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Title: Die Anworten Summary: Mulder has a limited chance to explain himself. The Words of the Challenge: Requiem also showed us that Mulder has been abducted. Assume he is not found until at least a year later. He returns to find Scully has had this baby. How does his return, and Scully's new motherhood, affect their lives? Is the baby his? How does he react if it is not? Summary: Mulder has a limited chance to explain himself. The Words of the Challenge: Requiem also showed us that Mulder has been abducted. Assume he is not found until at least a year later. He returns to find Scully has had this baby. How does his return, and Scully's new motherhood, affect their lives? Is the baby his? How does he react if it is not? Prologue: If he had more then the vaguest sensation of self he would have felt the warmth and the darkness. He was nude, and his body bathed in some liquid of which he had no previous knowledge. In truth, he had no previous knowledge of anything. His heartbeat was a mystical event that shattered his world rhythmically and was the only thing that had any link to the world in which he had previously existed. Now it was only darkness, until the shapes came. Changing in form, hovering, floating, and shifting in and out he wasn't sure what they were, or even if they existed outside of his field of vision. Vision itself was a simple gift that he had only recently received. One that he was most grateful for. Even though he was unsure of what he saw, seeing itself gave him a better gasp on the state of his surroundings. What state would that be anyway? Certainly not Oregon, maybe Kansas? He felt for a brief moment that he might be laughing, but he couldn't be sure. "I'm not in Kansas anymore Scully." His voice, that was his voice. Sound issuing from his throat through his lips and into this world. This discovery, as gratifying as it was, soon paled to the fact that he had remembered how to move. Motion itself was the most gratifying of all. The twisting, pulling and straining of muscle fibers to create movement amazed and endowed him with a new sense of power. The shapes had noticed his endeavors. Their noises had changed in intensity and pitch. Still they were beyond his feeble comprehension, but somehow, he felt that maybe they were pleased. It took her by surprise, so much so that she dropped her glass, the thankfully plastic cup bouncing loudly on the linoleum of her mother's kitchen. The twisting, pulling and straining of the muscle fibers that surrounded her abdomen frightening her with their power. She groaned, catching hold of the counter. Her own intense knowledge led her to the simple and only conclusion logically acceptable, but logic provided no means of comfort. No end to the feeling of helplessness that gripped her as her mother anxiously appeared in the doorway. "Dana are you-?" "Yes mom." She bit her lip and closed her eyes. Her mother's cool dry hand closed around hers and the helplessness faded with the pain. "I am." The shapes seemed different today, but just saying today was an assumption for time had no meaning here. Their twitters and flutterings seemed more urgent or even hurried as though the time that had no hold on him was running away from them. Nurse Patricia Gael, Patsy to her friends and patients, had reported for duty promptly at 4 p.m. She had intended only to stay her 6-hour shift and then return home to her husband and her retriever, but here she was, playing labor coach in room 317. The mother, grandmother, had brought in her patient, a pretty little redhead, a few hours into her shift. Sweet girl, a brave girl, Dana had been in first stage labor for over 14 hours. Except for the rare sound that escaped her lips during a particularly rough contraction, she was strangely silent. Her eyes told another story. Patsy had always prided herself on her ability to notice the eyes of the patients she watched over. There was pain in those eyes. The direct, stubborn blue held a deep and sorrowful longing that only disappeared for a moment when chased by a pressing physical pain. It was standard procedure to ask the potential mother the whereabouts, or at least the name of the potential father, but this case was different. While chiding herself for breaking protocol she didn't ask her, but her mother instead. Taking her aside while the doctor spoke to her doctor she asked softly. "Do you know somewhere we could reach the father? Would he like to be notified? Should he be notified?" The other woman extended her hand. "I'm Margaret Scully, by the way. No, I'm afraid he can't be reached. Even if-" "Oh. Feel free to call me Patsy also. If there's anything special you or your daughter need-" Mrs. Scully smiled, relaxing a little. "Thank you. You've been very kind." Patsy returned her smile modestly. "Your daughter is very brave." Margaret turned and watched her daughter over her shoulder for a long moment. Her voice was soft when she spoke again. "Yes, she is, isn't she?" It was not a fight in which something could be lost, for in this battle everything stood to be gained, for even though one outcome, a distant fear, was a bleak and lonely death. His goal, his future was life. He was sure of that now. Somehow he was free, free from that room if it was a room, and free from the shapes. It had been an eternity and a half since he had heard the twitterings of the shapes. His body was warm, and because of that warmth a feeling of security threatened to take over him, to lull him into a relaxed state. He shook it off, and struggled his way forward, shoving his hand through to air. Clean cold air brushed against his skin and the sensation was something akin to waking from a horrible dream and realizing that yes, it was only a shade of reality. He