“Fade”

A novella in six chapters by Ann K

Summary: Mulder never returns after his disappearance in “Requiem,” leaving Scully alone and a single-mother. Years later, fate conspires to bring Scully back to the man she has never forgotten. Can she accept the truth she finds?

Rating: R (individual chapters may vary, please read carefully)

Keywords: MSR, A, S, Sc/Sk friendship, William, AU

Timeline: After Requiem, although the events of seasons eight and nine never happened. Doggett and Reyes do not exist in this story. Scully found out she was pregnant at the end of “Requiem,” and then it all changed.

Feedback: Much appreciated at annhkus@yahoo.com. Read more of my stories at http://www.geocities.com/annhkus.

Distribution: Please let me know, and leave my name and headers attached. Thanks.

Disclaimer: The X-Files and the characters of Scully, Mulder and Skinner belong to Chris Carter, 1013 and Fox.

See author’s notes at the end of chapter six.

Chapter One (1/6)

I.

How she became the mother of a boy who loved horses, she wasn’t sure.

The horse obsession started simply enough. They had been on a summer vacation with Walter near Myrtle Beach, the memories a blur of sunburns and squishy sand. But William spotted a pony ride set up on the boardwalk, and after she fished around in the bottom of her beach bag for a crumpled five dollar bill, he spent the next hour in bliss, and cried as the sun set and Scully pulled him off to go back to the hotel.

The five dollars fed an obsession that brought her to this place, sitting in the battered bleachers near a dusty riding ring, three years later. William loved to ride, and she loved to see her son happy. So, they made the trek to the stables every other day, a short ride from their suburban home. A three-bedroom house, a large mortgage, two dogs romping in a fenced in green backyard, a SUV in the garage. Life was grossly idealistic, minus the absence of a simple figure.

It was that absence that she felt everyday, in the mornings when she woke alone in her king-size bed, huddled to one side, unconsciously leaving Mulder’s space empty. She felt it at lunch, when she rushed home to walk the dogs and was greeted by an empty house, when it should have been filled with his larger than life presence. It caused her to ache at night, when she and Will cuddled on the couch, laughing at some inane movie, and the space seemed too big and empty.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way, of that she was sure. The plans she made for herself when she was William’s age never included nights of aching loneliness, a loneliness she refused to acknowledge in a feeble effort to make it go away. They never included the paralyzing uncertainty of a single mother, wanting to do everything right, and terrified that it would all come out wrong. They never included the heartache of not knowing, of accepting a cruel hand dealt by the mistress of fate.

Dana Scully believed in fate, however, just as she believed in science and right and wrong, so she sat and watched her son and thanked God for his presence in her life.

She held her breath as he jumped over the small oxer, directing the gelding effortlessly. The distance between him and the ground seemed so large to her earthbound eyes. She exhaled sharply as the two landed, and a bright smile crossed William’s face 

She resisted the urge to clap, not wanting to embarrass her son.

He seemed so much older than his eight years, with a maturity that often haunted her. It haunted her because he would look at her and, at times, she would see his father. A younger Mulder, one that she never knew. William shone with innocence, and an intense curiosity about the world. Another trait inherited from his father, she was sure.

The sun was beginning to set in the horizon, the pinkish hue a backdrop to the pine trees lining the riding ring.

She was lucky they had found this stable so close to their house. There were endless days of rushing out from work to pick William up from school. He would bounce on the car seat the entire way there, rattling on about what horse he might get to ride that day. It wasn’t his words that captivated her as much as his voice, a meticulous self-assurance peppering his tone in an echo of times long gone by.

The bleachers rattled underneath her, snapping her away from her thoughts.

“I swear, Dana, that boy would be happy if you let him live at the stable.” She laughed softly, and accepted his outstretched offering of coffee, the warm aroma mixing deliciously with the smells in the summer air. “There are those days when his room reminds me of the stable,” she answered grimly, but with a smile lurking behind her eyes. “But I know even those moments are precious. We both know William is a special child. I am sure he knows it, too.”

Walter was quiet. Dana figured he did know how special Will was. He had been there for each of William’s birthdays, even his first. His preschool graduation, his first riding lesson, his school plays. He joined them on occasional weeknights, when he could escape from work at the Hoover Building and the traffic was cooperative.

“Busy day?” she asked, already knowing the answer. Since Walter’s promotion, they had seen him less and less, and she was grateful for the time he could steal away to be with them.  “As always,” he answered, stretching his legs on the bleachers and leaning forward onto his elbows. “I had to go down to Quantico today, and then meet with some agents in Alexandria. Someone asked about you. An Agent Campbell?”

