was making weird noises and his color was frightening her so she got up and went behind the counter anyway. She filled a glass with ice cold water and just as she was turning to walk back to him, she ran right into her bouncing son.
 

"Daniel, what are you doing out here? I thought I told you to go play on the computer."
 

"I wanna talk to Mister Mouldy!"
 

She sighed and handed him the glass.
 

"Here, go bring this to Mister Mul-Der and then go back and play your game, okay?"
 

Daniel took the large glass in his tiny hand and bounded towards the table at an alarming pace. Water splashed onto his pants and the floor.
 

"Don't run!" she called after him, but it was hopeless. He was such a bundle of energy. She had no idea how she was supposed to keep up.
 

She followed him out and watched him plop the now half-empty glass in front of the FBI agent. He smiled meekly at Daniel and thanked him, then swallowed all the water in one gulp.
 

"Wanna see what I did on the 'puter, Mister Mouldee-er?"
 

Daniel tugged on the poor man's jacket irritatingly and Dorian felt uncharacteristically embarrassed.
 

"Honey, you can't bring him back there."
 

"But *why*?"
 

Why was Daniel's favorite question. Sometimes Dorian didn't have an answer, like when he asked why there were so many stars or why every snowflake was different, but there was a good reason for this one.
 

"Because, Mister Mulder has lots of important things to do."
 

She almost told him that he was an FBI agent, but that would have been asking for more trouble. Daniel was fascinated with the police and guns. Sometimes she worried about that.
 

"He's very busy. He's got work to do, just like Mommy."

Daniel rolled his eyes at her.
 

"All adults do is work," he grumbled. She had to admit he was right about that.
 

"Now go back and be good or I'll have to call Steph to come take you home."
 

He threw up his hands in a gesture of aggravation and defeat and scurried back to the office.
 

"Go tell Kirk what a mean Mommy I am," she called after him.
 

"I will!" he shouted at the top of his voice and slammed the door of the office shut.
 

"My gosh, I'm so sorry," she said, sitting back down.
 

Agent Mulder chuckled, seeming somewhat recovered.
 

"No, it's okay. He's quite a kid."
 

"Quite a something. How are you feeling?"
 

"Fine. I'm fine. Can you, um, can you tell me something about what happened after you were found?"
 

She wished she'd gotten some water for herself. She was grateful for the memories she had, but these were not the best of them. It was difficult to think about that time.
 

"Well, they took me to the hospital, treated me for hypothermia. I woke up knowing nothing. Not even my own name. They checked me for signs of sexual assault and found none, but they discovered that I was pregnant. Of course I had no idea who the father was."
 

"What then?"
 

"Then a few days later, my father came to claim me."
 

"Your father?"
 

"Yes. He was the first person I'd seen who seemed familiar. He took me to his house up on the north side of town. He took care of me, told me some stuff about my life before."
 

Stuff that she still struggled to capture in her mind every day. Her father hadn't known who Daniel's father was, but he'd told her she'd been traveling in Europe before she disappeared. She looked at pictures of France and Italy as often as she could, hoping to remember the mans name, his face.
 

"Anyway, I stayed with him, and he and his housekeeper helped when I had Daniel. Eventually I got a job here and the housekeeper baby-sat for me. After three months I was asked to take the manager position."
 

"Do you still live with your father?"
 

"No, it wasn't too much longer before I found my own place with a roommate who loves to play nanny. I really needed to get out of that environment, for Daniel's sake."
 

"You were unhappy with your father?"
 

She felt a pang of guilt hearing the question. Her father loved her and Daniel and he'd done so much for them. She really shouldn't have been saying negative things about him to a stranger.
 

"No, not unhappy. It was just...well, he travels a lot. And there were always people coming and going, different people all the time. I just wanted Daniel to have a more predictable home life. Plus, he smokes like a chimney."
 

Agent Mulder closed his eyes and made another almost agonized sound. She was really starting to worry about him. Maybe he needed to go to the hospital or something.
 

"Are you sure you're all right?" she tried again. He nodded and ran his fingers through his hair.
 

"Miss Mayes, would you be willing to see a doctor?"
 

"A doctor?"

Another one? She'd seen so many and none of them had been any help at all. Of course, they might not have known what to look for.
 

"Yes, someone from the Bureau."
 

"Oh, um, I dunno. Are they local? I can't really take much time off from work. The only day I have free is Sunday."
 

"I'll bring someone down here."
 

"On a Sunday?"
 

"Yes, whenever you can. As soon as possible."
 

"Well, I suppose that would be all right. But why?"
 

"There are some tests I need to run."
 

Tests? God, she'd had every test known to man done on her when they'd found her. Hadn't she? Maybe he had a special Alien Abduction Test Kit or something.
 

"Well, what kind of tests?"
 

"Genetic."
 

Dorian laughed nervously and stood up from the table. He had to be joking, didn't he? What possible use could genetic tests be in this situation? She didn't like the sound of that at all.
 

"Um, I dunno. I dunno about this."
 

"It's very important."
 

Agent Mulder stood as well and looked at her with an almost frightening intensity. Lord, he was tall. She suddenly felt very overwhelmed.
 

"It's safe? And private?" she asked, backing just an inch or two away from him.
 

"Yes, completely."
 

"I really don't want my DNA floating around out there."
 

"I think it might be too late for that," he said, so quietly she almost thought he might have said something else.
 

He took a business card out of his wallet and handed it to her. It had his name, it really was Fox, and a cell phone number.
 

"Please call me if you've got any questions or if you have any more dreams."
 

"Agent Mulder, do you think I was taken? Like all those people claim to have been? I mean, it's ridiculous, isn't it? Spaceships and aliens..."
 

"I don't know if any of that is related to what happened to you."
 

"Then why are you so interested?"
 

"Because something happened. And it concerns me."
 

The way he said that chilled her to the bone. He sounded like her problems might be even worse than aliens and spacecraft and midnight abductions. He sounded like he knew something terrible about her and that he was involved somehow. She was about to ask him what he was thinking when Daniel came bounding out again, yelling "Mommeeeee," and ran straight into her leg.
 

He clutched her calf for dear life.
 

"I love you, Mommy."
 

She smiled and patted his head. He was such a sweetheart sometimes. It made up for all the times he drove her to the brink of madness.
 

"I love you too, honey."
 

Agent Mulder smiled, too, but it was an uncomfortable, strained smile.
 

"I'd better go. Meet me here Sunday? At noon?"
 

Dorian still wasn't sure if this was the greatest idea in the world. She was starting to get nervous about the whole thing.
 

"Please? It's very important."
 

Daniel gasped into her pant leg.
 

"Mister Mouldy's coming back again?" he asked excitedly.
 

"Yes, but just to see Mommy. You'll be at Grandpa's."
 

"You can bring him with you if you'd like," Agent Mulder interjected quickly. Daniel gasped again.
 

"Yes! Can I go, Mommy? Can I go, please?"
 

"Um, I suppose. If that's all right."
 

Mulder nodded. "Yes, it's fine. It won't take long."
 

He bent over and put his hands on his knees so that he could look Daniel in the eye.
 

"You'll be good for your mom, right?"
 

"Yes, I promise to be good. I promise!"

Agent Mulder smiled and ruffled Daniel's hair. He stood to his full height again, regarding Dorian with another unreadable and peculiar expression.
 

"Well, I guess I'll see you both on Sunday then."
 

"Bye!" Daniel waved his hand back and forth and Agent Mulder waved back.
 

"Bye, Daniel. It was nice to meet you."
 

Daniel giggled and ducked his head behind his mothers leg shyly.
 

"Um, th-thanks," Dorian said even though she still wasn't sure what in the world was going on or what this man thought he was going to be able to do for her. In a way though, just telling someone her story had lifted a burden off her.
 

She held out her hand and Agent Mulder shook it for the second time. His hand was as clammy and trembly as it had been before.
 

"Don't hesitate to call," he told her again before leaving.
 

As soon as he was out the door Kirk started teasing her about what must have looked like a very intense conversation. She supposed it had been.
 

"Shopping for Daddies?" he asked her with a smirk. Unfortunately Daniel was still clinging to her leg and heard him.
 

"Could Mister Mouldy be a Daddy?"
 

He looked up at her with such innocent hope in his eyes. It made her want to smack Kirk for being so thoughtless. She told him to get back to work and stop being such a funny guy. He did.
 

Then she turned back to her son to try to explain.
 

"No, honey. Mister Mul-der is a..."
 

She searched her vocabulary for an adequate word to describe what Mister Mulder was, but came up blank.
 

"He's just a friend, Daniel. Not a Daddy."
 

"But I like him! Look what he gave me!"
 

He searched through his pockets, dumping two nickels and a ball of lint on the floor in the process. Eventually he came up with a handful of what looked like some kind of nuts or seeds.
 

"What did he give you? Let me see those."
 

She was instantly suspicious of anything anyone gave her son. She held his hand up to her face and examined them, sniffed them. Sunflower seeds. Just normal sunflower seeds.
 

"Look, I can eat 'em like this!"
 

He popped one into his mouth, shell and all, and bit into it. Then he spit the shell right onto the floor.
 

