|
Title: Duplicity Summary: Scully's son is born and the pair make a getaway. Ten interminably long years of Scully's life had inched past since Mulder's disappearance into the Oregon night. ..And she remembered the decade as both desolate and ecstatic in equal measure, punctuated as they were by incredible landmarks in her life. For instance, the birth of Scully's son, David - David Atticus Mulder - had been a high peak in amongst the mires of despair she had plunged headlong into during her pregnancy. For a while, the tsunami of emotion she'd been caught up in stabilized. Scully was able to ride the crest of the wave, happy in the knowledge that David, after all, had been born with all his fingers and toes, and hadn't had his throat cut in the maternity ward by any dark-suited men (Walter Skinner had seen to that). And, even if Mulder wasn't here to see his son right now, then there was a very good chance that he would do when he returned. Of course, she knew the correct thing to say would be "if' but, like so many other grievances she had endured, Scully remained faithful and hoped vehemently for the best. At the time, she incubated a nagging, ridiculous notion that her son could remain safe, with her; that, perhaps, contrary to her better judgments, David had been a happy accident rather than a hapless pawn in a global game. Visiting church regularly with him in those first six months was one thing making her happy, as was the company of her family. Sometimes, she took her son to look up vacantly at the swirling stars that occupied the cavernous cathedral ceiling - and, sometimes, she almost expected his father to descend from them as if he'd only been on a weekend sojourn as a steeplejack. Or, an astronaut. He never came. However, the happy times were short. One November afternoon, when the last frosty thumbnail of sun dove under the horizon, Scully returned from a weekly grocery run to find in her apartment a mess of three dead bodies, the smallest of which belonging to her mother. The dark haired woman, hair touched by a flicker of gray weaving a line to her shoulders, cradled a Smith and Wesson pistol. She had incised seven holes in the bodies of the two suits sprawled clumsily over Scully's coffee table. Maggie herself wore a bullet wound in her left breast. Frantic, her daughter tried to resuscitate her but knew, a sinking dread exploding in her heart, that she was now without either of her parents. There's a pang of surprising anguish that hits an adult child when she knows both her parents are dead, that she is now the only one truly responsible for herself, and the quickening revelation broke Scully. Yet, she couldn't cry, so entranced was she in the heat of the moment. She only sunk to her knees and pressed her forehead to the cold floor. David was later found swimming happily in a bath of deep and freezing water, evidently having been ducked by the dead men in the lounge. He had been left for dead, too. She didn't know how he'd survived, but she thought it strange because David never knew how to swim; the crest of her wave had broken suddenly. There had been no warning. Scully had been seated in her living room, pale with shock and cocooned in thought for over an hour before she picked up the telephone and dialed the Gunmen. They, in turn, called the police. She hid David in the wardrobe, nestled amongst her maternity clothes, and the boy only looked up at her and gurgled pleasantly when she closed the door on him. Checking he was all right a moment later, she creaked it open again only to find that, seemingly knowing exactly what was going on, her son had burrowed even further down into her things. He crouched on the clothes, absolutely still and quiet, but blinked his blue eyes at her and pulled a voluminous blouse over his head when she ordered him not to make a sound. When he gurgled his agreement, she knew he wouldn't. Fleetingly, she thought what mental and physical resources David could develop, accounting for the fact that both his parent's DNA had been changed by alien technology that could too easily had killed them if they'd been any less hardy. Or, alternatively, Scully thought, if they hadn't had each other to lean on. But that wasn't material enough an explanation for her, so she never entertained it. The gunmen had arrived a quarter hour later, rubbing their hands together in the cold of the hallway and breathing warm, smelly air into each other's faces as they waited by the door. Scully feigned her distraught expressions and her wavering voice as she told them that her mother was dead, her son in danger. Her salty tears that tracked down her cheeks weren't real when she said she needed her own death certificate and the resources to make a new life. Within a week - during which Scully and David were camped at the Gunmen's headquarters - Special Agent Dana Scully and son David Mulder had died. Her mother had died, too, all fatefully involved in a head-on collision with an articulated lorry on an isolated Maryland byroad. An orphan from a Washington care centre and a destitute woman were the ones that attended their funeral, interred alongside Maggie and Bill Scully when their namesake's past existence was swept