She had to think for a moment, willing her thoughts back to her tenure with the Bureau. She left after the birth of William, unable to continue with work that seemed so different without Mulder’s presence. It was another lifetime, but she had vague memories of a balding ASAC in Virginia. She shrugged noncommittally, and returned her gaze to William in the riding ring.

They sat in comfortable silence for a long moment. “It’s hard to believe you’ve been gone from the Bureau for such a long time, Dana. I miss working with you.” Despite their close friendship, such a display of emotion was rare from Walter, and she was touched by his devotion. Reaching over, she grabbed his hand for a brief moment, and then let go. “I appreciate the sentiment. You know I do. But things weren’t the same for me after…”

Walter knew what she was thinking, and simply nodded. “It wasn’t the same for any of us, you know.” But it had been hardest on Scully. As the search for Mulder waned, and Scully labored under the pressures of work, pregnancy and aching uncertainty, a fire in her was extinguished, something that terrified Walter. When William was born, she had a new purpose, a new reason for living.

He was eternally grateful that Mulder, and fate, had given her one last gift before everything changed.

The sound of a horse near the rail caused him to look up, and he saw that William’s lesson was over. He stood, as did Scully, and they made their way down to the dusty riding ring. William’s riding lessons were a regular occurrence. They knew the routine.

“Mom, did you see how we jumped the fence today?” William’s voice was excited, as were his eyes, and Scully felt her heart clutch for a brief moment.

“I did, Will. You looked awfully good up there.”

Wherever Will got his riding genes from, it certainly wasn’t from the Scully side of the family. They were sea-faring stock, she thought ruefully, not cowboys, remembering her one and only attempt at riding, to make William happy, and how her thigh muscles ached for the next week. She wondered vaguely if Mulder had ever been interested in horses as a child.

“He is a good kid, Dana. You have done well.”

Becoming Will’s mother made her own mother’s annoying adages so true. “You’ll understand when you have a child, Dana.” “One day, you’ll have to be the responsible mother.” “Life changes when you have a child.” As blessed as she felt, however, it was sometimes like getting a brightly wrapped gift with nothing inside. It felt hollow without Mulder, and she had come to the realization that it likely would forever.

Will would never know his dad, although she kept pictures of Mulder scattered around the house, and Will often sleep with Mulder’s old Knicks jersey as a makeshift pillowcase. She would stand in his doorway, long after he had gone to sleep, when the world had slowed from its feverish pace and she could take stock of her day. The sight of William’s innocent face, his cheeks ruddy and his mouth slightly open, nestled against the worn garment she so intimately associated with Mulder, was too much at times. For all the progress she had made since the day she came home for good, the day she made her peace with Mulder and concentrated on raising William the best way she could, there were moments when she crumpled, sagging against the wall, weeping silently as the moonlight fell across Will’s bed.

“Dana? I asked you if you had any dinner plans for tonight. I wanted to take you and Will out to eat.” He knew where her thoughts had been, but there was no cause to speak of them.

They each carried their own heavy burden when it came to Mulder, and, while time might heal their wounds, the loneliness was a constant reminder of what had been lost.

“Sounds good,” she whispered huskily, clearing her throat. Hooking her foot on the railing in the stable aisle, she watched as Will curried the horse, his strokes strong and confident. He loved this part of the lesson, being able to brush the horse and put him up for the evening. She still rolled her eyes everytime they got in the car to go home, and Will would wave his fingers under her nose, exclaiming with glee that they smelled like horse. It was a warm, rich aroma, and she found herself intoxicated by it as well. 

“Will and I were talking about you last night,” she finally said, breaking the comfortable silence between them.

“My ears were burning. All good, I hope?”

“We were watching one of those forensic how-to shows on the Discovery Channel. He wanted to know, when his dad and I were partners, if you were like the man who stood in the back of the autopsy lab supervising all the work.”

Walter laughed, a deep laugh that brought a smile to Scully’s face. “Did you tell Will that I don’t think I could have supervised you and Mulder, even if I tried? The best I could do is try to keep some semblance of order. I think we all knew that I wasn’t running the show.”

“Well, I certainly wasn’t either. I disavow all responsibility for some of the trials and tribulations we all went through. I think we all know who to blame for those.”

He was quiet a long time, and she turned to look at him when he finally muttered, “Yes, we do,” a small smile creasing his face.

“Fast food or fancy tonight?” he asked her, shaking the mood.

