WEEP NOT FOR THE MEMORIES
Katriena Knights

     This wasn't the way it was supposed to have happened.
     Dana Scully sat quietly in Walter Skinner's office, her hands
clenched hard together in her lap.  He had taken off his glasses and was
wiping them carefully, looking at them, at the desk, out the window.
Never once, over the past several minutes of their conversation, had he
looked at Scully.
     "I'm sorry, Scully."  His voice had gentled but he still didn't
look at her.  "I wanted to spare you this, but when Doggett and I went
to pick him up yesterday he refused to come with us.  I thought you
might get a better response."
     Scully nodded slowly, her mouth held so still and tight it hurt.
She had to peel her lips apart to speak, and even then it was hard to
move them.  "It's all right, sir.  I can handle it."
     And she could handle it.  She knew she could.  She'd seen him three
days dead, and three months not-quite-dead.  She'd seen him bloodied and
broken and mangled, frozen, shot, bruised and broken-hearted.
     But she didn't want to see him like this.
#
     She'd sent for him six weeks ago.  Finally, after months of
investigation and work and a final, painful, bloody confrontation with
the forces endangering him, it had been safe for him to come home.
She'd sent him the prearranged message, then waited at the train station.
     He'd never come.
     With no idea what had happened to him, she'd initiated an
investigation.  Skinner had assigned Doggett and they'd worked for the
past month and a half looking everywhere.  The only people who had any
idea what his latest location might have been were the Lone Gunmen, so
they'd been drawn in, as well.
     And finally, yesterday, they'd found him.
     And finally, today, after months of heartache and loneliness, she
would see him again.
     But this wasn't the way it was supposed to have happened.
#
     She stood just far enough away that she was sure he couldn't see
her, and stared until the tears stopped burning behind her eyes.  Behind
her, Skinner held her elbow.
     "What happened to him?" she finally managed.
     "We don't know for sure," said Skinner.  "He wasn't treated at any
hospitals.  He showed up here a month ago and has been working here ever
since.  No one's even sure where he's been living."
     Scully nodded.
     "Are you ready?" Skinner asked.
     She pressed her lips together and swallowed hard.  "I'm ready."
     She led the way.
#
     He didn't look any different, not at first.  The same tousled brown
hair, the same beautiful face.  But it was so strange to see him in the
blue pinstriped fast food uniform.  And when she walked up to the
counter he looked at her and she looked into his eyes and saw nothing.
     Nothing.
     "May I help you?" he said.
     "Yes."  She forced herself to look right into his face.  His
beautiful, blank face.  "Some men came by here yesterday to speak to
you.  They asked me to speak to you today."
     He frowned, the familiar little furrow forming down the center of
his brow.  "I remember them."  Then he looked at her harder, and the
frown deepened.  "I remember you."
     Her heart gave a stutter of hope.  "Do you?"
     He gave a slow nod.  "Yes.  I remember you.  But I don't remember
your name."
#
     He agreed to talk to her, which was more than Skinner and Doggett
had managed yesterday.  He left her alone with him in the restaurant's
break room.  A few employees lingered curiously, trying to find out what
was going on.  Skinner flashed his badge and shooed them away.
     He watched her warily across the small table.
     "What do you remember?" she asked.
     "I don't remember anything at all before about two months ago."
     "Do you have any idea what might have happened?  Were you hurt?"
     "Not that I know of.  I just . . . woke up.  It was like my entire
life started that moment."
     She blinked hard.  She had no idea how she was holding the pain at
bay, pain that ripped at her insides like metal claws.  "You said you
remembered me."
     He squinted and nodded.  "I think I do.  You look like someone I've
met before, but I don't know where."
     That was something, anyway.  "You don't belong here, Mulder.  I'd
like to take you home, if you'll let me."
     "Mulder?"
     "I'm sorry.  That's your name."
     He put his face in his hands, rubbing his forehead in frustration.
  "I didn't remember that, either.  I just told them to call me Bill."
     "Your middle name is William.  It's your father's name."  Your
son's name, but she couldn't tell him that, not yet.
     "I see.  And my first name would be . . .?"
     "Fox."
     "Fox."  He made a face.  "I don't like that."
     She couldn't help smiling.  "You never did."
     "Fox William Mulder."  His voice was little more than a breath.
"It sounds right."  He hesitated, then looked at her.  "And what's your
name?"
     "Scully.  Dana Scully."
     He nodded again, seeming to take a moment to absorb the
information. Finally he said, "And you say you want to take me home?"
     "Yes."
     "All right.  I'll go."