ceremoniously under six feet of chalky soil in an Annapolis cemetery. Scully wept then. The next week, David was no longer David and Scully was no longer Scully. She was surprised to feel such bitter pain at the loss of her name, surprised to find that it was stronger than the bond with her lost family. She was not unhappy in leaving them, knowing that they thought her as cold as marble under the Acacia tree their parents were also lying beneath. They would never forgive her for the loss of their mother, anyway; excommunication from the household would have been inevitable whatever the outcome of her supposed "crash.' She had a new life and a new identity now - she was a naturalized British citizen, and a doctor. A chapter of her life had closed, and a new one was imminent, unfurling slowly. The only souvenir she would ever retain was her (adopted) son. Scully's scruffy, brown-haired baby was re-named 'Vincent Luke' by the Gunmen, and "Vincent' was as endearing a baby as she had ever seen. He fitted the name, but his mother was concerned he'd be 'Vinnie' before he was old enough to attend school. Bidding a final farewell to the remnants of her life at the airport terminal, she knew she would probably never see them again; with that thought at the forefront of her mind, she made it explicitly clear that she appreciated what lengths they had gone to for her. Byers only smiled and kissed her cheek, Langly swung his blond locks about in abashed modesty, and Frohike kissed her wetly on the lips and said that if they ever felt like cleaning out their life savings, they'd change their names and holiday in Scully's "country cottage getaway.' It made her laugh. Scully - now aka Rachel Dorothea Chapman - finally boarded the Boeing flight to Manchester, England, on a dark and cloudy Tuesday morning. She clambered the stairs when the rest of the world was embroiled in the crazy fortnight- long scramble before Christmas, was asked politely whether she would like a baby seat for Junior. The eight-hour flight stretched forever as successive stewards and hostesses cooed over Vincent, asking her every so often if Daddy would be having them home for Christmas. Scully said No each time, patiently but with a steely-edged tone in her voice that she found increasingly difficult to check. Touchdown eight hours later was a relief. It took the fledgeling family a year, but Scully foundsettling into her new life was absolutely painless. She spent Vincent's childhood in a relatively peaceful and airy stone house in thebackwaters of West Yorkshire. The country village, Oakwell Beck, lay comfortably between the towns of Bradford and Dewsbury, and her work as a doctor allowed the re-invented "Rachel Chapman' to thrive on the rich, gentle sentiment that flowed slowly through and around the thirty-five or so houses. Life there was slow, and the people trusting, friendly and accepting. Scully and Vincent would often while away the hours either curled into a sofa at a friend's house, or investigating a local country mansion that happened to be opened to the public, Oakwell Hall. In Summer, the pair would picnic on the immaculately mown grass, trying to churn the vivid green striped blades into disarray. In winter, they'd walk, hushed and soaking, around and around the gravel walkways knotting through the Jacobean herb garden, still teeming with muted life in darkest December. Their waterproofs would usually be absolutely useless,and lukewarm water trickling down their backs was more often than not ignored. Or, on the brighter days, Scully and her growing son would walk for hours around the bleak landscape of Emley Moor, and when spring sprung they'd lean nonchalantly on the wooden fences and watch the lambing. Scully loved it, and she soon found that her cynicism and suspicion born from city life and her FBI vocation evaporated as fast as April showers. Her family and the life she had led were gradually fading into distant remembrances; the only flashlight she carriedwith her now she carried for Mulder, whom she thought about almost continuously. She couldn't regret leaving the US, though, when she had been left with no other recourse. She felt misplaced guilt in the deep recesses of her mind at the thought of leaving Mulder, his memories, and his investigations, and convinced herself that being here, safe, with their son, had been about the most sensible thing she could have done. Their son wanted for nothing. She also felt dirty - ashamed - when, in the nights spent awake in bed with Vin at her side, she realized that to ensure his safety, she would have to lie to her only son -Mulder's only son -for the rest of his life. Vincent, for his part, had grown to the age of nine in the village, a venerable age that he believed should have earned him a touch more respect that he'd had. Vin was the type of boy you could find sitting quietly in a corner, watching proceedings with a irreverent smirk; or, the boy picked last for sports and team games, had his local school accommodated enough students to make team games possible. He never minded, preferring his own fantasy world to the real one. Vin loved to dream; he was always dreaming, a tiny child with a large burden to bear. Lean, fragile