“Ah, I get a choice. Somehow I think we might not be allowed in a fancy place, with Will’s dirty jeans and dusty boots.”

“This is true. And it’ll take him a couple of hours to stop bouncing on the chair, pretending he is still riding. Perhaps fast food might be the best bet." 

“Hey, what can I say? I’m cheap.”

She watched William lead the gelding into the stall, and prepared to head out to the car when Walter caught her arm. “Dana, can you do me a favor?”

She blinked. “Of course,” she responded immediately, trying to figure out what this favor might be.

“Do you mind coming by my office on Monday, in the morning? I know it’s a drive for you, and you’ll have to take off work, but I have something I need to discuss with you.”

Scully wrinkled her forehead, trying to understand the motivations behind his peculiar request. She hadn’t been to the Hoover Building in a very long time. “Is it something we can discuss this weekend?”

“No,” he replied quickly. “I’d rather talk in person, and in my office.” At her quizzical stare, he added hurriedly, “It’s nothing bad, I promise. I just…”

He ran out of words. Why would he want to see her? She ran through several different options in her mind, none of them making much sense, before she nodded. She trusted him.

“Of course, Walter. Monday morning. I bring the doughnuts, you supply the coffee.”

They walked companionably out to Scully’s car, Will leaping in circle around them, and she filed Walter’s request away, thinking about dinner and Will’s riding lessons and her life as the mother of a very special boy.

II.

She walked briskly down the sidewalk, never looking at the masses of people that surrounded her. With her purse tucked under one arm, a bag of doughnuts in the other hand, and her heels clicking in a steady staccato, she immersed herself in the rhythm of all the days she had walked this very road, taken these same steps, and entered the cool lobby of the Hoover Building.

Some things on earth would never change, she long ago decided, and the Hoover Building was one of them. Its beige concrete walls stood as sturdy and unshakable as they did when she first walked the hallways as an agent trainee, and she drew comfort from that. The comfort wasn’t the same, and never would be. Not after all she had seen and done, and not after she realized that some men in power would contort the truth to fit their own needs.

But there was always the part of Dana Scully that drew comfort from right and wrong.

As she made her way to the front desk, presenting her identification to the security officer and shifting her feet as he picked up the phone, she looked at the agents walking toward the elevator, beginning their day’s work. Had she ever been that youthful, that radiant, with a passionate sense of justice? A young woman with a short red hair caught her attention. She was standing by the elevator, a small box balanced in her hands, and Scully saw the Sig resting comfortably in a side holster, barely covered by the woman’s black blazer. Their eyes met briefly in the crowded lobby, and the woman nodded quickly out of politeness before she stepped into the waiting elevator.

What she saw when she looked at the thinning crowd was Mulder. More than her own moral compass, her tenure at the Bureau had been guided by Mulder’s passion, his quest, and his never-ending search for his own truth. While once she had been resentful of that, now she counted it among her deepest blessings, that she had known and loved a man like Mulder. And it was Mulder that she saw reflected in the earnest faces of the agents that morning.

“Miss Scully?” the officer questioned, bringing her attention back to the present and letting her drop the curtains on her vision of the cloudy past. “Deputy Director Skinner will see you now,” he curtly informed her, handing her an identification badge which she clipped onto her blouse, and sliding her license towards her across the gleaming granite desk. “Take the elevator on the right up to the sixth floor. The officer there will direct you.”

There was no need to tell this man that she knew the Hoover Building better than he did, that she had spent most of her career within these walls. It was her home, and her family, although, just like with any other family, it was her blessing and her curse.

She rode up the elevator in silence, jumping as the signal sounded for the sixth floor and the doors slid silently open. The officer directed her into Walter’s outer office, and she was somewhat startled to see a young black man sitting behind the desk. Kimberly was long gone, she knew, but she half expected to see her surly smile when she walked into the door.

“Go on in, Miss Scully,” he informed her, waving towards the open door. “Deputy Director Skinner is waiting for you.”

She stood for a moment in silence at his open office door. Much had changed since Walter’s promotion, and his office reflected that. The morning sunlight gleamed off the polished wooden floors, partly covered by an oriental rug, and she smiled at the few pictures that she saw on his side table.

“Dana,” Walter exclaimed, looking up from his paperwork and rising quickly from his chair. “I must be slipping. I didn’t hear you walk in.”

She smiled at him, settling into a chair across from his expansive wooden desk and putting the doughnuts down beside her. “Must be all this cushy office work you have these days,” she teased. “Your office is lovely,” she added, almost as an afterthought. “I am proud of you, Walter. You deserve this.”

