Tachyon, a time-travel casefile
By Ann K


For Summary, disclaimers, etc., see Part One.
annhkus@yahoo.com, http://www.geocities.com/annhkus


Author's notes at conclusion.


Part V. 
Renewal


I.

Scully refused to leave the room to go to the hospital, despite 
Skinner's pleas and the stern looks from the paramedics. She didn't 
really give a damn what anyone said to her. She wasn't leaving this 
room until Mulder was returned, and that was that.

So she sat propped against the wall, her legs covered with a 
blanket, an IV running in her arm, a clear bag of fluids attached 
to the needle. She knew she was dehydrated, and in mild shock. But 
the chills had finally subsided, and her vision was clearing, and 
she had to figure out why in the hell she returned and Mulder 
didn't. And what she needed to do to bring him back.

After she found herself in Skinner's arms, his strained voice 
screaming for a doctor, she somehow managed to get to her feet, 
stumbling around the room, frantically calling Mulder's name. He 
simply wasn't there. One minute, he was standing by the window, 
talking to her. Now, by way of a twisted detour in the office four 
years ago, he was gone.

She didn't even move when Skinner sat down next to her, wordlessly 
handing her a Styrofoam cup filled with hot tea. He looked as 
confused and exhausted as she felt. From what she gathered, he 
arrived in Faunsdale not long after she and Mulder were reported 
missing, and had been searching for them for the past forty-eight 
hours.

Was that all? Two days were all that she and Mulder had been gone. 
Funny how, in such a short span of time, everything seemed so 
different.

Especially Skinner. He looked older, more haggard, like the weight 
of the world was weighing on his shoulders. As he sat motionless 
next to her, she realized that he knew. He knew what happened to 
them, and he knew the responsible parties involved. "Tell me," 
she said, speaking to his bowed head. He refused to look her 
in the eye. 

"I don't know where to start, Scully. After I arrived in town, we 
went to your motel. There was no evidence you were there, certainly 
not that you and Mulder were in that room at the exact moment." She 
had briefed Skinner on what happened to she and Mulder, how they 
stayed at the motel for an indefinite period of time, unsure of 
where to go next. 

"And then a man appeared, almost out of nowhere. He gave me papers, 
documents linking the Stedman Space Center to a controlled time 
travel experiment." Scully's stomach clenched at his words, and she 
felt the nausea rise in her throat. Time travel. So it was true. She 
and Mulder had talked about the idea, and she had even come to 
believe. But that was when she felt like she was in a dream state, 
drifting aimlessly through time and space with Mulder at her side.

This was reality, Mulder was missing, and Skinner was confirming her 
worst fears.

"But the experiment went awry, Scully, and they shut it down. It was 
too late, though, to stop the ripple effects. God knows how far they 
traveled, but you and Mulder seem to have been caught up in 
something."

"But I came back," she said, slowly, as if trying to convince 
herself. 

"You did," he confirmed. "But you're the only one. No one else has 
been found, not one of the other victims." She sensed he wanted to 
say something about Mulder, to ask her why she emerged from 
nothingness to fall into his arms, and why Mulder had not. But she 
couldn't explain it, and she refused to contemplate the thought 
that Mulder was still out there, lost, searching for her.

"I don't understand," she said, her voice reed thin. If she could 
have seen herself in a mirror, she would have been shocked. Her 
voice reflected her disheveled clothes, the way her hair was tangled 
near her shoulders. Skinner had never seen her in such a state of 
disarray. But it was Scully's face that spoke volumes. Her skin was 
deathly pale, a ghost white, as if she had not seen the sun for 
months, or years.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there next to Skinner, shivering 
intermittently beneath the wool blanket. But the paramedics had 
long gone, as had Agent White, who Skinner explained was the agent 
in charge in the Jackson office. She vaguely remembered him from 
their earlier conversations, when she and Mulder first arrived 
in town. 

It was a lifetime ago.

"I have to bring him back," she said, shifting so she could survey 
the room more clearly. She knew she couldn't sit by, waiting for 
Mulder to appear. She had to do something, before the window of 
opportunity passed them by, before whatever portal she found was 
gone forever. She refused to believe that it might already be 
too late. 

Skinner held onto her arm, steadying her as she leaned forward onto 
her elbows. "But how, Scully? I've contacted Stedman several times, 
I've sent a small team in based on a federal search warrant I got 
this morning. There is no evidence." He placed an emphasis on the 
last part of his sentence. "There was nothing there, and the 
administrators are denying everything. According to them, there 
was no Project Tachyon. Time travel is scientifically impossible."

She was surprised to realize that she is angry. Furiously angry. She 
lurched forward so quickly that the room swam in front of her, and 
she managed to steady herself on her knees. "I refuse to believe 
that," she said. "I refuse to believe that there is no one who 
can help us. I refuse to believe that Mulder has vanished. If I 
can return, so can he."