fell, tumbled haphazardly and without aim or reason. Simply falling, but not quickly, the deep navy blue of the water beneath him was taking its time to slam against his body, bringing with it the darkness of unconsciousness. His lips parted in a single plea. "Scully." Dana had been sobbing for an hour straight. Transition usually brought a few screams past the controls of even the most iron-willed women, but she had simply started to cry. Quietly the tears started to chase each other down her cheeks, but they were not desperate, only lonely. It was only when she slipped through transition and into active labor that she became truly animated. She started to mutter under her breath through the first few contractions, and then a fiery tirade of Irish curses, and a well placed "Damn you Mulder." He pulled his dripping and most certainly naked body from the rushing sea. The sand was damp, and cool on his skin as it stuck to the many droplets of water that refused to leave him. He collapsed to the beach, exhausted by his effort, but now more then ever, grateful for his life. His eyes closed, and for the first time since the abduction his dreams were not haunted with stark alien vistas, and the screams of fellow prisoners, but by a face, and a voice all too familiar. Across a continent of plants, earth and rock that face contorted in agony and her voice fell in a low guttural moan. It rose in pitch into a scream. Tearing the air and ripping through the hearts of those around her. Then she stopped, quiet, panting to regain her breath as another sound filled the room. The helpless first cries of a baby as it was laid glistening and bloody on its mother's chest. The little girl blinked her blue eyes up at her mother and grandmother, both had tears in their eyes as they smiled down at her. "She's perfect Dana, perfect and beautiful." End Prologue Washington DC The giant white plane coasted in to a picture perfect landing, falling out of the dark sky like a swan headed for a lake. Mulder now felt relaxed, safe in his regained identity. After being found naked on the beach, and taken to East Mercy Hospital in a tiny town in Oregon he had been poked and prodded for more time then he could spare. When he had regained enough of his battered memories to know who he was, and understand his purpose here, specifically the fact that he had little time. He sighed, pulling his one and only suitcase out of the continuing line of luggage and headed for the familiar Rent-A-Car station. It was a bit odd to be renting a car in his hometown, and not quite as much fun when he had to use his own money instead of the bureau's cash. Another sigh, he would have to get used to it. He was no longer part of the FBI. He didn't even have his badge. He would miss that, but that wasn't important now. He had his own agenda, separate from the FBI, separate even from his former quest. This was not for him, it was truly, and at least he hoped, a selfless act. One long owed. Washington DC He ran up the steps of the house. He wasn't sure what he was planning to say, but that didn't matter. The first idiotic thing that popped into his head would override anything intelligent that he had planned out to say. He was about to ring the doorbell, when the door opened from the inside. The slender back of a woman, encased in a simple black cotton shirt came first followed by a stroller. She spun around as he held the door politely open. She smiled down at the bundle in the stroller before looking up. The house keys she had held loosely in her hand dropped to the wood and bounced with a loud chinking sound. She wasn't all that different to look at. Her hair was a little shorter, a little more windswept, but still riveting. She had always seemed artificially delicate to him, and now somehow even more so. She was thinner, and though her face had the glow of health, it also seemed older. There was a sorrow in her blue eyes that her smiling mouth couldn't understand, but that made it that much deeper. He smiled oddly. Shock didn't begin to describe the feeling that crossed her face like wildfire. She didn't move, didn't breathe, but just stared. Her eyes searing the image of his lopsided smile into her memory forever. Her lips moved without sound, and she tried again but was only rewarded with a weak rasping. Finally, "Mul-" she began, trailing off to an inaudible note. He just smiled that impossible smile. "It's nice to see you too Scully." She faltered, taking a step backward and shaking her head. He took her by the arms and sat her down on railing of the porch. "Whoa, take it easy there," he ordered gently, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear. She stopped him in the middle of the motion, taking his hand and examining it closely, as if she expected her hand to pass through it. "Careful with that. I've only got two of them. If you stare holes through it I don't know what I'd do," he teased, placing his other hand on the post behind her back, and leaning down over her as if to kiss her. "Mulder!" she reprimanded, striking him gently with the flat of her hand on his chest. "Why is everything a joke to you? You've been gone for a year. A whole year- Where were you?" "I make light of everything before it can make light of me," he replied, and, she thought, completely ignored the seriousness of the situation. "And I don't really know." "Mulder, Skinner saw you. You were abducted." Scully began, her shock subsiding a little bit. Her baby in the stroller gurgled and she leaned down out of habit to unbuckle her and lift her out. She set her one her lap, bouncing her gently and then turning back to Mulder. His jaw had dropped several inches more then she had thought humanly possible. She had just gotten so used to having the baby around that it took her