“Thank you,” he murmured, and she could by the faint blush spreading over his neck that he was embarrassed. “But the Bureau is determined to get their mileage out of me, and they certainly do.” He hesitated, and she could tell he chose his next words carefully. “Was it hard for you this morning, Dana? Coming back here, I mean?”

She had only been back to the building a handful of times since William’s birth. While she was flooded with reminders of her tenure as an agent, those memories also seemed like they belonged to another person, another Dana Scully who she remembered faintly, like an old high school classmate. “It was fine,” she finally shrugged. “I do have some pleasant memories here.”

He nodded, and they sat in silence for a minute longer before she spoke. “You know I always enjoy seeing you, Walter, but are you going to tell me why you asked me down here on a weekday morning?”

“Of course,” he answered quickly. “But I’m not sure how.” They had been friends for years now, and she appreciated his honesty. “Just tell me.” He pushed himself out of his chair, and paced behind his desk. She felt like she was a young agent again, desperately trying to cover for Mulder and his latest indiscretion. And just as suddenly, just as if someone had turned on the lights in a darkened room, she knew. She knew why he had asked her down here, and why he was so hesitant to tell her what was going on. It was the one thing that would always bind them together.

A sharp inhale of breath punctuated her surprise. “It’s Mulder, isn’t it?” she asked rhetorically. She knew, by the way he looked down for a brief moment, and how his shoulders slumped when she said Mulder’s name.

The silence was agonizing, so quiet that she could hear the clock on Skinner’s wall ticking loudly. Or was that her heartbeat? “For god’s sake, tell me, Walter. 

He stuck his hands deep into his trouser pockets and finally nodded, an almost imperceptible gesture. Meeting her unwavering gaze, he began. “I know you never gave up hope for Mulder after his disappearance, Dana. Neither of us did. But you had to retain some semblance of a normal life for Will, a family, and I wanted to help you with that. I love you, and I love Will, and I only wanted you to be happy. So I did what you asked. Whatever hopes we had for Mulder we kept in our hearts.”

She nodded, impatient. She knew this already. Scully spent months driving across the country, following up leads, talking to witnesses, all in a desperate effort to find Mulder. She failed. The failure haunted her, but not as much as William’s face when she returned from her searches. He changed overnight, over a weekend, over the weeks and months she was gone. He was not going to grow up without her. She wouldn’t allow that, and she knew Mulder would have wanted her to be with their son.

“What are you telling me, Walter?” she pressed, her voice strained.

He took off his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I am telling you, Dana, that while I supported you and William and never mentioned Mulder in that context, I never gave up looking for him. I have been looking for him for years, unofficially, using Bureau contacts and some of my own resources. I couldn’t accept the fact that he simply vanished from your life, that Will would never know his father.”

Scully sat perfectly still, her rigid back the only thing that held her ragged emotions together. Why was he telling her this? Why now, after all these years, after the Mulder she knew and loved was a comforting memory in her heart? Her face pale, she stood, desperate to hear the words.

He dropped his eyes from her intense gaze, and continued. “I never told you, Dana, because I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want to tell you that I couldn’t find anything, so I never told you I was still looking. There were leads, and some sightings, but they were never substantiated, Dana. I promised myself I would never tell you unless I knew for sure.”

His last words took a moment to process. “Unless I knew for sure,” he had said. And now he was telling her. Her complex emotions slowed her rational thought process, but, when her brain clicked, and the words connected, she felt her heart begin to race. He was telling her because he believed he had found him.

“Mulder?” she whispered, her voice sounding pitiful and desperate. She clinched her hands against his desk, her knuckles white.

Walter walked around the desk, holding her loosely by the elbow and guiding her back into the chair. His next words were painted too broadly on the canvas for her to completely comprehend. “An associate of mine in Texas, Dana, called me two weeks ago. I had given him a picture of Mulder some time ago, and asked him to keep it for reference. He called me, and told me that he ran into a man in town that looked exactly like the photograph I had given him.”

No. Mulder could not be in Texas. If he was ever returned, she knew he would somehow find his way home, to her and William. He would find someway to let her know he was okay.

“I checked up on him. I ran all his records, checked his identification, everything. He has none, Dana. Up until a few years ago, there was nothing on this guy. Absolutely nothing, a blank slate. But now he’s working on a small cattle ranch in east Texas, and has been for the past several months.”