"Daniel, don't eat them like that. Break off the shell first and throw it in the garbage."
 

"Mister Mouldi-eer ate them like that!"
 

"Well then Mister Mulder is messy. And Daddies can't be messy and neither can you. So don't eat them like that."

She knelt down beside him and proceeded to show her son how to eat a sunflower seed the right way, wondering in the back of her mind if Agent Mulder was in fact a Daddy for someone.
 

xxxxxxx
 
 

There were times when Mulder wondered if maybe his life was somebody's idea of a joke. Times when he grew so bitter, so full of self-pity and indignation that he thought he might choke on it. Usually when he felt that way, all he had to do was remember Scully.
 

Scully was the sanity, the solidity, the thing he was certain made it all worth it. If he had Scully he could say he'd gotten more out of life than he'd ever thought possible, more than most people got. If he had Scully, he was lucky.
 

Today he thought he might be a little too lucky. He had more Scully than he knew what to do with. More than should exist.
 

His legs were still shaking when he checked into the Super Eight on Route 9. By the time he got to his room, it was actually worse. The first thing he did was turn on the heater, full blast. He'd been hot at the coffee shop. Now he was violently cold, shivering.
 

He sat down on the side of the bed, feeling as though the room were tilting and rocking. He felt sea sick. Utterly nauseous.
 

"What the hell is going on?" he asked the empty room.
 

His first coherent thought upon seeing her had been that maybe Scully had a twin. Or a cousin who resembled her. Resembled. Hell, that woman was a dead ringer. Her hair was shorter, cut close to her head and it was more brown than red. Scully's natural color. She looked about ten or fifteen pounds heavier than Scully, but that could have just been the bulky sweater and baggy jeans she'd been wearing. Other than that, there was no difference. None at all. Even her goddamn voice was the same.
 

Of course, the Scully he knew wouldn't choose to live in this town if her life depended on it. Northampton, Massachusetts was a college town, so far left on the political spectrum it was practically falling off. It was a town full of lesbian separatists, vegan restaurants, beat up Volvos littered with bumper stickers spouting such sentiments as "Worship Mother Earth" and "Wiccan on Board". The dress was casual, but the politics were deadly serious.
 

It was a place he might have felt comfortable in if he'd chosen another path for himself. Maybe teaching at that college down the road from Amherst where the students raised their own sheep and received "evaluations" instead of grades, fooling around with all his cute, little tri-sexual students. Yes, he could have been happy here in another life. But Scully? No, not his Scully. She'd be packing her bags at the first midnight vigil to save the whales.
 

The problem was, the more he heard of her story, the more unlikely the missing twin theory began to sound. Even to his own desperate ears. And then when she'd told him about her father...
 

He moaned and clutched his head between his hands, suddenly overcome with a searing pain in his temples.
 

It was obvious that Dorian was unlike the clones he'd encountered previously. Unless she was lying to him, she didn't know what she was the way that the Kurt Crawford and Eve clones had. As far as he knew, she didn't have green, toxic blood like the replicas of his sister. She was something different. Something completely human.
 

He remembered Emily and how he'd wondered how many children they'd created using Scully's genetic material.
 

He had the same questions about Dorian. Were there other Scullys living in other towns not remembering where they came from?
 

He couldn't remember a time when he'd been so paralyzed with fear.
 

For an hour, maybe more, he sat on that bed, holding his head and trying to formulate some sort of plan. How the hell do you make a plan when something like this happens? Were there plans for this? Was there something he was supposed to be doing right now?
 

Eventually he took an aspirin.
 

Then he took two more and decided to call the Bureau and request that doctor. He asked for a geneticist and also for Scully's medical records.
 

Then he called the Bureau facility and requisitioned the necessary room and equipment for the tests. It made him feel like he was taking some sort of action, doing something to help the situation.
 

That feeling disappeared as soon as he hung up the phone. What good would tests do if this woman was a clone? What would he tell her? What would he tell Scully?
 

At about 6:30, two hours after he'd checked in, he decided to go for a jog. It was cold as a witch's tit outside, but Mulder didn't care anymore. He suddenly couldn't stand the thought of being caught between those four walls for another minute.
 

Once he was dressed, he pulled on a woolen hat and gloves and was just about ready to face the chill of a February night in Massachusetts.
 

His cell phone trilled from the bedside table when his hand touched the doorknob.
 

He stared at it for a moment, considering ignoring it. If he'd just gone a moment sooner he wouldn't have heard it at all.
 

But there was no use avoiding things. Whatever this was, it wasn't about to go away.
 

"Mulder," he answered reluctantly.
 

"Mulder, where are you?" A voice questioned from the other end. For a dizzy, twisted moment he wasn't sure if it was Scully or Dorian. But Dorian wouldn't have called him just Mulder. And she wouldn't have sounded so snappy.
 

"I'm in Massachusetts."
 

"Mulder, it's 6:30."
 

Yes, it certainly was. And he'd told her he was coming back tonight. That had been about all he'd told her which was, he suspected, why she sounded the way she did. She didn't take kindly to him running off without explanation anymore. Not that she ever had, but lately it seemed to really irritate her. Ever since they'd started kissing.
 

"I know. Scully, I'm not...I can't come back yet."
 

"Why not? What's going on, Mulder? Do I need to come up there?"
 

Oh God, Scully. Please. He thought he'd do anything to see her face right now. To hold her in his arms and feel her lips on his again. Just to know that it was her, to feel their connection. He felt so lost here, like he was floating without an anchor.
 

"No, no it's..."
 

She couldn't come here. He couldn't bring her here. What on Earth would she do? If the situations were reversed he was sure he'd have a nervous breakdown in her situation. He was close to one himself. She didn't need to know about this until it was necessary. Not until he got the results of those tests.
 

"It's what? Mulder?"
 

"You don't need to come out."
 

"Mulder, where are you staying?"
 

"I'm staying at the Super Eight."
 

"In?"
 

"It's on Route 9," he told her. Not to be cryptic, but because he was too confused and dizzy to realize she wanted the name of a town. She sighed on the other end.
 

For some reason he thought of Daniel at that moment, tugging at his mothers pant leg, reading James and the Giant Peach years before he should have been.
 

"Scully, are...are you okay?"
 

"What? Yes, I'm fine."
 

He wondered if she'd like to have a son like Daniel. If she'd like to have a son at all. He thought if she did have one, he'd be smart and spunky like Daniel was.
 

"Mulder, have you been drinking?" she asked quietly, without accusation. He must have sounded even worse than he felt.
 

"No, of course not."
 

"Well what's going on? What are you doing up there, Mulder?"
 

God, what the hell was he supposed to tell her anyway? He couldn't lie to her, but the truth was too frightening.
 

"Nothing. It's just a...a case. I'm trying to figure out...I..."
 

He got another shooting pain in his skull and drifted off. He didn't know as much about genetics as Scully, but he'd read something once that came back to him right then. That sheep they'd cloned, Dolly, wasn't she infertile?
 

"I don't know what I'm doing here, Scully," he practically whimpered into the receiver. He hadn't been drinking, but he was starting to feel a bit drunk. Or drugged. He felt like someone had dropped a dose of acid into his coffee. God, he wished he could touch her.
 

"Mulder..."
 

She still sounded annoyed, confused. She probably thought he was having a grand old time here without her.
 

"Scully, what do you dream about?"
 

He knew it was a bizarre question, guaranteed to get her even more suspicious, but he had to know. He didn't know why, didn't know what he wanted her answer to be. It just seemed like it might help for some reason.
 

"I...I don't know, Mulder."
 

"You don't know?"
 

"I don't remember them."
 

"Not ever?"
 

"Hardly ever. How is that relevant?"
 

He didn't know, but it made him sad.
 

"I just wanted to know," he told her honestly. She sighed again, probably figuring he was trying to distract her from asking more questions.
 

"Scully, do you remember our first case together?"
 

"Yes, of course I do. Mulder, what is this about? Are you sure you haven't been drinking?"
 

He was starting to think she might have a good idea with that drinking thing.
 

"Can you tell me what you remember about it? Please?"
 

"I remember that I hated you on sight. You were pompous, immature, self-obsessed and irrational."
 

He breathed a sigh of relief and sank down onto the mattress. It was Scully. He was talking to Scully. Thank God.
 

"I guess not much has changed, has it?" He smiled genuinely for the first time all day. She laughed a little bit, her quiet, gentle chuckle that he loved.
 

"No, Mulder, I guess it hasn't."
 

"I miss you, Scully."
 

"Mulder? Are you sure you're all right?"
 

"Yes, I think so."
 

He was all right now. As long as he could hear her and feel her with him somehow, know that she was real. But he didn't want to hang up the phone. He didn't want to be alone again.
 

"No strange brain treatments?"

"No, it's nothing like that. I promise."
 

But he had to admit to himself that it was very much like that. The feeling of it anyway. He might as well have been drilling holes in his own head.
 

"Okay. But if you want me to come up there, I will. No questions. No judgment. You know that right?"
 

If only it were that easy. If only he were protecting himself by keeping her away. Still, the words were comforting in their Scully-ness.
 

