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Title: The Occasional Journals of Dana Scully, M.D., Number 2 of ?, as
transcribed from the Lost Tapes of the Exile. Summary: Read number one to get the feel of it. The mood, at least, is meant to be dark. Comments: I'm writing these as they pop into my head--nothing big, nothing formal, just snippets here and there from a busy life. Read the dates as I don't think I'm doing them in order. The character's in charge here, not me. Right now she wants this moment told. They're meant to be transcripts from a minirecorder journal, transcribed years after the fact. In this alternative world, M & S got chucked out of the FBI and set up freelance careers in Seattle. After several attempts they got Dale Cooper out of the Black Lodge (although he got chucked out of the FBI too) and he's been working with them to stop colonization. Joel Fleischman was M & S's neighbor and doctor. Until everything went to hell. Music: Still Mozart's Requiem. This is the dark and threatening time. However, for a good musical rendition of Alfred Noyes's "The Highwayman," look up Loreena McKennett's The Book of Secrets album. Feedback: Yes. I'm doing these as unblocking character/mood setting exercises for non-fanfic stuff (yes, it's pretty dark and bleak with invasion as a theme) I'm doing so let me know what you think! E-mail comments or comments here work. (tape starts here) March 5, 2002.
I don't know where to start. I have to speak now or start screaming. I wish I were Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, so I could click my heels together, chant "there's no place like home, there's no place like home" and be propelled back to safety. Quietness. My former life, before the Colonization. Any place away from this cabin back in the trees--close to *it,* left alone for my own safety with newborn in one hand and at least one gun close to the other. Waiting. I may have postpartum depression, but at this moment I can't seperate it from my real life. (Smacking lips noise, followed by mewling baby cries.) Shh, shh, little Kat. (Crying intensifies). Let's burp. (Patting sounds, followed by loud belch). There now, let's try the other side. (Sounds of energetic suckling, rustle of blankets). Hope Katherine Mulder. My third child, at least that I know of. Three weeks old and, despite the hell we've gone through, surprisingly normal. Healthier than her sisters with tons of her father's dark hair--at three weeks she's most definitely herself, and Herself is most emphatically a Mulder. She may be all that's left--(sniffling noise). No, Dana. Hold yourself together. It's been two and a half weeks. Coop should be back by now. Unless he's afraid to face me, and is just waiting for Joel to tell him it's the right time to tell me that Mulder died in the mess we left behind. Neither Joel nor Harry Truman claim to have any news for me. And, up here in Jacques Renault's old cabin, there's no TV, no radio, no cell phone, no other source of information. I might as well be some shivering pioneer woman from the nineteeth century waiting for her man to come back from the gold fields in California. Only my man may be lost in the snows of Alaska--with death the best possible fate if he's not safe and trying to make his way to us. What they'd do to him--or to me and Kat--I don't think they'd just kill any of us. If I can die--hell, yes, I can die. Fettig died. I can too. I just don't want to, not unless I have no other choice. It might be better to seek out the Black Lodge. At least there I'd have a fighting chance...no, Dana. Don't think of that. Coop does want me to talk about when we rescued him. That's one reason he left me with the recorder and the tapes that Joel or Harry take back to have transcribed. I know this is something they've hatched up to keep me from worrying about Mulder and what comes next while in this isolation. It's just not working today. If it wasn't for Kat I'd almost risk Glastonbury Grove, the Red Room, and everything else that goes with it to find Mulder--no, don't go there, Dana. Hear that, Joel? Harry? Coop? If you've got bad news for me, it's time. I can't take this waiting any more. Am I a widow or not? It's time to move on. I have plans to make. I keep thinking about the last hours in Caribou. So different from Emily or Elizabeth. We could allow ourselves to be happy as we looked at Kat--Hope, we were calling her then. The labor was relatively uneventful, as these things go. Not the godawful nightmare that was Elizabeth's birth, questioning why what had appeared to be a healthy child on ultrasound and all the other fetal testing was looking dangerously like a stillbirth during labor, with the emergency Caesarian and post-delivery nightmare. Kat didn't cry at birth. She stared at everything around her, eyes big. When Joel first handed her to Mulder his eyes got bigger than hers. They stared at each other, and I swear I knew right then she was Daddy's girl. For the next two days whenever I wasn't holding her, or nursing her, or something he was holding her, staring at our miracle come through at last. He'd even hold her while she was sleeping, trying to cram as much time together with us before he and Adam went back out on their Resistance cell work. He delayed getting ready. At last it was time. A kiss for Kat's forehead, a longer one for my lips. "Be careful," I'd told him. "You're a father now." "I'll come back to you," he said. Then a wry grin as he quoted Alfred Noyes to me: "Yet if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day, then look for me by moonlight, watch for me by moonlight, I'll come to thee by the moonlight, though Hell should bar the way." I didn't like the quote. It was almost as if he suspected something was going to happen. Although, believe me, I plan to watch by tonight's moonlight--as I have been every night since we got here. He finished with a caress of my cheek, and then he was gone. Four hours later, all hell broke loose. I heard the commotion before Coop burst into my room, yelling our bugout code word. Somehow I got Kat's stuff together, somehow I got the things I needed together before Coop and Joel were hustling me to Maggie's plane. It wasn't until we were in the air that I found out how close it was. The bastards got Cicely. Mulder and Adam were there. He sent Maggie to warn us and get the evacuation of Caribou started while they stayed to fight and save what they could. He gave her a scrap of paper with the Noyes verse on it, with "though Hell should bar the way" underlined. The next week or so is still all jumbled up in my mind. I don't think I put Kat down for ages, not even to sleep myself. Good thing she likes her Snugli. We went from place to place, sometimes only spending two hours in one spot before moving on. At last we ended up here. I spent a few days at the Log Lady's house, but it was too much. We got on each other's nerves, and Kat scared the hell out of her. Why, I don't know, but it was enough that even this place; despite its history between Renault and Windom Earl, looked good. Okay, I'm going stir-crazy but this place is better than any other option. I don't have to worry about anyone other than myself and Kat. Hawk and some others of Harry's Bookhouse Boys are on patrol, and I don't see them, outside of the occasional "all-clear" check in. Occasionally Hawk comes by instead of Harry. He doesn't say much, but he's the best of all of them. Joel kvetches too much--I know he's worried about Maggie; he hasn't heard from her either since she took Coop back for Mulder. I make Harry nervous. I suppose that's because I'm about the only one out there who can make Albert Rosenfeld act like a human being--oh hell, I'd even settle for a good rousing argument with Albert right now to take my mind off of things. What's that? Something rustling outside. Sh, sh, little Kat. Mommy's busy now. (sound of pistol being cocked). (tape ends here.) jrw Followed by:
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