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Title: Latitudes I Summary: The events of New Mexico are still haunting Mulder and Scully, and the family takes some time away from it all. Volcano "Let me hear ya now I don't know Senate Executive Offices The tiny vial is between us, standing upright on the blotter of his desk. The amber colored liquid is sealed tight in its glass housing, and has no clue of the power that it possesses. Hell, knowing as little as we know about it, maybe it does know what it is. Maybe it is taunting us right now, and we just can't hear it. Senator Erickson and I stare at each other over top of it, both of us needing that precious liquid. "They said if I hand it over to them, they would return my father," he says, as much an arrogant ass as ever. "And you believe them?" I ask. Scully is in the chair at my side. The piercing glare emanating from her eyes should be enough for this man to hand over the vial, but he's not going to. "I have no choice. Look at this way, Agent Mulder. What if it was your sister? Would it be worth trading for your sister?" he asks. Scully slowly draws in a long breath next to me. I once traded what I though was my sister for her. I thought I could have everything. Just like this man does. "We are talking about saving millions, perhaps billions of lives, Senator Erickson. Do you really want to be responsible for the catastrophic losses that reproducing the contents of that vial could prevent?" Scully asks him. Her voice is quite calm and even. I'm afraid mine is going to blow at any moment, and rise up to the ceiling in a yell. "Agent Scully, what if it was Christopher? Would you trade it for him or save millions, perhaps billions?" Erickson asks Scully. I can nearly feel the anger roll off of her body, as her hands clench up and her nails begin to dig into the leather upholstered side chair she is sitting in. We are both tired of being manipulated by people using our son as if he is just some well place pawn. A bargaining chip for all sides concerned. Whatever side wants something today just dangles his name out in front of us and expects us to follow them. "Tough question, isn't it? But that is what he is for. Nothing more than to keep the two of you in line. That was the plan all along, right from the moment you stepped on that plane to Louisiana. Now, concerning this vial, it seems that if both of you would have been doing your jobs in New Mexico instead of doing everything else, we wouldn't be having this problem right now," Senator Erickson says, as he pulls out a envelope and shakes out a series of photographs. They range in everything from the two of us in the motel room to Diana and me on that hillside. "Those are evidence in several murders in New Mexico," Scully says bluntly, not letting the fact that this man has seen our personal lives in full detail bother her. He spreads them out across his desk, and looks carefully at them. Scully and I do not look down upon them. They can't be used to control us. "The two of you fucked this one up royal. How much easier could it have been? Ask a few questions and find out what happened to my mother. Instead, now both of my parents are missing, there are several people dead and I'm having serious doubts as to whether or not you two are competent enough to carry guns," the man says, as he leans back in his big leather chair. "You are the one who requested us on this case. We didn't ask to be put in the positions we were. The X-Files were closed, but still you asked specifically for the two of us to investigate, knowing full well the consequences of those actions," Scully nearly spits at him, her anger starting to take hold of her, too. The senator does nothing but shrug his shoulders. "Who wants the vial?" I ask. "I'm not sure who they are," he answers, clearly lying. He knows, but isn't going to tell. He knew Diana but lied about that. He's the one who directed us to that mountain that day, but claims he never made that phone call. "Your father is dead. They are playing you and you are falling for it. You are going to give them exactly what they want," I say, my voice rising up to a heated pitch. "Who's fault is that, Agent Mulder? You were there when it happened. Why couldn't you prevent it? Because you were engaged in something much better with your former wife?" he says. Shit. What doesn't this man know about us? "I was not doing any such thing. We were set up. And you are going to feel what it is like very soon," I say, standing up and walking out the door. I'm down the hall and halfway towards the exit when I finally stop and wait for Scully. I can hear her walking quickly behind me, trying to catch up. "Mulder, stop. There has to be another way we can get that vial. We will get it," Scully says, putting her hand on my arm, trying to calm me down. "He is too damn blind to see past himself," I say loudly, and several people turn to look at me. "Let's go. I'm so tired of this and I just want to go home," Scully says. We've reached so many points doing this job when one or the other of us just wanted to call it quits. I think this time we both are there. I know that I can't, though. I have to go on with this. "Go home and do what? Wake up tomorrow, head back into work to play a little counter terrorism with Agent Reid? Scully, I have to go back. I have to reopen the X-Files now. You know that," I say, and she looks away from me. We hear so many