"Yes. I do know."
 

"Mulder?"
 

"Yes?"
 

"Is it...is it something about Samantha?"
 

God, this was too much. Her concern for him was starting to make his stomach ache.
 

"No, it's not. Listen, I need to go, Scully."
 

"Okay."
 

"I'll call you soon."
 

"If you don't, I will."
 

"I know," he said and then hung up his phone, feeling like he'd severed one of his own limbs when he was left with the empty silence.
 

xxxxxx
 

"Mulder, I need your help!"
 

Dorian woke up at five o'clock, the morning after she'd met Fox Mulder, calling these words into her pillow.
 

She'd had the dream again, she realized with hazy recollection. Same dream, but it hadn't come to its usual conclusion. She hadn't made it to Skyland Mountain tonight. She'd only made it to her floor, to calling out the name she could never before recollect. Mulder. The name was Mulder.
 

She turned on her light and scribbled the words into her notebook. "Mulder, I need your help." There were only so many things that could mean.
 

The first, and most palatable explanation was that her subconscious mind had put Fox Mulder into the dream, positioning him as some sort of savior. She told herself it made sense. He was the only one who knew about the dream and, despite his oddness, he seemed to want to help her in some way.
 

She wanted that to be the reason, but she feared that it wasn't. She feared that it was the other, more disconcerting possible solution. It could have been that Mulder was the name she'd been calling all along. The one she could never remember. It could be that she'd known him before her amnesia.
 

It made her queasy to think that, but it felt closer to the truth than the other possibility. The more she thought about Agent Mulder, the more familiar he seemed and given his peculiar response to her, it seemed plausible that he might have recognized her. But if he had, wouldn't he have said something? He would have, she realized, unless he had something to hide. And that was what was making her so nervous.
 

He'd told her to call him if she had the dream again and despite her uneasiness, she realized that she wanted to do that. She wanted to talk to him. It was five o'clock in the morning, though. Surely he didn't want her calling him at the crack of dawn.
 

Besides, she was too sleepy and vulnerable feeling right now. It was better to wait, she decided. She turned the light back off and hoped she could sleep dreamlessly.
 

xxxxxx
 

She woke again at eight-thirty. There had been no further dreams and she felt a bit more grounded than she had earlier. She still wanted to talk to Agent Mulder, to tell him about last night, and she figured he'd probably be awake by now. Surely FBI agents didn't sleep past eight o'clock in the morning.
 

She didn't have to be at work until ten-thirty, and she'd already showered the night before so she had some time. She'd left his card on her night stand, next to the phone. She dialed up the number without bothering to get out of bed.
 

She let it ring about six or seven times and was about to give up when he finally answered.
 

"Mulder," he muttered, sounding gravely and more than a little tired. Maybe she'd been wrong. She hoped she hadn't woken him up.
 

And who the hell answered the phone by saying his own name?
 

"Um...hi," she said, suddenly nervous and not knowing what to say for herself.
 

"Mmm, Scully, I was just thinking about you," he sighed into the phone and then yawned.
 

"Um, no, it's not..."
 

"I still miss you, Scully. M'glad you called."
 

Good God. He seemed to think that she was his girlfriend or something. Not that the thought was completely abhorrent to her, but she didn't feel comfortable hearing his mushy, morning pillow-talk when it was meant for someone else. Someone named...Scully?
 

She didn't know how to tell him who she was without making them both uncomfortable, though. She considered just hanging up, but given who he seemed to think she was, that seemed almost cruel.
 

"Scully? You there?"
 

"Um, it's...it's Dorian Mayes, Agent Mulder."
 

There was a long silence and again, she almost hung up from the awkwardness of it.

She heard him rustling around, sounding like he was still in bed himself.
 

"I...I'm sorry, Miss Mayes. I thought you were someone else. What can I do for you?"
 

"I'm not sure, to tell you the truth. You told me to call you if I had the dream."
 

"And you did?"
 

"Yes, I did. It was the same except..."
 

She paused, unsure. How do you tell a near stranger that you've been dreaming about him? How do you ask him if he knew you before, if he's hiding something from you?
 

"Well, this is a little strange, but you were sort of in the dream. I called out for you, when the man broke into my apartment. I said 'Mulder, I need your help'. I don't really know what to think of that."
 

There was dead air coming from the other end for such a long time that she started to think maybe he'd hung up on her. She couldn't even hear him breathing.
 

"Agent Mulder?"
 

"Yeah, I'm here. I...I'm here."
 

"Well, what do you think that means? Do you think it's because of our conversation yesterday?"
 

She figured that was a safe way of asking. She didn't want to accuse him of anything or ask him anything that would make them both uncomfortable. She thought it might be too late for that, though. From all the shifting and coughing she heard it seemed like he might be uncomfortable anyway.
 

"I...I suppose it could be that, yes."
 

She waited for him to continue, but he didn't.
 

"So, do you think it could be something else then?"
 

"I don't-I don't really know. It could be."
 

Again, she expected elaboration. When he provided none she found herself growing irritated. Why had she even bothered calling? Why had he bothered telling her to?
 

She supposed it was early. He sounded disoriented and still half-asleep. Maybe she was being presumptuous calling him up and asking these questions right now. Maybe he was just being polite when he told her to call.
 

She suddenly felt embarrassed and silly. Did she really expect this man to hold the keys to her psyche?
 

"Agent Mulder, I think I hear my son calling me. I'd better get going."
 

This conversation was going nowhere. He obviously either didn't know anything about anything or he wasn't prepared to tell her what he knew and she was feeling more and more awkward all the time.
 

"Oh. Okay," he said quickly, sounding relieved. "Um, maybe you can call back later?"
 

"Yes, I'll try to do that. Good-bye, Agent Mulder."
 

"Bye."
 

She hung up the phone, more disappointed than she should have been. She wondered what she'd been expecting.
 

xxxxxx
 

She never did get around to calling him back. In fact, for the next two days she managed to avoid thinking about him or the dreams (although she still had them) and just carried on with her life. Every now and then she'd realize it was getting closer to Sunday and a nervous, butterfly feeling would swim in her stomach, but then Daniel would trip over one of his toys or one of Steph's friends would drop by or something else distracting would happen and she would forget about it.
 

By the time Sunday came, she was starting to wonder if she should even bother meeting Agent Mulder. She'd more or less decided that even if he wanted to, he wasn't going to help her. She wasn't even sure she needed help anymore. It all seemed so ridiculous the more she thought about it. What could he possibly do for her? Even if she had been abducted, it wasn't as if he could change that or make the dreams stop.
 

The only reason she ended up deciding to go was that Daniel would have been devastated and probably whined all day if she hadn't. He'd spent most of the weekend gathering his most impressive and treasured toys, books and drawings to show to Agent Mulder. He'd packed the whole collection neatly into his backpack and was ready to go before Dorian was, as usual.
 

He sat, quiet, but fidgeting, on the couch, swinging his legs and waiting for his mother to hurry up already. Dorian was busy, trying to prepare herself physically and emotionally for anything that might happen today. She hoped whatever Agent Mulder had planned would take less than an hour. One of the girls had called in sick and she had to work that afternoon after all. She was supposed to be there at three.
 

She wondered if she should eat breakfast or if any of these tests required an empty stomach. She'd forgotten to ask and he hadn't bothered to tell her. She settled on some instant coffee which only caused the nervous gurgling in her stomach to shift to an almost unbearable ache.
 

"Do you think Mister Moulder will like my brain?"
 

One of Daniel's favorite new toys was a life-sized model of the human brain, complete with removable cerebrum. He liked to take it apart and examine all the parts. She wondered how he'd managed to fit the thing in his bag with all the other things he was bringing.
 

"Honey, Mister Mulder is going to be busy. I don't think he's going to be able to play with you today," she told him.
 

But she turned out to be mistaken.
 

He was already at the Black Sheep when she and Daniel arrived. He took them out to his car with a minimal amount of small talk and drove them down a road she'd never been on for what seemed like a very long time.
 

During the drive he and Daniel chattered about when Daniel was going to start school and some of Agent Mulder's favorite childhood books. For some reason she wasn't surprised to hear him recommend The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Now she'd have to listen to Daniel begging to read "the book with the witches" for the rest of the day.
 

Agent Mulder barely spoke to her and she barely spoke at all. She wondered if he'd told her to bring Daniel so they'd have a buffer between them, so that she wouldn't ask him any questions.
 

He ended up bringing her to an institution-like building, about twenty minutes south of town on 91. There was a security guard and Agent Mulder had to show him his badge to gain them entry. Daniel seemed excited by the whole thing, but Dorian was more nervous than ever.
 

"What is this place?" Daniel asked as they were led down a sterile, white washed hallway.
 

"It's an FBI office," Agent Mulder told him. "We've got them everywhere."
 

The statement made Daniel clap for some reason, but it gave Dorian the creeps. Daniel practically ran to keep up with Agent Mulder's long legs. The two of them walked together and Dorian lagged behind, trying to peer around half-open doors.
 