a moment to realize for herself that Mulder didn't know. Slowly, like a little boy reaching for a soap bubble he reached his hand out towards the chubby little angel perched on her knee. As his hand made contact with her baby fist, and her fingers wrapped trustingly around his own he looked to her and smiled. "She's my daughter. I'm sorry, I forgot. You didn't know," she broke off, strangely nervous and not sure what to say. "It just happened, when I was sick, in the mountains, Oregon. My doctors, my mother, Skinner, no one knows what happened to me, any more then they understand what happened to you." No matter what she said it felt like she was babbling. Nonsensical words, twisting and flying into random sentences that somehow must describe a year. "I tried to find you, I looked as long as I could Mulder. I could always feel you, out there, watching me. I thought, I thought I had failed you. I didn't want to live, but." "For her?" he interrupted gently. "For her," she agreed, handing her over to him."Please," she added smiling. "She seems to like you." A wry smile lit his face. "Does that mean she won't share her lunch with me?" he asked, holding her cautiously. Studying this ticking time bomb. "She won't aim for your face," Scully replied with a grin of her own. "I have to ask," he ventured abruptly. "Are you happy Scully? Is this something that you want?" "'This' is a very specific term," she retorted sarcastically, but then thought for a moment. "Of course I'm happy. It's impossible to not be with her around. Well, nearly so. Yes, all and all, I have a good life Mulder." She now folded her arms and stared at him. "Why ask me?" "I'm running out of time. It took me too long to regain myself. Too long to find you, and too long to find the words." "What do you mean? Running out?" she inquired more forcefully. "You still haven't explained anything about what happened to you." "I'm- Never mind about time. Time may be short for me, but not for you. You have an eternity." He stood and handed the baby, who now sucked on her fingers contentedly, to her and began to walk away. "An eternity with all of this," he swung his arms wide to indicate all of her surroundings. "And happiness. That is truly the only thing I could wish on you, Scully. But you have this life, and you are happy. So there is nothing more I need to wish for you." She set her daughter down in the stroller and trotted down the sidewalk after him. "Mulder!" she snapped, her patience running short for cryptic remarks. "What the hell are you talking about? And where are you going? You just returned, you barely tell me anything about where you were for the past year, you ask me if I am happy, and then just disappear into the woodwork again?" she demanded, grabbing his arm and swinging him around so his face was pointed towards her. She opened her mouth to add something else along the lines of her first attack, but then she saw it. A single tear on his cheek. "I only have so much time, Scully," he responded and gently pushed her back. Above him the sunny skies clouded over. "Time until what?" she argued. "Why can't you make sense?" Around them, the wind began to pick up, growing in intensity. He had to speak up in order to be heard through the growing tempest. "I made a trade, Scully. Just like in baseball cards. Did I ever show you my collection? It truly was a damn fine set of cards. I had this one, maybe it wasn't the most expensive, but I always liked that one a little more then the rest. I would have traded anything away to keep that card." He reached for her, slowly, as if across time and for a brief second his hand rested on her cheek. "Have a nice life, Scully." "Have a nice life!" she yelled, completely furious with his behavior. "What kind of trade, Mulder?" She ran after him, for he was jogging now, away from her house, away from her. "Dammit, what kind of trade?" she screamed over the wind, but in the second after, all was silent. The clouds parted, and a beam of light bathed Mulder in a soft, unearthly glow. "You don't have to raise your voice, Scully," he replied, that interminable smile still entrenched firmly on his lips. "One day, a group of boys, big nasty ones, from the junior high came to the playground. They took the card from me, my favorite one. I fought, kicking and pulling hair, but that only made things worse," he was fading, rising, and glowing all in the same split section of time. In the silence his words echoed. "I gave them the rest of my cards. Three whole boxes, but I got that card back. And even though the other kids on the playground laughed at me, and told me I had lost everything. But I was happier then any of them, because I had what mattered to me. It wasn't until my most recent exchange that I realized that my happiness wasn't what mattered." That was all, he was gone. The clouds, the storm, and the wind all gone as quickly as they had popped into existence. A perfect summer day now flourished around her. She turned around, searching desperately, but she found herself at the beginning, running up the stairs toward her daughter. As she danced a stuffed animal before her shining eyes, something struck the back of her neck. It felt dry and dull like a dead leaf. She reached up a hand to brush it away, but her hand struck laminated paper. She closed her fingers around it and drew it around. A man with his baseball bat in hand stared back at her knowingly. She held it up and stared at it. It was an old card and couldn't have ever been worth anything. Too bizarre of a coincidence to mean anything she thought to herself as she flipped it over, about to throw it away. Scrawled on the back in thick red crayon were the initials 'FWM'. The End (Die Anworten means 'the answer')
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