#
     At first she wasn't sure where to take him.  And as she unlocked
the door to her apartment, she still wasn't sure she was making the
right decision.  But she pushed the door open and let him walk ahead of
her into the living room.
     "This is where I live?" he said.
     "You lived here for a while.  Not very long."  The truth seemed
like the best course.  He'd always valued the truth.
     "This doesn't look like a place I would live."
     "It's my apartment.  It was ours for a few weeks."
     He turned around slowly and looked at her, measured her up and down
with his eyes.  "We . . . lived together?"
     "For a few weeks."
     And then, dammit, a tear rolled down her cheek.  She sniffed
quickly and blotted it with her sleeve, but he had seen it.
     "Scully," he said softly, and moved toward her.  It was the most
natural thing in the world for her to walk into his arms, let him cocoon
her in his embrace.  To listen to his heartbeat against her ear and
smell his smell.  It brought back so much, so many emotions, so many
memories. None of which, she had to remind herself, he could share anymore.
     But he had cupped the back of her head in his hand and laid his
face against her hair, exactly the way he always had, and she was no
longer physically able to hold back her tears.
     "Scully," he said again.  "Scully, I'm so sorry."
     He held her until she quieted, and then, gently, she moved back.
He looked down at her as she looked up at him, and for a moment the
warmth was there in his eyes and it was almost as if he knew her again.
     "I remember this," he said softly.  "I remember holding you."
     She smiled a little, because she didn't know what else to do.
#
     She'd left William at her mother's for the day, feeling it was the
most prudent thing to do.  Later, while Mulder was in her shower, she
called and asked if William could stay the night.
     "How is he?" her mother asked.  "How's Fox?"
     "It's not good, Mom."  Her voice shook, but the tears were gone for
now.  "He doesn't remember anything."
     "I'm so sorry, Dana."
     "Thanks, Mom.  I'll be by for William in the morning."
     He came out of the bathroom a few minutes later in his underwear,
scrubbing his hair with a towel.  His eyes sparked as he crossed into
the living room.
     "When I lived here," he said, "we slept in the same bed."
     It wasn't a question.  Scully nodded.
     "Where will I be sleeping tonight?"
     She looked at him and thought about all the scenarios she'd thought
up about his first night home.  Passion and fire and naked bodies
tangled in the sheets.  Carefully, gently, she let them go.
     "You can sleep in my bed if you like."
     "Will you be there?"
     "Would that be all right with you?"
     He tossed the towel over his head, scrubbing his scalp and
obscuring his face at the same time.  Gaining some privacy for himself,
she thought. Finally he finished, lowered the towel, and said, "Yes."
     So she put on her pajamas and crawled into her wide bed, and he
combed his hair and climbed in after her, his body still chilly from his
shower.  She flipped off the light and cuddled down into her pillow.
Next to her, he lay very still.
     After a time she felt him turn over, and his hand cupped her
shoulder. "Scully?"
     She fought down the heat of her body's response to his touch,
clenching the sheet in her fist.  "Yes?"
     He moved closer, until he was spooned against her.  "We used to lay
like this, didn't we?"
     A tear fell as she squeezed her eyes shut.  "Yes."
     "Is this all right?"
     "Yes.  It's fine."
     He put his nose against her hair, and she felt his breathing
against her back, until it softened into sleep.
#
     The phone rang in the middle of the night, awakening her from a
dark dream.  She'd turned off the ringer on the bedside phone, to keep
it from disturbing William, but she heard the ring from the kitchen.
Mulder still lay next to her, one arm draped over her waist.  It had
been a common position for them.  Apparently his body remembered things
his mind didn't.
     Carefully, she extricated herself and tiptoed into the kitchen,
wondering what had happened with William to cause her mother to call at
this hour.
     But the voice on the other end of the line wasn't Maggie Scully's.
     "I know what happened to Mulder," the woman said.
     Scully straightened, off guard.  "Who the hell is this?"
     "Meet me outside.  I need to talk to you."
     "When?"
     "Right now."
     The connection broke off.  Scully stared at the phone a moment,
then turned it off and headed back to the bedroom.
     Silently, she dressed, watching Mulder to be sure he didn't wake
up. With him still sleeping soundly, she slipped out of the apartment
and downstairs.
     She didn't know if she was surprised or angry to see the woman
waiting for her on the stoop.
     "Marita Covarrubias," she said.
     Marita nodded.  Scully noticed then the dark circles under her
eyes. Tired, or sick, Scully wondered which, then decided she didn't care.
     "You said you knew what was wrong with Mulder.  Tell me."