and with a tendency to develop intensely painful migraine headaches, he was endowed with a tender touch and keen understanding that made him seem older. His mother called him her wily fox in acknowledgment of this. He never called Scully his Mum - it was only ever Rachel, because she was only ever his equal, a strong equal, rather than a restraining force. He was adopted, after all, and although he loved her more than he did his sunflower seeds, neither tried to make of their relationship more than he felt it actually was. Preferring to read and spend his time with Rachel in solitude, Vincent became increasingly introspective as he grew older, having few friends of his own age. Never inoculated, he was never once ill with any sickness in his small life. Oakwell Beck locals laughingly attributed this to being the son of a doctor Vastly intelligent and possessing an eidetic memory, he loved to stalk over the moors at the weekends with a teenager called James Speyton, a milkman, and often spent uncounted hours in bird hides spotting rare species through a pair of dusty old leather binoculars. Sometimes, he would sit in the hide and wonder about the appearances of his parents, or the reason they gave him away. Unusually for a child his age, he understood that unfortunate things happen occasionally, and he was never angry with his kin. He was happy enough there, with Rachel, he thought. Vincent's fine, poker-straight dark hair, coupled dangerously with his frosty blue stare, made him a popular fixture for the local women, young and old, who loved nothing more than to sit with him and his adoptive mother in their kitchen and listen to his clipped English accent. (His pouting mouth even softened Rachel when he turned his magic on her; she said it reminded her of a man she once knew.) The words felt monstrously embarrassing when he perched on a counter-top andlistened to Rachel's anglophile vowels, and he always finished feeling a bit guilty because he had picked up none of her speech. Was she sad about this? He didn't know about the language thing specifically, but he knew his Rachel had more to bear than just the cross nestling on her slight shoulders. When he was seven, Scully's little freckled terror realized that something was very wrong with her. She had begun to drink increasing quantities of spirits, hiding them on the top shelf of the larder and often falling from the pair of stepladders she used to get up there, so drunk was she; her insomnia didn't stop when he finished talking to her in the evenings. Sometimes he would hear her downstairs, singing or mumbling incoherent sentences to herself betwixt torrents of salty tears and mountains of tissue that rose quickly around her. Vincent didn't say anything to her about it for the longest time. Instead, he made tiny dents in his wall calendar with a pencil, so tiny only an eye expecting to find them would see, and marked off the days when she was sad. One month, two; four, five, six months. Each afternoon, Vincent checked his mother's supplies in the valuable times she disappeared from the house. He often watered down the gin and vodka she imbibed, meticulously replacing the large glass vessels in acts nothing short of acrobatic. He oft-times scaled the 12ft. cupboards nimbly with a favorite black rucksack, carrying the drink carefully on his back. He researched alcoholism on the internet, happily found that her condition probably wasn't true alcoholism, but perhaps depression. So, he read up on depression. That took a while, grappling furiously for weeks in secret with the psychological lingo that a man four times his age would find difficult to understand. Finally, in a sun baked Oakwell September, the worry in his gut had become too itchy and uncomfortable to bear any more. With an immense gathering of courage, he chose to change his usual tactic of waiting up for her on the stairs and putting her safely into bed. Stealthily, his socked feet tiptoed downstairs, flanked on either side by his teddybears. Each were tucked securely underneath his arms. At the bottom, he crouched behind a banister, watching Rachel. Her red hair aglow and unkempt, blue eyes bleary, Scully sat cross-legged in her living room, facing the fireplace with a glass of vodka firmly squeezed in her hand. She told herself it was only a tipple to finish the day off when she'd relieved Vincent's sitter at quarter past twelve - but it was now half past two on the morning and she soon found herself unable to stop crying. At night, she whimpered softly, quietly. She didn't want - upon pain of death - to wake Vincent, or to worry him. Nonetheless, she couldn't and wouldn't halt the established routine, embracing the iron grip of self-pity and yearning that amplified the pain of her separation from Mulder. And of Mulder from his son. Was he even alive? Scully finished her shot bitterly, entertaining the familiar thought that convinced her he was long dead. ..It's been seven long years, the Gunmen would have contacted me...do the Gunmen know where I am? Are they dead? Perhaps I could go back. Or maybe not, since he's probably six feet under... She loved to do that on a Monday evening. Just sit there, perversely satisfying shaky breaths