Somehow, she managed to stand, pushing Skinner's hands angrily 
away, clutching onto the table for support. "We were in this room," 
she whispered, almost in a trance, staring vacantly at the small 
space as she disconnected her IV. "We were standing across from 
each other. This is where we were when everything changed. It 
only made sense that this was the way back."

Scully walked around the room unsteadily, her hands tracing the 
worn plaster, searching for something she could not explain. 
Skinner stood back, watching her, a blank stare on his face. He 
couldn't help her, she knew. For whatever she and Mulder had 
experienced, they experienced it alone. For whatever Skinner 
had been led to believe, his belief was weak in the face of 
her own. For she and Mulder and lived it.

You would be proud of me, Mulder, she thought grimly. I believe.

"Mulder!" she screamed, her voice nearly hoarse. The familiar 
headache behind her eyes, which had finally abated as she sat 
next to the wall, returned with a vengeance. The intense pounding 
nearly brought her to her knees, and she whimpered.

Skinner never moved. He only watched her, a sad, solemn gaze. 
He was helpless.

But she wasn't, she vowed. "Mulder!" she screamed again, stumbling 
toward the window. "Don't you leave me, goddamn it! You can't 
leave me. Mulder!"

Then she saw it. It was almost unnoticeable, the way the light 
bent slightly at the window, the way the haze in the air shimmered. 
She stared at it, trying to decipher what she was seeing. She 
wanted to turn around, to tell Skinner to look, but she was scared 
to take her eyes off the vision. She was scared it might disappear.

"Sir!" she whispered, loudly, as she stepped forward. Maybe it was 
just a trick of the late afternoon light, distorted through the 
glass panes. Maybe it was her exhaustion, combined with her shock 
and her nausea.

But it wasn't, she knew, as she reached her hand toward the 
shimmering light, ignoring Skinner's voice from behind her. 
He was running toward her, making the ground tremble beneath 
her feet. But she stepped further, toward the light, reaching 
towards the window.

And then there was nothing. She was floating, and it was so bright 
she couldn't see. Instead, she squeezed her eyes shut tightly, 
the light still causing a luminescent glare from behind her lids. 
"Scully!" she heard Skinner shout. She heard his voice again, and 
wanted to tell him that she was okay, that she was right here.

It wasn't Skinner's voice. It was Mulder's, his deep baritone 
echoing, causing shivers across her skin. He shouted her name 
again, and this time she distinctly heard both Skinner and 
Mulder, calling for her.

"I'm here," she tried to say, but the words came out in a stilted 
moan. She jumped, startled, as a hand clasped onto her wrist, 
firmly, and began to pull her. She couldn't tell if she was being 
pulled away from the light, or towards it. She didn't know where 
the voices were coming from. She didn't know.

So she gave in, letting her limbs go limp, letting herself be pulled 
in whatever direction the voice wanted, as the headache pounded past 
her skull and through the rest of her trembling body.


II. 


She stood alone near the sidewalk, her arms wrapped loosely around 
her waist. It was early afternoon, yet the heavy clouds in the sky, 
a promise of impending rain, kept away most of the sun, casting her 
face in dark shadows. She looked frightened, exhausted, and more 
vulnerable than he had ever seen her.

"Scully?" Mulder said softly, walking up to stand beside her. 

She looked up quickly at his question, and he was pleased to see the 
small smile on her face. "Quite a case you had for us here, Agent 
Mulder. I can't wait until we get to write the report for this one."

He couldn't quite decipher how light her tone might be, but her 
words were like turning the knife in his heart. He knew what 
happened to them. They both did. But Scully nearly lost herself 
again trying to bring him back. Somehow, she did bring him back. 
The terror was written on her face as he and Skinner held onto her 
arms in the interrogation room. "Scully," he managed, questioningly.

"I'm fine, Mulder," she answered, surprising them both by reaching 
over to hold his hand. "I'm just not sure where to start processing 
this, what happened to us, why we both ended up back here when none 
of the other victims were returned. Why us? Why are we here?"

Her question was essentially rhetorical. There was simply no answer, 
at least not an answer that wasn't buried in some secretive 
government office. He held onto her hand firmly, and looked down 
the street. 

It was much different than the view they saw over the last few days. 
A group of giggling teenagers loitered in front of the drugstore, 
and the streetlight lazily changed to green, a Ford pickup pulling 
slowly through the intersection.

"I don't know if we'll ever find out the truth, Scully. But we're 
safe now, and that's something." It was indeed something. For there
was a period of time, when he and Scully were lost, that he wasn't 
too sure they would make it. It made him angry. 