Eventually they ended up in a room that looked like the waiting room of a doctors office. There was tacky orange furniture, a magazine rack, receptionists desk. The only thing missing was patients. Aside from the three of them, the only other person in the room was the receptionist.
 

Agent Mulder spoke with said receptionist in hushed tones as Dorian sat Daniel down on a couch and tried to settle him in.
 

"Doctor Roth is ready to see you, Dorian," Mulder said, walking back towards them. "Would you like me to go in with you?"
 

"No! I want Mister Moulder to stay with me," Daniel interjected before she had a chance to respond. She figured it was just as well. She knew she'd probably feel more comfortable without Agent Mulder anyway.
 

"Yes, I'd actually prefer it if someone stayed out here with him."
 

Agent Mulder nodded and Daniel gave them another round of applause.
 

Dorian waved good-bye to her son as a nurse led her away.
 

xxxxxx
 

Mulder hadn't expected it to be like this. He'd spent the past two days preparing himself for this, for seeing Dorian again. He hadn't expected his discomfort to vanish, and it hadn't, but the last thing he'd anticipated was the sickly sweet, fluttery feeling in his stomach when he looked at her in the coffee shop that morning.
 

It was a familiar feeling, almost a sense of deja-vu, but more specific. He recognized it. It was the way he used to feel when he looked at Scully, before things got so complicated and painful between them, before she was taken.
 

As soon as he felt himself feeling it, he was overwhelmed with guilt and fear and forced himself to stifle it, to avoid even making eye contact with her, let alone speaking with her.
 

He'd been glad when she'd declined his offer to accompany her inside the doctor's office. She was making him sick to his stomach.
 

Now, though, he was alone with Daniel again. He'd liked the boy a great deal when they'd first met, felt an instant rapport. But now he was suddenly nervous. He was a smart kid. What if he started asking questions that Mulder couldn't answer?
 

As soon as the nurse took Dorian away, Daniel was tugging on his hand.
 

"Come, come over 'dis way. I wanna show you. I wanna show you."
 

Daniel was very excited about something and Mulder followed him back to his seat. The boy fished around in his backpack for a minute then pulled out a nearly life-sized, plastic model of the human brain. His hands were so small and he was so excited that he ended up dropping it onto the floor, causing the thing to break into a dozen or so separate pieces.
 

"Uh-oh!" Daniel exclaimed, chasing after the brain fragments as they rolled across the carpet. Mulder knelt down and helped him gather them.
 

"Whoops. Looks like you're losing your mind."
 

"No I'm not, silly. I'm losing the brains!"
 

Mulder laughed and the two of them sat on the floor and tried to put the brains back together again.
 

"This is the cerealbrum," Daniel told him, holding up what looked like the cerebellum, but Mulder wasn't entirely sure.
 

"The cerealbrum, huh? Is that the part that makes you eat cereal?"
 

Daniel ignored his attempt at humor, just as most people seemed to, and continued with the anatomy lesson, pointing to the various parts of the model as he described them.
 

"'Dis is the parentental lobe. It makes you feel things, like furry kitties. And 'dis is the temoral lobe which gives you hearing an' memories an' makes you have a personality. And 'dis one is the front lobe. Mommy says this is the one that makes me act hyper reactive."
 

Mulder nodded, impressed that Daniel seemed to know more about anatomy than he did.
 

"That's some pretty cool brains you've got there."
 

"S'just like everybody's brains. Everybody's got em the same."
 

Mulder wasn't entirely sure about that.
 

"How'd you learn about all this stuff, Daniel?"
 

"Mommy. And books. We read books all the time."
 

"Your mom's pretty smart, huh?"
 

Daniel nodded proudly.
 

"My mom's the smartest mom ever in the world. She knows everything!"
 

Mulder wasn't surprised to hear that in the slightest.
 

Daniel put his reassembled brain back in the bag and took out two coloring books and a box of crayons. He handed Mulder one of the books, it was Curious George, and put the crayons between them.
 

"Less' color. I got the big box," he told Mulder, pointing to the 96 pack of Crayolas. Mulder thought that sounded like a good idea. They sat on the floor, coloring quietly for awhile.
 

"Mister Moulder, what are they doing to my Mommy?" Daniel eventually asked, as Mulder'd suspected he would.
 

"She's um, she's getting a check-up. That's all."
 

It was at least partially true. In any case, Doctor Roth wasn't going to do anything to hurt Dorian so there was no real need for Mulder to go into details.
 

"Is she going to get a shot? I got a shot and I cried."
 

"No, she's probably not going to get a shot."
 

That was a lie. She was probably getting a lot of shots, but Daniel didn't need to know that.
 

"Mommy usually goes to another doctor far away from here."
 

"Well, this is a special doctor."
 

"Do we have to keep the special doctor top secret, too?"
 

Mulder was stumped by that one.
 

"I don't know. I think you'll have to ask your mom about that."

Daniel shrugged and went back to coloring Scooby Doo. He made Shaggy's hair lime green.
 

"Do you have a friend, Mister Moulder?" he asked as he replaced the green crayon for a red one in his fist.
 

A friend. Yeah, he had a friend all right. A friend he'd been lying to for three days now. Last time he'd called her he hadn't even tried her cell, just left a message on her machine at home when he knew she'd be at work. He'd told her he was doing fine, everything was fine, he was just going to be here a little while longer. No need for her to come out, he was just fab.
 

"Um, yeah, I have a couple friends."
 

Daniel's eyes got wide and he dropped his crayon.
 

"A couple? Isn't that wrong?"
 

"Um..."
 

"Mommy doesn't have a friend."
 

"She doesn't? What about Steph?"
 

"Noo! Steph has a friend, silly. Elaine is Steph's friend. Mommy had Paul around last Christmastime, but then Paul went away and he wasn't her friend anymore."
 

Mulder nodded, starting to understand.
 

"Mommy said Paul might be a Daddy, but Paul didn't stay."
 

Daniel stretched out onto his stomach and rested his head in his hand as he started to color again. He suddenly looked very sad.
 

"Well, Daniel, maybe Paul wasn't nice enough to be a Daddy. I'm sure your mom wants someone really really special to be a Daddy for you."
 

When Daniel looked up from his coloring, hope shining in his huge brown eyes, Mulder realized he'd said the wrong thing.
 

"Like you?" he asked.
 

"N-no. I'm, I'm not a Daddy, Daniel."
 

"Why not? You could be. You're a boy. Do you have any kids?"
 

Mulder felt the knot in his stomach twist a little tighter. He could never be a Daddy. Not anymore.
 

"No, I don't."
 

"I want a brother. But Mommy says we can't have a brother unless we have a Daddy. I pray at nighttime for a brother and a Daddy."
 

"Well, what if it was just you and your mom forever? Would that be really bad?"
 

Daniel shrugged and frowned, looking more like an adult than any child his age should.
 

"I want a brother," he said simply.
 

"I didn't have a brother. Or a Daddy, really."
 

"Really? No Daddy either?"
 

"Well, I had one, but I hardly ever saw him so it was the same thing really. It was just me and my mom."
 

And look how great I turned out, Mulder chided himself. Well, Daniel didn't have to know that he was a lunatic.
 

"Sometimes it's better if it's just you and Mommy," Mulder told him honestly. It was really the truth and in that moment, he missed his mother horribly.
 

"I think my Daddy died or something," Daniel said. He didn't seem to care all that much about it which made sense, Mulder figured. He'd never actually met his father so he wasn't likely to be traumatized by his loss. If there even was a he.
 

"Daddies can be a pain sometimes," Mulder told him and Daniel smiled.
 

"That's what Mommy says!"
 

"It's true. They're not usually as nice as Mommies. They make Mommies real cranky."
 

Daniel giggled and scribbled bright red lines inside Daphne's hair.
 

"You're nice though, Mister Moulder. You jus' sit and listen. Not like Paul. Or Grandpa."
 

Mulder smiled and wondered what Scully would think of that description. She didn't seem to appreciate his listening skills most of the time.
 

"I don't think your Mommy would want me as a Daddy though, Daniel. I think you need to find somebody you both like a lot, if anyone."
 

Daniel nodded absently. He didn't seem to be listening anymore. He was suddenly more focused on his picture than he was on Mulder. Mulder was relieved.
 

After about five minutes Daniel stopped coloring and announced, "Finished!"
 

He ripped the page out of the book and started to hand it to Mulder, but then pulled it back.
 

"How do you spell your name? M...O? It's O, right? O?"
 

"Nope."
 

"U?"
 

"Right."
 

He spelled the rest out for himself and passed the picture over to Mulder. It was Daphne, Shaggy and Scooby standing in front of the Mystery Machine. There was a ghost floating in the background, but the only one who seemed to notice it was Shaggy. He was holding his head in his hands and his eyes were opened wide in horror.
 

On top of the page Daniel had written Mulder's name in huge letters and on the bottom he'd scrawled LOVE, DANIEL MAYES.
 

For some reason it made Mulder want to cry.
 

"Th-thank you, Daniel. This is very nice."
 

"Keep it, okay? Keep it!"
 

"I will. I promise."
 

He thought he'd probably keep it for the rest of his life, put it in the cardboard box in his closet with all the other mementos that made him inexplicably sad.
 