and pitiful tears finally, exhaustingly aired, given leeway and free rein. Relinquishing control of her thoughts after...what? Fourteen years? Thinking of what could have happened. -This is a kind of delayed grief reaction -it has to be. Has to. She set the bottle on the archaic wooden floor and flicked on the hi-fi, reaching for the headphones that were hooked over the arm of the sofa. They were still plugged in from the previous night. I can't be strong - all - the time. Just then, spotting Vincent perched conspicuously at the bottom of the stairs, Scully sniffed loudly, removing the headphones with a spasmodic haste born of shock. She smoothed her work shirt, wiped away the smudges of the angry red lipstick fringing her lips, and pressed the buttons on the hi-fi until the red light on the base winked off. She was blinking rapidly when Vincent stood next to the wall, his hands in his pajama pockets, attempting to put the world in focus. The boy heaved in a huge breath. "Don't try to hide this from me, Rachel. I've been watching you for a long time." "Watching what, Vin?" Her voice creaked like a rusty hinge. "I told you - you don't need to hide this from me. I know this goes on. You think I'm asleep, Rachel, but I'm not asleep. I'm watching you. Why are you doing this?" he asked sadly. Racing across the living room faster than Scully thought possible for a small boy, he skipped over her side table and, with a nubile leap, enveloped himself in her arms. Scully cradled him for a while, smiling wistfully and combing her hand through his hair but making no attempt to explain. Vincent said nothing, either. Instead, his eyes ranged over the floor, sleepy eyes craftily surveying how much Rachel had drunk. The array of containers, most of which he'd watered down yesterday night, stared back at him from varying distances across the room. -She's drunk far too much. Far too much. "I'm worried about you, - Mum-" he said. The distraction worked, and she opened up a crack; just enough, he thought, for him to worm his way to the bottom of this. He began stroking the tears away from her face gently, tenderly. "You don't need to. I'm fine, baba. Absolutely fine! Nothing's wrong with me at all." She smiled at him through a veil of red. "Can't a lady have a bit of a relaxation session when she's had a long day?" "In five-and-a-bit hours, Rach, there'll be another "long day.' You'll be very tired. I'm going to school, too...Look. I can handle this. Perhaps I can help you!' he exclaimed. "Anna says a problem shared is a problem halved," he finished sagely, making reference to the advice his babysitter had given last week. "Vin, you're far too young to understand. You're far too young to be burdened with this." "Try me. I might understand; I'm very clever. And if you can't unburden yourself on me, then you've got no one to do it with, and it'll make you very sad. Maybe it'll even kill you," he warned, trying to inject the necessary venom and menace into his tone. Then: "Is it money troubles?" A pause. "No, Vin," Scully replied. "and I can't - I'm not telling you what it is, either. You're too young. I can handle this on my own. It won't kill me." "And it won't make you any stronger, will it? Not if you're doing this to yourself. It's bad for you. Will you come to bed now, at least?" He stepped backwards off her lap, tugging insistently at her hands. Scully wiped her face on her left shoulder and rose, slightly dizzy. "I'm sleeping with you tonight, Rach. I'll clean up the mess in the morning." "Okay." She rose, slowly. "Have I ever told you I have the most wonderful son in the world?" Vincent only smiled, revealing small white teeth, and nodded, sliding his small body in underneath her arm and catching her weight moments before she would have crumpled onto the rug. He maintained his vice-like grip all the way up the staircase and into the double bed, where his child's hands loosened her shirt and wide-legged trousers. The last to go were her laced up shoes, which Vin removed with the utmost care and precision. Then, he turned all the lights off and crawled under the duvet, where Scully's cold hand reached for his in the dark and found it. It was right then, at that very moment, that Vincent could pinpoint the first time he knew he would be stronger than his mother. An hour later, and after an hour of comfortable silence, Vincent chose the right time to pose a very important question. He nudged Scully to wake her, leaning over to peer at her face earnestly. He looks so much his father's son when he does that, Scully mused, lingering in that netherworld between sleep and waking. Such a jaw! Such a beautiful mouth! "I think I understand, Rach. The problems are my dreams, aren't they?" "Which dreams are those, Vinnie?" she mumbled. Vin realized she was far sleepier than he thought; she never, ever called him Vinnie A quick prod to her stomach with an outstretched finger roused her more thoroughly. "My dreams with you in them," he replied. "Oh. Those." A nervous, prickling sensation had begun to grow in the small of her back, in the warm spot where Vincent was spooned around her like an oversized kitten "Why do you say that? I don't think you're ill, baba." "Because