She knew she should be asking questions, saying something, but her mouth refused to open. She could only stare at Walter, her eyes wide, panicked and disbelieving. Walter reached over to hold her hand, but she didn’t feel the physical connection. She felt nothing, emotions and facts and sensations flooding over her. She was drowning.

“Dana, I went there. I had to see for myself. This man sounded so sure, and I trusted him. I had to know if it was Mulder.”

Something finally clicked, and she spoke, her voice raspy. “You went there? You saw him?” He nodded slightly, and Scully’s heart skipped a beat. The tears welled up in her eyes, but she remained oblivious to her tenuous control on her emotions. She trusted Walter like she did few people these days. He was her friend, he cared for her and William, and he was her last real connection to Mulder, outside of her son. “And?” she asked, knowing the answer, but not so sure she wanted to hear the words.

“I didn’t speak to him, Dana. I heard him speaking to some other man, I saw him. I was close enough to touch him. I watched him for two days to make sure. I told the owner of the ranch that I was looking into a fertilizer theft. I needed to know, Dana. I had to know.”

She was frightened to hear him say the words, and he was terrified to say them. It was as if they had never left that hospital after Walter’s return from Oregon, after Mulder’s disappearance and the discovery of her pregnancy. The conversation had been put on hold, indefinitely, and now, after years, she heard Walter say that he would find Mulder.

And he did. Without the words being spoken, she knew.

Walter watched as the emotions flashed across her face, but her quiet composure never faltered. Her tears did not fall. He grabbed the file from the corner of his desk, turning it around methodically in his hands for several long moments. “I know what I saw, Dana. I believe that man was Mulder. It was him.”

And with that proclamation, he dropped the file into her lap, quickly getting up from the chair to walk to the window, unable to see her face when she opened the file. He knew what he had done was right, and that belief sustained him during the long years he had continued this search. But he never knew if he would really find Mulder. He didn’t know what to do now that he felt he had.

But Scully knew. She traced the Bureau logo on the top of the manila file, a ghost of a smile on her pale face, the paper in her hands a comforting sensation. She and Mulder had lived their lives by these papers, the files dictating their travels, their beliefs, and their very existence. It was fitting, and ironic, that she would discover the man who still defined her inside of a beat-up Bureau file.

Time stopped. Her heart slowed, and she inhaled slowly, agonizingly, as she flipped open the file. And there, staring back at her, were a thousand visions of the past. William’s quirky smile and moody eyes. Long fingers and strong hands that had sustained her for years. A lock of brown hair that hung carelessly over the wrinkled forehead, the raised brow. The expression on his face that still revealed to her everything he was thinking, and everything she was feeling.

It was Mulder.

III.

“But, Mom. Billy said he was bringing his video games. Why can’t I?”

She sighed. “Will, we have discussed this five times already in the last hour. The camp rules say no video games allowed. Don’t you think that you’ll be too busy riding the horses and swimming in the lake to play a video game?”

Ah, that was low, Dana, but effective. She watched as Will’s defiant face crumpled just a little, then he finally muttered, “All right,” tossing the game onto the overstuffed chair behind him. The suitcase lay open on the floor, stocked with shorts and socks and all the essentials for a week away at summer camp. It was her longest time away from Will since right after he was born, and it hurt. But she refused to damper Will’s excitement by her matronly, bittersweet reflections.

“Thanks for your help, Mom. I’m going to take a shower before bed.”

He scampered off, aiming a kiss towards her cheek, but kissing the air between them instead. She eased herself off the bed, walking slowly back into the den, picking up her by now cold mug of tea along the way. The manila file folder, highlighted under the single desk lamp illuminating the room, drew her eye like a beacon.

Actually, she had been unable to take her eyes off of it since she begged Walter to let her take it home with her after their morning meeting. It seduced her from the passenger seat during her drive home, and she found herself praying for red lights so she could flip open the cover and memorize another detail of the face she thought she would never see again.

She grabbed it on her way to the sofa, and settled down against the pillows, staring at the well-worn emblem on the cover. Federal Bureau of Investigation, it read, in bright, red lettering. That’s why they put the “I” in FBI, Mulder had said. So why was she so frightened to follow her instincts on this one, to go to Texas and answer the question for herself?

She knew that she had lost some of her edge after she resigned from the Bureau, that her quick responses, while a lasting part of her reflexes, had been dulled somewhat. Responding to a milk and cereal crisis during Saturday morning cartoons was different than reacting to an inbred homicidal maniac chasing after you.

But that wasn’t the point. The point, she finally admitted to herself, was that she was scared. What if it wasn’t him? More than that, what if it was?