"Do you think they're gonna be done soon? I'm huuuungry," Daniel asked with a melodramatic sigh.
 

Mulder fished around in his pockets and pulled out some change.
 

"There's a vending machine right outside. Why don't you go get a snack."
 

He put a few quarters in the boys hand and Daniel clutched them excitedly.
 

"Can I get Butterfinger?"
 

"Does Mommy let you get Butterfinger?"
 

"Sometimes. If I'm good. Was I good?"
 

"Yeah, you were good. Get whatever you want."
 

"But no soda," a voice came from the doorway leading to the doctor's office. Dorian was finished, apparently.
 

"Aw, Mom!"
 

"No soda! You'll be bouncing off the walls all day."
 

Daniel stomped through the half open door, throwing up his hands in a gesture Mulder was already growing familiar with. Annoyance and defeat. It was something he was well accustomed to himself.
 

"How did it go?" Mulder asked her when Daniel was out of earshot. He was still holding the picture in his hand, trying to talk to her without looking at her, sitting on the floor like a kindergarten student. He stood up suddenly feeling desperately vulnerable.
 

"It went fine I suppose, although I don't really know what the point was."
 

Mulder folded the picture in half and ran his fingers down the crease, not having any idea what to say.
 

"Agent Mulder, I'm sorry, but I need to ask you something. Since the moment we met, you've regarded me very strangely."

She crossed her arms over his chest and gave him a penetrating stare, almost daring him to deny it. He didn't. He just looked away again.
 

"I'm starting to feel like there's something you're not telling me. Something important. If you know something about me, about my past, I think you owe it to me to tell me what it is."
 

She was right, of course. He was being an ass. But what was he supposed to tell her when he didn't know what was going on himself? Did she want to hear the bizarre possibilities that were going through his mind when he had no way of backing them up? No, it would be worse to have her thinking things about herself that would terrify her and might not even be true.
 

He needed answers before he could really talk to her or Scully. Or even Daniel. This was getting ridiculous.
 

"You're right. I'm sorry, Dorian."
 

"I-I am?"
 

Her eyes were wide and frightened.
 

"The fact is, I really don't know. I have some ideas, but...I don't have anything tangible to tell you. That's why I wanted you to take these tests."
 

"Are they going to show that I was abducted by aliens?"

"No, probably not."
 

She sighed and looked up at the ceiling, possibly trying to keep herself from strangling him.
 

"Agent Mulder, did we know each other before?"
 

He wasn't sure which was more disturbing, the fact that he had to formulate a coherent response to that question or that she'd thought to ask it at all.
 

"It-It's a possibility, I suppose."
 

She sighed again and squeezed the bridge of her nose with her fingers.
 

"Well, you just call me when you get your results, Agent Mulder. Or whenever you're ready to talk to me. Whichever comes first."
 

She picked her coat up from the back of the chair Mulder had been leaning on as he colored and pulled it over herself irately.
 

"I'm sorry. I wish I could tell you something more definite. I just really don't know. I-I think I might know someone who does though."
 

"Who?"
 

"Your father."
 

"My father?"
 

"I need to talk to him, Dorian."
 

"Do you know my father?"
 

"I might."
 

She gave him a disgusted look. He was starting to get a little disgusted with himself as well.
 

"I really don't know how to get a hold of him. He's traveling right now."
 

"Can you give me his address?"
 

"Well, he's not there."
 

"Please, Dorian. It's very important."
 

He allowed himself to make eye contact with her finally, ignoring the tremors.
 

"Mommy, I have to go potty."
 

They both turned to see Daniel with a handful of candy bars, chocolate smeared across his upper lip.
 

"All right, sweetie. I'll be right there."
 

"Dorian, please. If you want to know the truth, please just tell me his address."

She glanced back and forth between Mulder and Daniel, ran her hand over her face, chewed on the inside of her mouth.
 

"4903 West Frontage Road."
 

xxxxxx
 

The house was, he thought, deceptively ordinary. A two-level, colonial style in a residential neighborhood with a nicely manicured lawn and a welcome mat with a picture of a daisy on it. He stood on the daisy and knocked on the door.
 

He took the lack of an answer as an invitation and promptly jimmied the lock. He expected to have to disable some sort of burglar alarm or other security device, but apparently the old man was becoming careless in his age. There was nothing.
 

Some of the lights were on and as he poked around, he got the distinct impression that Dorian was wrong. Her "father" had been here. Very recently. The place stank like a filthy ashtray.
 

He wandered through the rooms, not entirely sure what he was looking for, until he found what looked to be an office or study of some kind.
 

He took a seat in the plush leather chair and tore through the desk with a stealth and speed born out of years of experience with such things. Unfortunately, the drawers were nearly empty. The only thing he found that made any sense to him was the beginning of a poorly written screenplay involving some sort of cowboy.
 

He didn't know what he'd been expecting to find, anyway. A detailed memo outlining plans for world domination? A picture of Dorian with the words, "This is really Scully!" scrawled across it?
 

Honestly, he didn't know what he was doing here. Not just in this house, but in this town, in this cursed state.
 

He told himself he was here to find the truth, but the truth was starting to look like a very dangerous thing. Something that had the potential to completely destroy him and to take three other lives along with him.
 

"Agent Mulder, what a surprise."
 

The voice came from the darkness of the hallway. Smoke wafted through the doorway of the study and when Mulder looked up, he saw the silhouette of a man.
 

"If I'd known you were dropping by, I would've made tea."
 

Mulder rose and walked around to the front of the desk.
 

"Come in here. Come in here and tell me what the fuck is going on." He felt his blood starting to gurgle, his veins throbbing. He reached around for his gun.
 

The bastard stepped out of the shadows and regarded Mulder with a smarmy, reptilian smirk.
 

"You're not looking well, Mulder. Seen a ghost lately?"
 

He felt the smooth metal of his weapon, wrapped his palm around it and yanked it from its holster.
 

"Tell me what you know. Tell me right now or so help me God, I will kill you."
 

He aimed his pistol at the black-lunged piece of shit, forearm trembling and revealing his weakness, his fear and his anger.
 

"Let's take a walk down memory lane, shall we?"
 

He moved towards Mulder, seemingly unfazed by the gun.
 

"Memory lane? Look, I didn't come here to chat. I want you to tell me who that woman is. Tell me what you did to Scully, you son of a bitch!"
 

Mulder felt closer than he ever had before to pulling the trigger and terminating this mans existence.
 

"It's funny that you should mention Scully. Do you remember when you were looking for her, after she went missing?"
 

"What about it?"
 

"Congratulations. You finally found her. Better late than never, I suppose."
 

Mulder's hand was shaking and slippery. The gun fell onto the floor and he lunged across the room, pinning the old man to the wall. He clutched the putrid bastard's jacket in his fists and shook him.
 

"You're a lying fuck! Tell me the truth, goddamn you!"
 

Mulder belted him, squarely in the jaw, and then in the gut. It should have felt good, but it didn't. He felt like the Earth was shifting under his feet, moving faster than he could manage to keep up with. He felt like he was dying.
 

The old mans blood was on his hands, in his hair, mixing with his own sweat and it made him want to vomit.
 

"Do you want to hear the truth or would you rather kill me and never know?" the fucker spat out through a broken front tooth. Mulder noticed with morbid fascination that he was still clutching that damn cigarette between his fingers.
 

"Aren't you even a little curious about the boy, Fox? Don't you wonder who his father is?"
 

"How am I supposed to believe anything you tell me?" he demanded.
 

"We've had this conversation too many times for you to ask me that. You already know that you don't have any choice."
 

xxxxxx
 

Dorian thought the tests would be the end.

She'd been surprised at how quick the whole procedure had been. Doctor Roth had taken a lot of blood, which made her a little nervous, but other than that it had been very similar to her yearly check-up.
 

Another attempt to get information from Agent Mulder had been mostly unsuccessful and by the time she got back to the Black Sheep, she'd more or less given up on ever finding out anything from the man. She'd taken his silly tests and she supposed if he found anything noteworthy, he'd call her. Or not. Either way, it wasn't worth worrying about.
 

What was worrying her was Daniel's fascination with the agent. She'd have to have another talk with him about daddies and not getting too attached to random men. Her own guilt about not providing a stable, permanent father figure for the boy was something she was constantly troubled by. Nothing new.
 

So, other than Daniel's lingering interest, she figured she was pretty much through with Agent Mulder. Even if she had known him before, she had no desire to know him now. He was too peculiar, too quirky for her to cope with on a regular basis. She had enough to worry about as it was.
 

But that evening, about two hours after her shift began, she realized that she wasn't finished with him. That she never would be. That evening she met Dana Scully.
 

The place was empty except for Daniel and a freshly pierced couple who were too busy admiring each others noses and eyebrows to give Dorian or anyone else any trouble.
 

She was behind the counter, mopping up a milk spill with a tattered rag when the woman walked in.
 

There was nothing, not even the strange series of events over the past couple of days, that could have prepared her for this. Nothing she'd ever read or seen or heard or done that brought any sense to what she was seeing.
 