my dreams about you don't just have you in it, - acting - like someone else. You - are - someone else. Aren't you?" Vin felt his mother's body constrict against his side. She stayed oddly silent, and he thought, correctly, that she was revisiting the words he'd related to her from the dreams, protected from him within the confines of her mind. Vincent had always received his dreams in a feverish delirium, where they were a blissful climax to his migraines in the numerous times his frail, small body had blacked out. He was always exhausted afterward, subdued by the throbbing tidal waves of unbearable pain. They made his body flaccid in Rachel's arms as she rocked him, and very often he could sleep for hours at a time, peacefully locked into a world where she couldn't follow. And while he lay defenseless, he dreamed. There, in that pseudo-world, she was accompanied everywhere by a man looking very much like him; and the man would look after Rachel, year after scraping, dangerous year. Although she was afraid of his dreams, Vincent personally looked upon them as a special blessing - perhaps a reward for the ordeal he had to endure to receive them. He thought that perhaps the man represented him in some way. Sometimes, though, he wished he didn't have to do so much work with his brain to secure his access. It was strenuous, and they seemed to make Rachel... so unspeakably afraid. He saw her in his minds eye now, her strained thoughts flying about her neurons like so many sparks. Afraid or not, Vin's dreams were his mind's toys, and they, rather than computer games or playground toys, were what occupied her child when he had a way to view them. They grew of his own free will. "I'm someone else, too. I know now. I'm a special boy," he whispered. "Very special. And now I know the significance of the things I dream - I know who I am! I know who you are!" "Who are you then, Vincent?" Scully asked him pointedly. "I'm the cure. The Cure! I'm an Adam!' He breathed out a lingering sigh that belied his absolute excitement, and turned on the bedside lamp again with shaking hands. It exuded warm, yellow light, splashing from underneath the shade as if it were an upturned barrel. He turned over, jubilant, saw Scully's ashen face buried deeply in the pillow. He whispered softly-"I'm David." For David and the woman beside him in the bed, time in the room seemed to slow and stop. The boy felt as if all things - and the desperate purpose of all his dreams - rested simply on the decisions he made now. And, for some inexorable reason, his fear was palpable as he picked his words for Scully with the utmost care and tact. David was very aware that a wrong phrase or the wrong tone could gash open deep wounds, and then he would fail. He blinked away the light that stung his eyes, pulling Scully suddenly upright with a violent jerk. He realized that, with his new knowledge, he could no longer be a child. Had he ever been a child? "I understand everything," he announced in a louder, yet still carefully controlled tone. "I need you to be awake. Fully awake. I've realized something very, very important." Scully rubbed her eyes wearily by way of a response, drink still coursing through her system. She saw an almost imperceptible change in her son, but, with a mother's intuitions, she could see there was no more childhood in his eyes. "I've had a waking dream. The dream to end all dreams! I - see - it! Mum, I'm David, and I know it, and I know Daddy's alive. Daddy's alive. I see you both in my dreams! Can we find him?"
Part II: Communion
Scully dredged herself up from the remnants of a hangover the in the morning, flopping over to her left side in bed and seeing David strolling across the bedroom floor. He smiled hello at her, then spun around on his heels to pick up the shirt he'd plucked off her back the previous night. He made towards the washing basket in the bathroom with it. Her mouth furred with the residues of foul Russian spirits, Scully propped herself up in bed with one elbow and looked out of the window. The sun spilling through it onto the bed also poured light onto the grazing pastures behind, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. "Got the time, Vin?" she asked, hearing her son ambling back into the room. She craned her neck backwards towards him. The boy perched on the side of the bed, flashing a cheeky grin at her and knowing she knew that was his naughty face. "Midday. Tuesday 23rd September." When Scully looked as if she was going to bolt downstairs, David pressed her down onto the bed, chuckling. "Don't move. I've called the surgery and told them you've got flu. And also that you could be off for more than a few days. You're really very poorly, Mum, aren't you?" he asked, in a mock motherly tone. Scully felt as though she wanted to curse, but stilled her tongue. "I've emailed the school too; I've got a dentist's appointment in Bradford this morning. Remember?" said David. "I need a filling, and the anaesthetic might just be too strong for me to come back in the afternoon, I'm afraid. Oh dear," he handed her an aspirin and a glass of water. "Here. For your hangover." Feeling exhausted, Scully wondered whether Vincent was still only seven years