“Mom,” Will exclaimed from the spot behind her. She jumped involuntarily, throwing her hand up over her chest. So much for those lasting powers of observation. “Jesus, Will. You scared me. You sure are good at sneaking up on people.”

He grinned, a smile that reached his eyes. “Oh, Mom. You just weren’t paying attention,” he concluded, moving the blanket aside so he could sit next to her on the sofa. She knew that other eight-year-old boys were not like this. She knew that, one day, she would not be cool, that her “mother” label would automatically render her an embarrassment to Will. But, for now, she relished in his affection.

She kissed the top of his head, the hair still damp from his shower. “That was a record fast time in the shower, Will. Are you in a hurry to leave tomorrow?” she teased. He did not answer, and, after another quick inhale of his freshly washed red hair, she looked down at his face. He was fingering the file laid in her lap, the one she had momentarily forgotten was there.

“Did Uncle Walter give you that today?”

Oh, god. Oh, god. Oh, god.

What was she going to say? After the rush of exhilaration she felt in Walter’s office, looking at the picture of the man she was sure was Mulder, and even after staring at it for hours since then, she didn’t know what she wanted to do. She was even less sure about what to tell William. Oh, god. Please don’t let me screw this up.

“Yes, he did. It’s a case he thought I might be interested in.”

Will lifted an eyebrow, a move he acquired honestly, and asked, “Why would Uncle Walter ask you to look into a case? You’ve been gone for the FBI for a long time now.” Will had never seemed able to connect the image of his mother, who baked him chocolate-chip cookies and tucked him in at night, to a gun-toting FBI agent, who tracked down bad guys. His image of Mulder was even murkier. He understood that his father had disappeared in the line of duty, and that he investigated paranormal cases, but he could never fully grasp the extent of Mulder’s lifestyle.

Oh, god. Her stomach clenched into a tight knot. “It’s a case he thought I might be interested in.”

He stared at her inquisitively, and Scully swore at that moment, she was looking into Mulder’s face. It was as if he knew her fears, he knew the Pandora’s box they were possibly opening. And he thought she should press forward, for the elusive truth. Mulder may have been gone for nine years, but she had lived with his likeness every day.

“It’s about Dad, isn’t it?”

She only stared at him, nodding dumbly. “It is, Will. Your Uncle Walter…” She hesitated, trying to pull the words together from thin air to explain this to Will, without getting his hopes up. He had long ago accepted that his dad was gone. If this wasn’t Mulder, if she was wrong … Oh, god.

She tried again. “Your Uncle Walter thinks he may have found someone who has some information about your dad. He thinks I should go.”

“Is he going with you?” His face was solemn, and his eyes, wide and trusting.

“No, Will. I told him that if I was going to go, I wanted to do it on my own.” Walter had protested, as she knew he would, but, if this indeed was Mulder, she was going to meet him alone, just the two of them, the way it had always been.

But now there were three.

“I should go with you,” Will said, nodding with intense seriousness. “If it’s something about Dad, I should be there.”

Oh, William. Her heart broke, and she reached out to hold his hand. “Will, I’m not sure what I will find. I need to do this alone. You need to go to camp. But, whatever I find, I will tell you. If you need to be there, I will come and get you.”

He blinked at her, unconvinced. “Will, trust me. You can always call me on my cell phone, always, or reach me through Grandma. I trust your Uncle Walter, and he would not have me go anywhere that would potentially be unsafe.” That she was sure of, knowing that Walter only wanted to accompany her for emotional support.

The reality rushed past her a second later. The decision was made. She was going to Texas. She was going to see if this man, this Mulder in the photograph, was the same Mulder who haunted her dreams at night and peppered her memories during the day.

Will finally nodded, slowly. “Okay, Mom. But you promise you’ll call me if you find out anything about Dad. You promise.” The inflection in his voice as he said “Dad,” the only way he knew Mulder, brought tears to her eyes, and she cursed her weakness.

Her weakness would cripple her again and again before she would cross the border into Texas the next day with the sun rising a dewy pink from the hilltops behind her. She wept as she slept that night, the file clutched tightly against her chest and the tears soaking the edge of the photograph. She wept as she rushed to get William ready to ride to camp with his best friend Billy, and instead found him with his arms crossed and the tiny suitcase at his knees in the back seat of the SUV.

She wept as they huddled together there for what seemed like hours, talking about Mulder and her memories and how much Mulder would have loved being a father, and she finally convinced William to get in the car with Billy’s mother.

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Chapter Two