She thought the other woman must have been feeling something similar as their eyes met, but she didn't see anything reflected back at her. Dorian was sure her jaw had dropped through the floor and was half way to China by now, but this woman, she merely cocked her eyebrow and asked Dorian if she'd seen Agent Mulder.
 

Dorian tried to answer, but found that she was speechless.
 

"I'm Dana Scully," the woman told her. "I'm his partner. It's very important that I find him. Please."
 

Dorian was vaguely gratified to hear the other woman's voice wavering, choking.
 

"He's...he's at my fathers house. I think. I'm not really sure."

"Where? Where is it?"
 

Dorian scrawled the address on the pad she used to take orders. She ripped the top sheet off and handed it to Dana Scully.
 

Scully. That was the name Agent Mulder had called her on the phone the other day. God.
 

The other woman took the paper from her and shoved it into her jacket pocket.
 

"Thank you," she whispered and then she turned around and started walking. Before she reached the door she looked back over her shoulder once, squeezed her eyes shut tight, and left.
 

Dorian's legs gave out from under her and she collapsed onto a stool behind the cash register.
 

This couldn't be happening, couldn't be real. She was dizzy, disoriented, confused beyond recognition.
 

But through her haze, she realized something important. There was no way she could be involved in this anymore. No way she could let her son be drawn into this situation, whatever it was. It was too weird. Too fucking weird.
 

xxxxxx
 

The sun was setting on the horizon when she found him. He'd been sitting on the front steps of the house for close to an hour, watching the gray clouds roll in and obscure the sun as it sank lower and lower. He thought that maybe he was in shock. Something. He couldn't move.
 

He'd had his worldview shaken, fucked over this way to Sunday so many goddamn times by now, by this man, he should've been immune to it. He should've known better than to believe him.
 

The problem was that this time what the old man told him made some kind of sense. It matched his gut instinct too well to be ignored or disregarded. And it was more painful and terrifying than anything he'd ever heard.
 

There are aliens. There aren't aliens. There are ten different kinds of aliens and they're all planning to take over the Earth on Christmas day. We're all a bunch of aliens. Whatever. That was nothing. That was chump change. This was different. This was Scully.
 

He saw her approaching out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn't look up, couldn't face her just yet.
 

"Mulder?"
 

She was standing on the lawn about ten feet away from him. She was wearing black pants and a purple shirt. He thought of Daniel's picture, Daphne in her purple dress with brick red hair. He used to think that Scully was more of a Velma, but lately she'd taken on the most appealing qualities of both.
 

"You're here," he muttered stupidly into his hands. She advanced on him, sat down next to him. He could feel her thigh jiggling against his.
 

"How'd you find me?"
 

"I'm a pretty good detective."
 

She pulled a crumpled envelope out of her jacket pocket and passed it to him. It was the one Dorian's letter had come in. She must've fished it out of his trash. For a moment he felt insanely proud, but then he wondered if that was really how she'd tracked him down.
 

His suspicion made him ill.
 

"Mulder, what's going on? I saw...I went to that coffee shop and I..."
 

"You saw her."
 

"Who is she, Mulder? What the hell is happening here?"
 

He continued to stare at his shoes, as if the answers to her questions might be hidden in them somewhere.
 

"He was here," he muttered. "She thinks he's her father."
 

She cleared her throat and he knew he wasn't making any sense, wasn't telling her anything she wanted to know.
 

"Mulder, what did they do to me?"
 

Her voice was so quiet and he recognized the terror in it. He shivered and pulled his trenchcoat tightly around his waist.
 

"I don't know, Scully. He told me...I don't know what to believe. I just don't know."
 

"Mulder, don't say that."
 

He felt her fingers on his chin, gentle at first but then insistent, forcing his head up.
 

"Mulder, look at me. Look at me and tell me what you believe."
 

Looking into her eyes made him want to burst into tears. He wasn't really sure who he'd be crying for.
 

"Mulder?"
 

"I don't know."
 

"Mulder, it's me."
 

He wanted to believe that, but if what he'd been told was true, she wouldn't know if she was lying to him.
 

"Mulder, can we-let's, let's go. Let's get out of here."
 

She rose to her feet and extended her hands to him. He took hold of them, tighter than he'd intended, and hauled himself up. He wanted to collapse onto her, to let her support his weight, carry him wherever he needed to go. Why did he have to need her so badly? Why was he leaning on her even now, when she needed his support?
 

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and felt a little better when she let herself sag against him. She clutched his waist and together they walked away from the house, holding each other up.
 

"Did you get a rental?" she asked mundanely. "Or did you drive your car up here?"

"Rental. I flew."
 

"What did that cost you? You're not going to be a popular guy in the accounting department."
 

She was trying to provide some sense of normalcy, but her questions were irritating to him. How could she even think about money and cars right now? Who thinks like that?
 

Scully, he told himself. Scully does.
 

"I paid for it myself. Everything except the doctor."
 

"The doctor?"
 

"I called a doctor. Is that your car?"
 

She was leading him to a blue rental sedan. She unlocked the doors and he reluctantly moved away from her so that they could get inside. She sat in the driver's seat and turned on the ignition.
 

"Are you okay to drive?"
 

"Maybe. Probably better than you. We'll come back for your car tomorrow."
 

She didn't make any moves to start, though. He turned the heat on full blast and settled back in his seat.
 

"Do you want me to tell you what he said?"
 

He was hoping she'd say no. He always had been a dreamer.
 

"If you want to. If you can."
 

He wasn't sure if he could and he knew he didn't want to, but there really wasn't a choice at this point. His hand was balled into a fist on his thigh and she reached over and forcibly laced her fingers through his.
 

He fell silent for a long time, tried to put together the right string of words, the right combination of sentences that would make this all right. After awhile, he gave up.
 

It was dark when he finally spoke.
 

"He said that she was...that when you were taken...It was her. She was the one who was taken."
 

She squeezed his hand hard, like she would've if she'd been in labor. He forced himself to continue.
 

"He said that they...they made you. From her."
 

"That's not true."
 

"He said that you didn't know, that they'd given you all of her memories so that you'd think you were her."
 

"It's not true. Mulder, how can you believe anything that man tells you?"
 

He could barely stop to listen to her. Now that he'd begun, he had to get it all out before he lost his nerve. Before she shattered him into a billion tiny shards.
 

"He said that the chip is a tracking device, that it's reading your thoughts, telling them about everything we do, everything you think and feel."
 

"That's...that's something we've always been afraid of, Mulder. I don't believe it, but even if it is true, as long as they're not controlling us..."
 

"But that's just it, Scully. If what he told me is true then they are controlling us. Through that chip. Everything you do, everything you say and think and feel is because of that chip."
 

Like a remote control car. That's the way the sick bastard had put it. A little Scully-bot. He didn't share the analogy.
 

Did they make her kiss him? Did they make her love him? He didn't know.
 

"No. Mulder, no. It's not...it's not true. That doesn't make any sense. It's not possible."
 

She sounded so sure. Of course she did. Who wouldn't be sure in her situation?
 

"Mulder, did you talk to this woman? What does she know about me?"
 

"She's been having dreams. She wrote to me about them. They...it's the same dream every night. It's your...her...it's the abduction. The scenario is exactly the same."
 

"That's all? One dream? Mulder, that scenario is so embedded in popular culture. There's probably a thousand people who have that dream."
 

"No, Scully, it's specific. It's exactly what happened to you. It's- She has amnesia. They found her wandering around in the woods. Four years ago, Scully. And she was pregnant."
 

"Pre...Mulder, I wasn't pregnant when they...he...when Duane Barry took me."
 

"I know that."
 

Mulder had asked about the boys parentage since the smoker'd brought it up, but all he'd gotten in response were vague allusions to genetic engineering. Thinly veiled hints that material from Mulder's own body might have been involved. Or maybe not. Nothing concrete. Nothing he could tell her.
 

"Mulder, it's me."
 

She ran her thumb over his knuckles and touched his cheek with her free hand. His face was crumpled and crushed when he looked at her.
 

"Mulder."
 

She kissed him then. A familiar, gentle softness. An intimacy they'd shared many times over the past few months. In that hospital and then later on his sofa. At her apartment. Once in his car. Sweet, simple, stolen kisses that had helped to sustain him through all kinds of pain, that spoke a promise of something more. Something soon.
 

Tonight her kiss made him ache.
 

"Mulder, it's me," she whispered against his lips, kissed him again, harder. Her tongue traced the outline of his lips and he whimpered defeat and understanding. His mouth opened and he accepted the warmth she was offering.
 

He cupped her skull with both of his hands, running his thumbs in circles over the sides of her forehead. This part makes you feel things. And this part makes you hear. He wondered what he'd find if he crushed the bones in her head.
 

"It's me, Mulder. See?"
 

He sighed and pressed his nose against hers.
 

"I know, Scully. I know it is. But who is she?"
 

"I don't know. Please tell me that it doesn't matter."
 

"I can't say that, Scully. It does matter. But...but I know that you are..."
 

"What?"
 

"You're you. And whoever that is, I love her."
 