Scully sighed, tucking her hair behind her ear. "I know, Mulder. But 
I want answers on this. We deserve them." She sounded angry, edgily 
so, and Mulder was surprised to realize that she sounded like him. 
At his most passionate, his most determined, she echoed the tone 
in his voice that spoke of their need to find the truth. It 
surprised him, and he wondered how this experience had changed 
Scully. Had changed them both.

"I saw you, Mulder," she finally said, breaking their uncomfortable 
silence.

He wasn't too sure what she meant. They had talked only briefly 
since their return yesterday morning. Scully spent the last day 
in the hospital for observation, and treatment for a heavily 
bruised shoulder. "You saw me?" he asked, turning so he could 
see her face.

She was staring off into the distance, a near dreamy smile on her 
face, her eyes slightly glazed. She nodded. "I saw you, in our 
office in DC, before I found Skinner. You were younger, like you 
were when we first met. I think it was right after our first case. 
I asked you if we were going to be okay." Her eyes now shone with 
unshed tears, and Mulder felt the weight of the moment like a stone 
on his chest. So this was it. Whether he and Scully were going to be 
okay. He had no memory of Scully ever asking him that question while 
they were in the office, but he prayed that his other self had the 
good sense to answer in the affirmative. "What did I say?" he 
choked out.

To his utter shock, Scully stood on her tiptoes, inches from his 
face. "You said that we just might," she whispered, and then she 
brushed her lips softly across his. 

Mulder wasn't sure what affected him the most. The words, the 
simple trust that existed between he and Scully. Or her kiss. He 
wrapped his arms around her, and simply held her close to him, 
resting his chin on her forehead. "You know we'll find the truth, 
Scully," he heard himself say. And he meant it. "We'll find out 
what happened to us."

Scully did not answer. Instead, he heard a small sniffle against 
his chest, and felt her head move slightly in a nod. She knew. 
Whatever happened to them, they would figure out. They had to.

A brief honk from a car caused them to jump apart, and Mulder saw 
Skinner sitting in the front seat of his rental car, looking 
slightly embarrassed. He had gone back to their motel, to collect 
their remaining belongings while he and Scully finished up at the 
police station. "Ready?" Skinner asked in a gruff voice. Scully 
walked around the car to the passenger seat, while he slid into 
the back.

They were all silent as they drove out of town. Mulder felt a 
strange disconnect, as if he were watching some sort of movie. 
The town was humming with life, but he knew how it could be. 
The eerie stillness that came from its empty streets and desolate 
stores, and the way that could make someone feel inside. Searching 
for Scully's eyes in the rearview mirror, he knew she felt the 
same. The crease between her eyebrows spoke volumes.

"I was able to get us on an earlier flight out of Jackson," Skinner 
said, after some miles had passed and the city limits of Faunsdale 
were long behind them.

"Thank you, sir," he answered automatically. Skinner believed. He 
was afraid to admit it, Mulder knew, but he believed. Skinner saw 
Scully disappear into the shimmering light. Mulder appeared to help 
Skinner save her. He shook his head, trying to clear it. There 
was so much he didn't understand.

"This is for you, Agents," Skinner announced abruptly, and Mulder 
looked up to see him hand Scully a large manila envelope. She 
looked at him questioningly, and then slowly opened it. Mulder 
watched, as Scully pulled out the top few sheets. He could 
clearly decipher the words "Stedman Space Center" written at 
the top. 

Skinner was handing them evidence. 

"While this investigation may be officially closed, I am not 
satisfied with our answers. I have a feeling you're not, 
either," Skinner said. "Let's just look at this as insurance. 
For when we do figure out what the hell happened to you."

Mulder was silent, watching Scully as she fingered the papers in 
her lap. He could almost define the moment when she mentally 
drew herself upright, pulling herself together. "Thank you, 
Sir," Scully whispered, and he wanted nothing more than to 
reach over the seat and take her hand.

Instead, he settled back, watching Scully's hair blowing through 
the breeze of the open window, and thought about going home. 
About resuming their life, about sorting through the changes. 
But mostly about finding the truth.




Author's notes:

Thanks as always to my wonderful beta Kayla. As a fellow author, 
she knows exactly when to inspire and to gently suggest, and her 
encouragement and prodding allowed me to continue this story when 
I wasn't sure I would be able to do so.

My husband always has a willing ear and some crazy ideas, which 
I appreciate, even when I don't use them.

I started this story during Christmas of 2001, driving past the 
real Stedman Space Center along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. 
And, yes, I do have an idea for a sequel. I had it in mind when 
I wrote the conclusion. Whether life ever gives me the time to 
write it is another thing. 

A special thanks to Tamra, Nancy, and all those who emailed 
their encouragement over the last year. I treasure each email 
and comment, and am glad you enjoyed the story. I'd love to 
hear from you. annhkus@yahoo.com

Dedicated to the memory of my friend JWB. The world is a lesser 
place without his presence. He was always my dreamer and my
believer. 

Completed January, 2003

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