old. "Clever soul, aren't you? Thanks for the painkiller, by the way.'' She gulped back two green coated pills. "I never thank you enough for some of the things you do. - How long have you been up, Vincent?" "Since nine. Mum, why are you still calling me Vincent?" "Vincent's your name," Scully replied incredulously. "And can I ask why I'm Mum and not Rachel this morning?" "You don't remember last night at all, do you?" David's voice oozed disappointment. "I'm David. And you, Mummy, are Scully." What? What? Christ, he knows. How? "What did you just say to me?" Her tone was flat and subtly dangerous, and David shrank back. He related to her in weary monotone, his high pitched voice sinking to new depth: "Last night, you were drunk. I brought you to bed. I remember telling you about my dreams. I understand everything, Mum, but I'm not angry with you. I'm not angry that you don't remember, either." "Slow down." Scully swung her legs over the side of the bed, pushing herself up with her hands "Who have you been talking to?" "Nobody! My dreams told me everything I needed to know. I'll explain everything to you if you make me bacon," he bargained, compounding his offer with a casual flick of his eyebrows. He knew already she'd take. Scully eyed him back, then reached for a dressing gown, manouvering him downstairs and helping him to take his usual seat on the plastic countertop. As the bacon sizzled, launching flecks of oil over the kitchen like a miniature missile strike, she asked him again. "What do you know?" "Everything," her son replied. The sun settled slowly over the moor, dropping leisurely over the horizon. That evening, Scully remembered it had looked like an exotic, burnished gold disc, casting a extravagant backdrop behind the distant fields beyond the woodlands to the west. David was hiking back towards the main road ahead, a few yards in front of her. They trudged through the long grasses in absolute silence, hearing only the muted rumbling of engines racing along the tarmac. The sounds flew past them only briefly; they droned away over the hill within seconds. "I'm sorry, mum." David's hushed apology floated back over to her, and she stared at the back of his head, unable to see his face. The sun cast his hair a shade of golden caramel. "For what?" she replied, smiling. "For nothing and for everything. For Nana, for your name - and your life. I'm almost sorry I was even born." "Don't be sorry, baba. There's nothing-" "I only said almost sorry. I'm not sorry I was born." "You're a special boy, David," she agreed, pressing up to him and taking his hand. He said nothing for a while, instead choosing to look directly at the sunset. She looked at his face, and he was squinting. "Why did you not assume I was part of the project?" he asked. "You were too good to be true. I was so happy to find out I was having a baby, that I didn't want to think-" "-Yes. I understand that. But why did you think you could just have a child like that when you couldn't before? Didn't you find it suspicious, Mummy?" "Perhaps. But I didn't want to think you were going to be something any more unusual than..well." "But I am unusual. I'm a - freak - ." "No you're - not -, David! Remember the X-Men? They were a "new stage in human evolution'. And so are you. My little X-Man," she said affectionately, ruffling his hair. Scully chuffed at the pun. "Except I haven't grown claws. And I can't fly," David chuckled, brandishing a fist in the air and examining it for evidence of growth. "And I'm not completely human. Actually, I'm not very human at all." "You're more human than anyone you've ever met before, baba. I think the gifts you can give to the world are..well, momentous, considering that you could be the vision of a man. The perfect man." Vincent flinched in the wake of Scully's comment. Like Gibson Praise, he knew he had abilities that would ensure he was likened to something superhuman. In the back recesses of his mind, he glimpsed momentarily a dark room, a man with a wheelchair, a dark man with a leather jacket, and a woman. He had seen them before. Spender - his grandfather - Krycek, Courrubias; all guarding guilty secrets. David realized that it was he, alone, that knew them all, and it was not without a throb of excitement. -But I'm only - more - human, he thought. Was it Demesquieu that said "If triangles had a god, it would have three sides'? -The pinnacle of the human condition is the human god, re reasoned. And the human God is engineered. Is alien. -Is me, he thought. -And I've been created to save you. Am I the spawn of a devil or an angel instead? Thinking of Spender, then of his parents, he said to himself - Probably both. They continued to walk, slowly crawling up the slope with memories of the events David never witnessed spinning headlong through his head. He was surprised and happy to note that the precience he possessed didn't hurt him anymore. He thought about it for a while, elation pressing on the sudes of his stomach. "The dreams you had don't pain you, do they?" "They used to. They don't anymore. I don't think I'm going to dream again, though, because my brain is developing so fast." "What do you mean?" Scully asked. "What I mean is -' David