     Marita pushed blonde hair back behind her ear.  Her fingers
trembled. "This has been a process.  It started with the operation, when
Mulder nearly died from the effects of the alien artifact you found in
Africa."
     "Yes."  That had been as bad as this.  They'd lived through it.
The thought gave her some hope.
     "You know Mulder was operated on, that some tissue was removed from
his brain."
     "Yes."
     "That wasn't all.  There was an implant, designed to be used in
case of extreme emergency."
     Scully pushed back all her emotional reaction to this.  How much
damage had these people done to him?  To her?  It seemed to never end.
"Go on."
     "The neurological disorder detected in him later that year was
caused by this procedure.  It didn't go as planned.  When he went
through the transformation initiated by the aftereffects of his
abduction, the disorder was cured.  But the implant remained."
     "What exactly was this implant?"
     "As I said, it was to be used in case of extreme emergency.  To
disrupt part of the memory retrieval system in Mulder's brain.  It was
intended to stop him if he continued his quest."
     "How was it to be triggered?"  It amazed Scully that she could
answer these probing and cogent questions.  It amazed her she could be
even partially coherent.
     "Remotely."
     "So who decided to trigger it?"
     Marita looked at her squarely.  "I did."
     Scully stared at her.  It occurred to her that she'd never wanted
so much to rip a person apart with her bare hands.  "Why?"
     "To protect him.  I thought if he forgot everything he knew, he
could come home.  I thought--"
     To Scully's surprise, Marita was crying.  She fought the tears for
a time, then put a hand over her mouth and drew herself back together.
"I lost Alex.  I'm not sure I ever loved him, but it hurt so much when
he died.  I thought if he could come back to you--  I thought it could
make up for what we did to you, and to him."
     Scully ground her teeth together until her jaw ached.  "Nothing
could ever make up for this.  Nothing."  She turned and started back up
the stairs.
     Marita took a step toward her.  "I just thought--"
     Scully wheeled on her.  "He was safe.  We eliminated the threat.
He could have come home and been perfectly safe.  Now my son has a
father who doesn't even know his own name."
     She stormed up the steps, barely hearing Marita's choked, "I'm
sorry. I'm so sorry."
#
     She stripped off her clothes and put her silk pajamas back on, then
carefully slid back into the bed, under the covers.  Into Mulder's
waiting arms.
     He drew her to him and kissed her, long and deep.  She melted into
him, reveling in the taste of his mouth, his tongue, all the familiar
textures.
     Finally, he drew away and peered down at her through the darkness.
  "I remember this," he said.  "I can barely remember my name but I
remember this.  I remember holding you, lying here with you.  I remember
making love to you.  I remember what it feels like to be inside you."
     "Mulder," she managed, no longer fighting the tears.
     "Thank you," he answered.  "Thank you for bringing me home."
#
     There was one more thing to deal with, one more thing to spring on
him before she could feel safe again.  The next morning she left him
alone in her apartment while she went to pick up William.
     When she came home he was poking through her kitchen cabinets,
pulling out cereal boxes and looking at them, then putting them back.
Gently, she closed the door behind her, maneuvering William's carrier
out of the way.
     He turned.  "Do I like any of this cereal?"
     "You'll have to try it and find out, I guess."  She set the carrier
on the couch, then carefully extricated the baby.  He was awake, but
just barely, his eyes drooping.  Mulder came slowly across the room, his
attention riveted to William's drowsy face.  She held him up where
Mulder could see him.
     "This is William," she said.  "My son."
     "William," he repeated.  "You said my father's name was William.
And my middle name is William."
     "Yes."
     He peered closer, then touched the baby's cheek with his finger.
"He looks like me."
     "Yes."
     She waited with her heart in her throat, wondering if this had been
too much.  It was one thing to return to a strange life where a woman
was willing to take you into her bed and her heart, but it was quite
another to discover a child was part of the equation.
     William's eyes brightened a little and he grabbed Mulder's finger
in his little hand.  Mulder smiled.  He looked at the baby for a long
time, then turned his eyes to Scully.
     "My brain doesn't remember very many things," he said slowly, "but
my heart does."
     Scully swallowed tears as he gently took the bundle of blanket and
baby from her arms, cradling it against his chest.  William cooed as
Mulder started to hum.
     She thought about the keenly intelligent man who'd befriended her,
then loved her.  Who'd challenged her at every turn, and who'd shared so
many strange adventures with her.  She thought about all the ideas she'd
had about what her life would be like with him.
     Carefully, gently, she let them all go.  The story would be
different, but it could still be a good one.

END.

--
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