She sucked in her lips and nodded, tears beginning to well in her eyes. He ran his thumb over her mouth, wishing he could reach into her mind.
 

"Can you drive, Scully? I-I'd like to go back to the hotel."
 

"Yes. I think that...yes."
 

xxxxxx
 

She might have felt guilty if Daniel hadn't seemed so excited. She supposed it was a good thing that he hadn't started school yet. It would be much easier for him this way. Adjusting to a new place was always easier when you didn't know that many people in the old place. At least, she figured it had to be that way.
 

He was asleep now, curled up with his pillow and blanket in the back seat of her Volvo station wagon. She'd been driving for so long that the streetlights and the signs were starting to become a blur, a blinding green light. She knew she'd have to stop soon, to rest. She didn't want to. The longer she stayed still the more chance she stood of being found.
 

She wished she knew where she was going.
 

She'd packed everything of Daniel's and most of her clothes. That had taken up a good portion of the car and she figured it would be enough. She'd used her debit card to take all the money out of her savings account, almost four thousand dollars. Enough for traveling and first and last month's rent on a new apartment. Hopefully some left over for essentials until she found a job. It would all work out, she told herself for what must have been the hundredth time. It would all work out just fine. If they had to struggle a bit at first it would be worth it.
 

She'd faced a few moments of self-doubt earlier, wondering if she was overreacting, changing her life completely because of something that wasn't that important. Then she'd remembered that Scully woman, that feeling she'd gotten in her gut when she saw her. She knew that no good could come of it. She knew that she was doing the right thing.
 

She'd always had a creepy feeling about her father, a sense that the things he told her weren't true. He'd helped her plenty so she'd always tried to ignore the feelings, but now it seemed dangerous to do that.
 

Something horrible was going on. Something horrible had happened. She didn't want to be part of it anymore. She didn't want her son to be a part of it ever.
 

She drove south. She'd always wanted to live under the sun.
 

She had to leave. There was no choice.
 

xxxxxx
 

"I'm not going to get a room."
 

"You're not going home are you, Scully?"
 

They sat together on the side of the bed, just as Mulder had done his first night here, trying to process everything they'd seen and heard. Trying to make some sense where there was none.
 

"No, I'm not going home. I want to be here when you get those test results back."
 

The tests. Mulder was starting to wonder what purpose those tests would really serve. He'd been hoping they'd show something in Dorian's biology, some difference, some anomaly, something to show that she was a clone. What now? What was he hoping for now?
 

"Mulder, why...why did you come up here?" she suddenly asked him, mirroring his own thoughts. "What were you hoping to find?"
 

He wished that he had a reasonable answer to that question.
 

"I wanted to find answers."
 

She sighed at the lame response and he could feel her stiffening next to him.
 

"I thought she might know something about what happened to you," he whispered. Even after everything they'd been through recently, despite the growing intimacy between them, Scully's abduction was something he could hardly stand to discuss. He supposed it was just as well since it always seemed to be off limits for her as well. But there was no way to dance around it this time. Everything here was leading them back to it.
 

"What happened to me. What happened to me..."
 

She stood up and walked away from him, turned towards the window and fear churned in his stomach.
 

"Mulder, if this was about me then why the hell didn't you tell me about it?"
 

Her voice was cold and disconnected. It felt like a bucket of ice dumped over his head.
 

"I didn't want you to be involved if it turned out to be nothing."

It was at least partially the truth, but there was much more to it than that. There was his fear of the entire topic, for one.
 

"So why didn't you tell me when it turned out to be something? I called you, Mulder. I called you and you didn't tell me anything."
 

Her voice wavered a bit and his heart sank with the understanding that he'd hurt her with his deception.
 

She hardly ever spoke to him this directly, in such personal terms. She'd let him know in her way when he'd done something to make her angry, something foolish, but she rarely confronted him in this fashion. He supposed it was another step forward that she felt able to discuss her feelings somewhat, but it was unfortunate that such a breakthrough had to be the result of his stupidity.
 

"I just wanted to know, Scully. I wanted to be sure what it was before you had to deal with it. I didn't want to cause you any unnecessary pain."
 

She spun around on her heel, arms crossed over her chest and jaw set. She crushed him with a disbelieving glare.
 

"You'd rather prolong it, making it potentially worse? Mulder, you can't...God, did you even think about the consequences of what you've been doing here? Not just for me, but for that woman? Do you realize how irresponsible it was to give her those tests without even telling her why?"
 

What the hell was he supposed to have told her? Mulder felt a familiar burst of anger and righteous indignation. It was comforting. They were back on vaguely safe territory, arguing about Dorian, another person, another case. Of course she wasn't just another person, but it was a useful illusion to maintain for the moment.
 

"I didn't want to frighten her, Scully. I didn't want to give her a bunch of random speculation before I had any of the facts."
 

"Mulder, what are you going to do when we get those results? What are they going to tell you?"
 

"I don't know."
 

"You don't know?"
 

"I was hoping it would tell me who she really is."
 

"And then what, Mulder?"
 

"Then..."
 

Then they'd be back where they started from. Back to her.
 

"I don't know, Scully. I was hoping it might help us figure out what they did to you."
 

Didn't she realize that it all went back to her now? Didn't she understand that he didn't have any other reasons?
 

"What that chip in your neck is for," he continued, exasperation making him bold. "Where you went when you were gone. Don't you want to know, Scully?"
 

Her eyes slipped shut and she turned away from him again.
 

"Honestly, Mulder, at this point I think....I think that no, I don't."
 

She sounded small and terrified, but that didn't make him any less angry.
 

"You don't?"
 

She shook her head.
 

"Well then what the hell are we doing?"
 

He couldn't believe it. It was beyond comprehension.
 

His sister was dead. The men who'd orchestrated the misery of their lives were dead, save one who was very ill. If there was any truth to the things he'd learned over the past several years, colonization of the Earth by an alien species was inevitable. It was pretty much game over for Mulder. Or rather, it would have been if it weren't for Scully.
 

Finding her answers was his job now, it was his life's work. She'd been there for him straight through to the end of his journey and he wanted, needed to be there for her in that same way. He needed to help her.
 

If she didn't want that help then what the hell was the purpose in what he was doing? What was the purpose of his life?
 

"I don't know, Mulder," she sighed and he realized what an irritating response that was.
 

She didn't know. That was just great.
 

"I've been looking for so long, Mulder. It's been important to me. Empowering in a way. But now...I guess I just never expected to find this answer."
 

He ran his fingers over his face, trying to wipe away the frustration so he wouldn't say something truly damaging. Did she think he wanted answers like this?
 

"Mulder, do you...do you believe any of what he told you?"
 

It was the second time she'd asked him that question, but the first time had been so different. She'd been skeptical before, asking how he could possibly find truth in anything that came out of the lying bastard's mouth. This time she sounded scared. She needed him to tell her no, to offer another explanation.
 

"I don't know, Scully."
 

Again, it was the only answer he had.
 

"I don't want to. There are...there are other possibilities that are equally valid."
 

He knew that she'd find them ridiculous as well, but maybe not as terrifying. Maybe telling her would bring her back to him.
 

"What other possibilities, Mulder?"
 

She ran her finger across the condensation on the window, drew a circle on the glass and he could see through it that it was snowing outside. She didn't sound curious or hopeful or even skeptical. Just disgusted.
 

"She could be a clone of you rather than vice versa. That's what I thought initially. She could be a completely different person who's had plastic surgery."
 

She scoffed.
 

"She could. It's not beyond the realm of possibility. She could be working for him, feeding us this story to feed one of his twisted plots. Or she could be related to you. Maybe she's a..."
 

"A what? A long lost twin?"
 

He didn't answer.
 

He felt her snap although she didn't say another word. She didn't have to. The way she moved when she brushed past him, snatched one of his shirts from his half-open suitcase, and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her, told the story for him.
 

He heard the water running a minute or so later and it didn't stop for a long time. He wondered what she was covering up. Was she sobbing? Muttering to herself about what a bastard he was?
 

He imagined her examining her body, trying to locate identifying birth marks the way he would if it were him. He pictured her washing her face roughly, wondering if her face would peel off like in some science fiction movie from the 70's.
 

God, what had he done?
 

She was in the bathroom for close to thirty minutes. He spent the time alternately pacing and flipping through stations on the decrepit television set. When the digital clock next to the bed flipped to 8:35 he decided it had been way too long since he'd heard any kind of noise coming from that bathroom.
 

He gently pushed the door open without knocking.
 

She was sitting on the tile floor next to the tub, wearing nothing but his dirty white T-shirt, her legs curled up to her chest and her head resting on top of her knees. She looked vulnerable and horrified. He wanted to die.
 

"Scully...what are you doing?"
 

It was, perhaps, the stupidest question he'd ever asked. She glared at him accordingly. She stood up quickly and brushed herself off and he felt like an oaf for invading her privacy.
 

"I'm getting ready for bed. What are *you* doing, Mulder?"
 

"You've been in here for a half an hour."
 

"Did you want to use the washroom?"
 

"No, I..."
 

He stopped himself from saying that he was worried about her, thought she might be having some sort of nervous breakdown or plotting her escape from him.
 