sighed. He knew his mother would be too slow for him now, and he recognized that everyone else would be, too. "- the true human bit in my brain is now old enough to cope with all the other things I can do. So I won't be getting pains when I see or hear things, because I can deal with them now. They won't be in my unconscious anymore." "Aaah. Yes. I understand. Why didn't you tell me you could see the images in people's heads? - I would have checked myself. And where did you get the word unconscious from?" "From reading. I read a lot, Mummy, remember. You've also got to get out of thinking I'm just a seven-year-old anymore, because I'm not. I'm more intelligent than anybody else in the world, "he finished, armed with a smug grin. "But you're not the biggest, sunshine, so don't grow a big head until you're taller than your father else I'll clout you.' Scully laughed. "Or shoot me." "Or shoot you. But firearms aren't really allowed in this country for civilians, Davy, you smart alec," she reminded him. And she watched his Cheshire cat grin fade and his ears begin to burn, humilated. -That'll take him down a peg or two. Reaching their car, a delapadated silver ford, David hopped into the passenger seat first, belted up with a quick and practised action. Scully slid in beside him. Gunning the motor, she pulled out of the layby and began to roll towards Oakwell Beck. The lanes began to be lined with beech trees again, forming a green, cathedral roof that pressed in on three sides around the road. David wound open the tinted sunroof, and sat watching the boughs and branches fly by for a while. "I'm to be the Project's figurehead, you know, Mummy," he murmured. Scully only gripped the steering wheel. "No." "Yes." "No, David. You are definately not." "You brought me here to avoid all this. You think the project'll harm me. I understand that I see the worry in your eyes. But I AM the project now. Did you really think you could cheat fate?" Scully only glared at him. David stretched his hands out of the sunroof, then turned to face her. "This is my fate. To be with Daddy and my twin sister, and you, the Others." -Mulder? Mulder? Mulder! Alive! Yes, he said alive. - And a twin? But I never bore a daughter. "Would you say killing my mother to reach you is a good example of their benevolence?" Scully asked. "No." His features softened, realizing that inciting his mother to anger wouldn't help him. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to anger you. I don't mean to patronise you, either. But you have to understand, Mother, that to deny me this is to stop me fulfilling the reason behind my birth. This is my - birthright.-" "You were born because your parents were - and are - in love. Don't concoct fancy ideas about destinies. There aren't any." "Why?" David asked her. "The church tells us there's a destiny for every man. The God of the church - who tells us that- is alien. The God of the Church, therefore, is sitting in my son. How can I be religious if I have no faith in an alien God? If my own son - is - that God?" Scully's face was upset and angry. "I'm not god. Am I?" "I don't know," Scully replied. Long after David had fallen asleep, Scully remained awake on the mattress, absorbing the day's events. Her son, limbs flung in every direction, had relegated her to the farthest edge of the bed. She neglected to notice it. Her eyes, blue pools of confused emotions, stared vacantly at the ceiling. It was painted a vivid shade of blue that reminded her of the church roof in Maryland. She remembered that it was densely speckled with clusters of golden stars. -Mulder; still alive. David's twin; alive. -My son; a living god? -Oh dear...God? Not god. You think more of God than He actually is, though. She smiled, thinking of a balloon popping in her mind. The shrivelled remains, the rubber shell; maybe that's the real God. And her David. -And my daughter? What is she? Scully rolled onto her front, gathering David's wiry body to her. Quietly, she allowed her unshed tears to ripple down her cheeks, watched them falling heavily into his hair in the black. For all the arguing and confrontation that happened earlier, she couldn't bring herself to unseat her incorrigible son. -If he knows now, there's nothing I can do to stop him. There's nothing I will do to stop him. "Mummy?" "What?" Scully hadn't thought he was awake. "I watch you in my sleep. Remember that." "I will." "Daddy's in Tunisia. And I know you don't remember conceiving a twin. But you did. Her name is Mary. I can lead us to them both. Mary," he added sleepily, "lives with Krycek. And we need to get the Gunmen. We'll go to London tomorrow." But his mother was already asleep, exhaling hot air at his neck. David sighed for the upteenth time that day. The End Author's notes: Would anybody out there like me to write any more? This is my first piece and I'm feeling that maybe this could turn into a small series, if there's sufficient demand. But any feedback - positive or negative - will be read, although I'm hoping the criticism is constructive (!). I've wanted to write a piece for years, having been a great fan of, well, fanfic, but never had the guts to post anything. I've hoped you enjoyed it. katie -
|