conflicting stories about what would happen to us or our child if I reopen them. Some say his life will be in danger if I do, others say he is protected and will be safe. He is the 'one,' as if we gave birth to freaking Luke Skywalker or something. The one what I have no damn clue. Opening the X-Files is the only way I can find out. "I can't do it with you right now, Mulder. I can't put both of us at risk like that. He's so young," she says, her eyes meeting mine again. She looks as if she is about ready to cry, but I know she won't. Christopher is the one thing she will allow herself to cry about freely, but not here. He is her baby. He is our baby. I pull her into my arms, here in the hall that senators walk down daily, and I hold her tight. "I don't expect you to come back yet. But I want you to understand why I'm doing this," I say. She doesn't answer me. Come Monday "And now you're off on vacation FBI Headquarters This office looks the same no matter what he is working on. All these years, and all the changes we've gone through and this place remains constant. Not even fire could strip from it what it really is. A basement office where they put the most undesirable faction of their operation to supposedly uphold justice. Mulder will be partnered with Agent Reid. He's the other half of the X-Files now. Not me. That causes a slight pang of jealousy to flow through me, but I suppress it easily. It just isn't time right now for me to get back into this. Besides, Skinner would probably not allow it. He saw all too well what can happen when Mulder and Scully work together. I sit at Mulder's desk, waiting for him to get back from some meeting. This week has been the week from hell for him. I can tell by the number of sunflower seed husks spread out everywhere that he is stressed and someone is trying to blame all the unfortunate events in Albuquerque on him. "Coming back to work for me, Agent Scully?" Mulder says from the doorway, startling me out of my reverie. He is leaning against the door frame, looking beaten. "I think you got that backwards, Agent Mulder. You worked for me," I say, and he almost smiles. "So, what brings you down here to the bowels of hell again?" he asks as he sits down across from me. "I have a few things I need to talk to about," I say. Sometimes I am startled by how different we have become over the years. We still disagree nearly 100% of the time over work related issues, but now that usually has no bearing on what happens on the outside. We've moved beyond that. "Like?" he says, not really focusing on anything. "My mother wants to spend less time watching Christopher. She says ten hours a day, five or six days a week is getting to be too much now that he is up and walking," I say. "She and I discussed this issue when she came over this morning. The driving and the work is just getting to be too much. She raised her four kids, and now wants some time of her own." Mulder sighs heavily, and closes his eyes. "Do you know what we are going to have to go through screening potential caretakers?" "I know. But we have to move forwards in our lives, Mulder. Some day he is going to go to school and we won't be able to screen each individual Christopher runs into each day," I say. I don't want to go through this anymore than he does. "Anything else?" he asks, as he looks at his watch. "I have a meeting with OPR in twenty minutes." "About?" I ask. This is news to me. So far no one has questioned my actions in New Mexico. Just Mulder's. "About why I was lying on some damn hillside naked with another federal agent who is now dead. About why I let the father of a prominent senator get abducted in my presence, though considering I was apparently banging Diana at the time, I don't know how they expected me to stop it," he says, his eyes still focused on his watch. Finally, he looks up at me. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that." "It's okay. I know that nothing happened out there. If you could have prevented it, you would have," I say. Why would I stop trusting him now, after all this time? At one time I would have suspected something, but I don't know. Or at least I don't think I do. I didn't suspect anything the last time ... "So, we have to find a nanny that we can afford. Is that it?" he asks me, interrupting my current thought. "No. A friend of my mother's offered her the use of a gulfside condo somewhere in Florida or Alabama. I can't remember. Anyway, she thinks it would be a good idea if we all could get away for a while. We can have it next Monday if we want it," I say. "Mom said she would come and help with Christopher, but stay with some friends so we could ... be alone." He looks at me, his eyes showing no emotion. "I don't know. This is probably not the last meeting I'm going to have to go through. I can't make any promises," he says. After our visit with the senator a few days ago, he has been completely deflated. That was his last hope of making this whole fiasco mean anything. "Can I go, and take Christopher even if you can't? I think it would be good for us to spend some time together. A grandmother, mother and son thing," I say. I don't want to go without him, but I would love a few days somewhere away from all of this so I can just get out of my head. "Of course you can go. Why do you even think you need to ask?" he says, as he glances at his watch again. "I didn't want to leave you alone during all of this," I