"Scully, I'm sorry I didn't tell you about this right away. I didn't know what the hell to say to you."
 

She let a glimmer of shock flicker across her face, but it disappeared as quickly as it appeared. Still, he noticed it and it made him wonder what kind of jackass he was that she'd be so surprised to get an apology out of him.
 

"The truth, Mulder. You should have just told me the truth."
 

"I didn't know the truth. I still don't."
 

"But you knew something. All I ask of you is that you tell me what you know, Mulder. That you don't hide things from me. We can't...we can't keep doing this. Not now. Not if..."
 

She left the sentence unfinished, but he knew what she meant.
 

"I know, Scully. I'm sorry."
 

"I know you are."
 

Switching gears on him yet again, she rose up on her toes and planted a delicate kiss on the side of his mouth.
 

"Meet you in bed," she said softly and left him standing in the bathroom, more confused than ever.
 

He closed the door and looked in the mirror as he'd imagined her doing earlier. He had quite a set of bruises under his eyes. His lack of sleep was showing.
 

He was the same as ever. He was him, but was he really? He thought he might know now, might understand more of what she must be going through.
 

She seemed to have forgiven him, at least temporarily, for his actions, but her words still lingered in his mind. She hadn't taken them back. She didn't want his answers and she didn't know what they were doing anymore.
 

He didn't like how much that scared him.
 

Was his identity so tied up in their work, their quest whatever it might be now, that without it he was meaningless? And if not, what the hell *was* he doing?
 

He said he wanted answers, but was that even true anymore? Not if she didn't, he realized. And not if the answers were like this. How could this be worth it?
 

Who am I and why am I here? Mulder had never asked himself those questions before because the answers were so obvious. Not anymore, though. Not now.
 

His head made a dull thudding sound when it collided with the mirror. It actually felt good and he did it again. Not enough to bleed, or even bruise. Just enough to rattle his brain around inside his skull. He wondered what parts gave you determination, sanity, understanding. Maybe his had become dislodged and he could jar them back into place like a television with static.
 

"Mulder, are you all right?" Scully called from the other room.
 

"Yeah, fine."
 

He stopped the pointless activity and brushed his teeth.
 

When he went back into the bedroom, the lights and TV were off and Scully was under the covers.
 

"I don't have any pajamas," he told her stupidly.
 

"So sleep in your underwear."
 

"I don't have any underwear."
 

She laughed a little through her nose and he smiled. At least he could still amuse her once in awhile.
 

He stripped down to his boxers in the dark and climbed into bed beside her. She surprised and pleased him by wrapping herself tightly around him almost immediately. Her bare legs felt warm and inviting next to his. He put his arm around her back and buried his nose in her hair.
 

Her closeness always held the power to arouse him, but tonight he struggled to keep that at bay. If there was ever a completely wrong time to make a sexual advance, it was now. He congratulated himself for realizing at least that much.
 

"Mmmthis is...good," she sighed.
 

"Yes. Yes it is."
 

"Mulder?"
 

"Hmm?"
 

"Don't let go. Just...don't go, okay?"
 

Something inside of him shattered with sudden realization. He understood now, what she was really worried about, why she was so angry and frightened.
 

She thought this might change them, that he might not trust her because of this. Or worse yet, that he'd abandon her for the "real" Scully.
 

"I'm not going anywhere, Scully."
 

He ran his fingers through her hair and kissed the top of her head and she snuggled deeper into him. They were silent for a few moments, enjoying the peace and comfort.
 

"Next time, we do this at home," she eventually said.
 

"I thought this was home, Scully. You, me, a random hotel room. Feels like home to me."
 

She hooked her leg over his and he could feel her underwear against his thigh. He felt himself growing hard despite all attempts to the contrary.
 

"I suppose you're right, Mulder. Suppose you're right."
 

After a few more silent moments he heard her snoring lightly into his chest. He was glad she could manage to sleep, but he was certain he wouldn't get a moment's rest for quite some time.
 

xxxxxx
 

In the end it came down to three sheets of plastic. Three charts. Three lives.
 

Mulder held them up to the lightboard, lined them in a row and then pushed them together, watching them merge into one. Strings of black dots in perfect alignment.
 

He wasn't a geneticist, wasn't even a medical doctor, but it didn't take a specialist to understand the meaning here.
 

The first chart belonged to Dana Katherine Scully. A map of her genes from 1991, taken from a blood sample she'd given at her physical when she'd joined the bureau. The second, Dorian's. And the third was from blood he'd watched being drawn just a few days ago, from the arm of the woman he called Scully.
 

The charts were exactly the same.
 

It turned out that Scully's concern about what they'd tell Dorian was needless. She'd disappeared without a trace close to a week ago now. Mulder wasn't as surprised as he should have been. He wasn't as surprised by any of it as he should have been.
 

"Mulder, this is...this is unbelievable."
 

Scully was standing behind him, looking over the rest of Dorian's charts. He knew that it was. He'd seen them, too.
 

"Aside from the fact that this woman has given birth and that I've got a few more scars, these charts are identical. Mulder, there's nothing here to distinguish the two of us from each other. Nothing at all."
 

Mulder simply nodded and continued to play connect the dots.
 

It was as if someone had placed the "original" Scully, whoever and wherever she was, in some sort of advanced version of a photocopy machine. Mulder wondered how many copies they'd made.
 

"She's even got the same appendix scar, the same lens prescription in her glasses. Mulder, we've got to find her."
 

He stacked the sheets into a neat pile and put them back in the envelope they'd come in. When he stood up and faced her, he realized that some things could not be duplicated.
 

"Mulder?"
 

"Let's go home, Scully."
 

"What? Now you want to go home? Mulder, we've come this far. Don't you want to find her?"
 

He took a moment to reflect on his words, to consider the most efficient and least painful way to express his feelings on the subject. He could have replied that he thought she didn't want the answers anymore, but that seemed like the wrong approach. He realized now that her words had been a shield.
 

"What good would it do us, Scully? What good would it do her?"
 

She didn't have an answer for him. There was no answer.
 

"Let's go home, Scully," he tried again and this time she nodded in understanding.
 

xxxxxx
 

The phone is ringing, waking her from a deep and dreamless sleep. Her clock is flashing 11:21. She rolls over in bed and picks up the phone.
 

It's Mulder.
 

"They're shutting us down," he tells her and for some reason this is very important to her. She doesn't understand how this could happen.
 

She tries to tell him that they can't do it, he has to stop them, but he is resigned.
 

"What are you going to do?" she asks him.
 

"I'm...not going to give up. I can't give up. Not as long as the truth is out there."
 

xxxxxx
 

For the first time since she'd gotten here, Dorian woke up wondering if she'd made a mistake.
 

She didn't write about the dream. She'd abandoned that practice since the move. Curiously enough, the abduction dreams had stopped and she didn't need or want to record what happened in her sleep anymore.
 

They'd been in Florida for almost two months now, and so far it seemed as though they weren't going to be found. The only person who knew their whereabouts was Steph, and Dorian knew she'd keep her mouth shut. Especially if the FBI came to her. Steph didn't trust the government.
 

Daniel loved the sunshine and the beach. He was turning out to be quite a swimmer. She'd found a respectable private school for gifted children and he was going to be starting there in the fall. She still wanted him to be normal, but not deprived of the attention and focus he deserved.
 

She'd found a job caring for the elderly at a retirement home. The pay was better than she'd been getting at the Black Sheep and the work was a thousand times more rewarding. She was starting to feel as though she'd found some meaning. She was even considering taking some night classes and trying to get certified as a nurse practitioner.
 

The apartment she'd found was bigger and better maintained than the one she'd had in Massachusetts, and she was making enough money that she didn't have to share it with a roommate. They had more privacy and she liked it that way.
 

She was happy here and so was Daniel. There was no need to second guess her decision.
 

So why, when she woke up from this dream of a man she'd been desperate to escape, did she feel such a sense of longing and lost opportunity?
 

Why did suddenly want to call Agent Mulder?
 

She still had his cell phone number. She wasn't sure why, but she'd been unable to dispose of it. It was still sitting in her wallet, a constant reminder of what she'd left behind. Not just the information he might be able to provide, she realized. It reminded her of him and for some reason she wanted to keep that memory. Silly considering how much he'd irritated her.
 

What would he say if she called him?
 

She wondered sometimes about the tests. Had he gotten the results and what had they shown him?
 

What did he know about her? She wondered about that woman who looked like her. She wondered about the dream and what it was telling her about her life before. She still had so many questions, so much she wished she could know about herself.
 

It would be foolish, though, to call out of curiosity and ignore the instincts that had brought her to this place. She was doing the right thing, for her son and for herself.
 

Maybe someday, when it felt right, when she'd pieced together enough of her past to understand where this man fit in, she'd contact him again.
 

Someday, but not today.
 

xxxxxx
 

end
 

Author's notes: This is an idea I've had floating around in my brain since sometime around season three. For some reason seeing Sein Und Zeit and Closure clicked it all into place. I'd like to thank Cynthia for a top notch beta read (as always) and Alanna and Laura for imput and encouragment. And thank you for reading.