say. "Scully, I'll be fine," he answers before getting out of the chair and leaving for his next review. Boat Drinks "I'd like to go where the pace of life's slow FBI Headquarters "Agent Mulder, we would like to know more about how Mr. Thomas Erickson was abducted from the Sandia Peaks. Can you enlighten us with a little more information than what you put in this report?" the one woman on the panel asks me. I face them, not knowing what they expect me to say. I have filled out reports in triplicate. I have told my story over and over. I was drugged with something that put me into a coma. What happened after that is beyond me. "Assistant Director Keller, I have told you everything I can remember. I do not know what happened after I was drugged on top of the Sandia Peaks. The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital," I say once again. "Who, exactly, called you to arrange a meeting with Thomas Erickson at such a remote location?" she asks, taking her glasses off and watching me closely. "Agent Diana Fowley took the call. She informed me of it, and we decided to go meet Mr. Erickson. I cannot say who called her for sure. I wasn't in her room when the call came in," I say, repeating what I've written several times already. "Why would they call her room, Agent Mulder?" Assistant Director Lawson asks, as he looks carefully over the notes in front of him. "She and Scu ... Agent Scully shared a room. Agent Fowley said they were calling for Agent Scully, but Agent Scully was performing an autopsy at the time," I say, directing my statement at Lawson. "You believe that Agent Fowley might have been lying about that, Agent Mulder?" Keller asks. "I have no direct evidence of that besides the events that followed, when we arrived at the mountains," I say, wishing this was over. I don't know why I have to go through this again. I did nothing wrong. "Why do you think Mr. Erickson would want to meet you at that location?" another A.D. asks me. "I don't know. Perhaps someone lured him there with an offer of information about his wife. Maybe someone said we wanted to meet him there. Maybe Agent Fowley arranged it, or maybe Senator Erickson arranged it himself," I answer. "You think the senator is responsible for this? For the disappearance of his own father?" Lawson asks. "I somehow think he is connected in more ways to this case than just his missing mother," I say bluntly. I'm not going to dick around with these people. They want the truth as I see it, so I'm going to give it them. "The senator believes that you are fully responsible for what happened in New Mexico," Keller states, as she digs out another piece of paper. "He is very disappointed in your performance." How come Scully isn't mentioned in any of this? Or Diana? Why just me? Somebody is trying for something, but I just can't figure it out. "We never made any promises when we went out there. Then we were faced with a series of unexpected obstacles. No one could foresee that Ronald Mulch was going to be paroled from prison. No one knew exactly how big this thing was ... or is," I say, looking over to Skinner. He hasn't been much help during this whole thing. Once again they need someone to blame. Once again that is me. "Agent Mulder, the issue still remains that a senator's father was abducted in your presence. We are giving you the chance to open the X-Files again because you think that is how you can find the answers, but I just don't see it. I think we have given you more than enough latitude in this case, and your judgment was apparently lacking on several occasions. We are going to review further what the advantages will be of reopening the X-Files for you," A.D. Keller states, as she shuffles her papers into a stack, summarily dismissing me. "Am I free to go now?" I ask coldly. "Yes," she answers and turns away to talk to the man at her side. I am out of the room and half way down the hall before I even hear Skinner calling me. "Agent Mulder, wait up," he calls. I stop, but don't turn to face him. I just don't need any more shit today. "What?" I ask as he comes around and stands in front of me. "Take some time off. It will all be smoothed over in just a few days. Get out of the city. Get away from Erickson and everybody else. Go spend time with your family," he says. "Is that an order?" I ask. I could use time, but I don't want them to think they can force me out. "No. That is a suggestion. You and Agent Scully went through a lot in a short period of time. Take some time to recover from it, okay?" he says, before he walks back into the meeting room, leaving me there staring at my reflection on the overly polished floor. A Pirate Looks at Forty "Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call May 11, 2002 I watch him stand in the pale aqua gulf, up to his knees it the calm water. He reaches down, picks up a handful of shells, and slowly pitches them one by one further out to sea. They will roll back in on the tide. Everything does. How much sediment has been trapped forever on the seashore, rolling up and down in the waves perpetually? Perhaps one shell will catch a wave out, and slip into the depths on a fast moving current. Perhaps we are forever trapped on the same wave. Would it be better to be pulled out in that current? It reminds me of the dream I had while I was drugged. I felt at peace with myself as I slowly started to drown in the sea of my dreams. Mom opens the sliding glass door behind me and sits down on a creaky wicker chair. We are on the second floor of this beach front condo, and I am watching the sun begin to turn the sky into shades of pink and blue I did not think were possible. "Poor thing. I told Fox not to get Chris' head underwater, and now look what happened. He can be so hopelessly stubborn. Hopefully the ear infection will clear up before we have to get on a plane," my mother says. He is sitting in his travel playpen, happily arranging his blocks into something that resembles order for him. I don't turn to look at her. I stand with my hands on the railings, looking out to the Gulf of Mexico. Looking out to Mulder. "Chris will be fine," I say, turning my personal mantra into my son's. "How about the two of you, Dana? Are you ever putting that ring back on?" Mom asks me, and I self-consciously hide my bare left hand. I don't want this to turn into some soap-operatic chat between mother and daughter, but it is heading that way. I haven't told my mom everything about Diana Fowley yet. It just seems like it should be something I should have known. I haven't put the ring back on yet because I want him to tell me everything. My mother knows Mulder isn't perfect. She knows he and I went through a lot to get to this point. She always just tells me to work it out. I turn around to face her, the sun glowing behind me. She squints at me, waiting for an answer. "We will be fine," I say, and wince as the words come out. Everything is fine. That is all I say these days. "The two of you have hardly been alone together since we got here, and I know Fox has to go back on Monday. Why don't you go down there and talk to him?" she says, and I turn my eyes from her. Talk about what? Everything has been a giant mess since we got back from New Mexico. One huge shitpile of blame and accusation. So much of it that Mulder willingly took vacation time without having to be threatened. And now Monday, he has to go back. To face more meetings and reviews. "I don't know, Mom. It is all so complicated right now," I say. She already knows this. When has it ever not been complicated between Mulder and me? "I'm baby-sitting tonight. I'll take Chris and his bed over to the Wilkinson's. Why don't you two go out. Talk about it all. Then you can sleep in tomorrow morning on your first Mother's Day," my mother orders. She has been so happy since we've been here. Most nights she's been staying with the Wilkinson's, some old Navy friends she has known forever. They retired here a few years ago, and Mom has been enjoying their company immensely. I suppose after spending the last ten months or so of her life watching an infant, it would be nice to just get in touch with the old crowd. "So, who is he, Mom?" I ask, and watch as a blush rises up my mother's cheeks, matching the rosy color the sun is turning the sky. So this is one of the reasons she wants to cut back her childcare duties. I can't really blame her. "His name is Everett Hindon," she finally answers, and her eyes light up when she says his name. Ah, to be in love. When was the last time my eyes lit up saying someone's name? I cast a quick glance over my shoulder to Mulder. Should my eyes light up when I say his name? "And how did you two meet?" I ask, as I sit down next to her in another wicker chair. "Everett and I have known each other for years, off and on. I'm sure you will remember him when you meet him. His wife, Beverly, died about five years ago, of breast cancer. It's been nice, Dana," my mother says. "Does he live down here?" I ask, curious as to how this is going to all work out, for my mother's sake. "He has a little place here. And a place in Virginia," she says coyly. My mother can say something coyly. Oh my God. My mother is having sex with someone who's not my father. "And ..." I say, not knowing really how much more I want to find out. "And we will see where it goes from here. Don't worry, dear. I'm not replacing your father," Mom says, as if she is talking to a child. I just laugh. "It's been a long time, Mom, since Dad passed away. I'm very happy for you," I say, as I hold her hands in mine. "And I would be happier for you if you would get out there and talk to Fox," Mom says, her head nodding towards him. "Okay. I'm going," I say to her. "Wish me luck." Stranded on a Sandbar "Now I used to go crazy for days at a time May 11, 2002 I feel her arms wrap around my waist from behind, and she rests her cheek on my back. I've been out here for over two hours now, throwing these damn seashells back into the damn sea. I'm sticky with sweat and saltwater, but Scully doesn't seem to care. "Hi," she says, and I drop the few shells I still have in my hand. "Hi. How's the baby?" I ask her. We already spent two hours of our vacation in some small clinic getting a prescription and a lecture. Scully informed the RN that she is a doctor and didn't need anything more than some antibiotics for her son's ear infection. That seemed to speed the process up. "Chris is going with Mom tonight. He will be okay. This isn't your fault," she tells me. "You've been saying that a lot lately, Scully," I say. I got back to DC to have the wrath of God descend upon me about everything that went wrong in New Mexico. The senator has talked to the entire upper echelon at the FBI. Everybody and their agent brother thinks I was fucking Diana on that hillside. And I can't do the simplest thing like keep my kid's ears dry. "Mulder, we were set up. You and I know that. The senator was probably set up, too. He'll realize that in time," Scully says softly. "People are dead, Scully. Perhaps three of them," I say, thinking mostly of Diana. It hit me hard one evening that she is gone. And I might have been able to stop it. I should have stopped it. "Yes, Diana is dead. No one knows about Mr. Erickson. And Spender came back from the dead before, remember? I wouldn't worry about him," Scully says. I wipe my sandy hands off on my shorts, and pull her so she is in front of me. "So, did you come out here to watch me sulk?" I ask her. She looks the best she has looked since Christopher was born. She is slightly tanned, in a redhead sort of way. Scully also now has a smattering of freckles across her nose from being in the sun. She has on no makeup and her hair is soft and wavy from her not blow-drying it into her FBI hair. "We match," Scully says, with a smile, as if it brings back a nice memory. We are both wearing a white tank top and denim shorts. It reminds me of a dream I had when I was in a coma. Something about being in Hawaii and we were all wearing flowered shirts. "So, what is your mother doing tonight?" I ask, and Scully grins just a little bit more. "I think I have discovered the reason she wants to cut back her baby-sitting duties," she says to me, as the two of us stand hand in hand in the calm water. "Which is?" I ask. I had forgotten all about that. My mind doesn't even want to fathom what we will have to go through to hire someone who is safe to watch Christopher. "Mom has a boyfriend," Scully answers, and I didn't intend to look this startled. It has been so many years since my mother and father got divorced, and she hasn't ever dated anyone. Or at least I don't think she has. "Really? When did she find time? We always have her working," I say. I shouldn't be surprised. The Scully women are beautiful and strong. It should be more surprising that men haven't been lining up to ask her out since her husband passed away. Then again, Scully didn't do much dating, either. Or at least I don't think she has. I'm stunned by how little I know about the two most important women in my life. "She has known him for years. His wife passed away awhile ago, and supposedly I know him, but his name doesn't sound familiar," she says, sounding genuinely happy for her mother. "So, what have you been doing out here?" "Thinking," I answer simply. "About?" she asks. "How I fucked everything up this time. How I should have been able to prevent Thomas Erickson's abduction. How Diana shouldn't be dead," I say, and the smile disappears off of her face. "They have you touting the party line now, too? How did they convince you of all this, Mulder? Say it enough times and it is true?" she asks. She has dropped my hands and shoves hers into her pockets. "You don't get it, do you? Agent Diana Fowley was shot while I was there. They murdered her, but not me. She shouldn't have been there," I say to her. For some reason I feel helpless about this one issue. She has lost a former lover before in the line of duty. She tried everything she could do to save him. I wasn't given that opportunity. "What I get, Mulder, is that the woman you were once married to and with whom you were going to have a child is dead. This is a woman who appeared again in your life years later, and I don't know what happened then and I don't want to know ... and this can all be very hard to get over. But it isn't your fault," she says, looking down at the water swirling around her feet. She knows about the baby. She knows why I married her. I never told her, so Diana must have said something about it. Or her sister. "You know?" I ask hesitantly. I don't want to see the same reaction that I did when she found out the truth about Fowley. "I know. And I wish you would have told me. You, not someone else. Not some apparition in the desert and not Fowley herself," she says. She told me all about the man who came up to her in New Mexico, and said he knew everything about her. Our lives have been so well documented, that there is probably not a thing left they don't know about us. "I'm sorry. It just didn't seem important at the time. It happened so long ago," I say, as I reach out and touch her arm. "And you feel responsible for that, too?" Scully asks. "In a way, I am," I say, as I remember the sadness Diana and I shared over the loss of that baby. It wasn't meant to be. I tried to make up for it years later, but I never could. "Is there anything you aren't responsible for, Mulder? Is everything your fault?" she says, as she moves away from my touch. Both of us are stressed out, and this vacation has only eased the tension slightly. "I don't think I'm responsible for the hole in the ozone, but I might be. I did cause some damage in Antarctica. And I'm pretty sure that I'm not responsible for professional wrestling," I say, hoping to lighten her mood and get us back to where we were when she first walked out here. "Everything isn't about you, Mulder. All these years I've said that over and over, and still you can't get it through your head that you are not to blame for everything," she says as she starts to walk towards the shore. "Where are you going?" I call after her. "For a walk. I'll see you later," she says as she heads down the white sand and leaves me behind.
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