Title: The Fourth Wish

Author: Neoxphile

Spoilers: Je Souhaite, Deadalive

Catogory: Missing Scene

Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully and Jenn are creations of Chris Carter’s not mine. I doubt he’ll notice I’ve taken them out to play with, though.

Summary: Just what *did* Mulder wish for at the end of Je Souhaite?

Note: I ascribe to the "Requiem must have been in August" school of timeline thought. That’d make Je in August too.

August 2000

He wants everything to be perfect. All he has to do is frame the wish in the exact right way so that Jenn doesn’t have any wiggle room, and then there will be nothing but good times for everyone on Earth from then until the end of days. It’s something that everyone would be grateful for, but why can’t he convince Scully that it’s the right thing to do? And why does it bother him so much that she doesn’t seem to be coming around this time? Resisting a sigh, he listens to her continue to argue her case.

"Maybe it's the whole point of our lives here, Mulder-- to achieve that. Maybe it's a process that one man shouldn't try and circumvent with a single wish."

When she leaves the office, he resolves to ignore her advice, and write it off as worrying for no reason. The only problem is that she’s broken his concentration, and the words no longer seem to flow. He loses the thread completely a minute later when Jenn comes back into the room.

"You ready?"

"Yeah, I'm ready." Giving the computer a regretful look, he turns the monitor off. And turns to face the jinni.

"Well?"

"I’ve spent the past hour working on the perfect wish."

"How did it turn out?" Jenn asks with a smirk.

"As well as you could expect. I hate to admit it, but I’m afraid that my partner is right. It wouldn’t be right to change course of the entire world in some misguided effort to give everyone what they want. Having our every want fulfilled would only serve to make our existence meaningless, since we’d no longer have to struggle to achieve anything."

"You say that like most people wouldn’t be thrilled to put aside the need to achieve anything." Jenn chides. " But if you don’t want to give people their every desire, it sure makes my job easier. So what are you going to wish for then, money?"

"And get blown up? No thanks."

"Stunning good looks?"

Mulder gives her a hurt glance. "Are you implying that there’s something wrong with my looks?"

"No of course not." The accompanying snort is anything but reassuring.

"I’m going to use my final wish to the betterment of mankind, but not in a way that they’d notice."

"Funny, I don’t know you well, but I don’t think I’d be wrong to say that subtlety is not your strong suit."

"Thanks." Mulder looks down so she won’t notice his reaction to her truism.

"You’re welcome. Don’t leave me in suspense. How are you going to improve people’s lives without them noticing? I’m all ears."

For half a second Mulder worries that he’s going to look up and see that she is all ears, literally, but she still looks the same as always. Same dark hair, same tattoo. "I’m going to save everyone…from you."

Jenn gives him a disbelieving look. "You want to wish-proof people? That’s not exactly sporting."

He shakes his head. "That’s not exactly what I had in mind. You said yourself that it’s too difficult to change the minds of six billion people, so it probably wouldn’t work to somehow make them never want to fall for one of your wishes."

"That’s true. So how do you want to protect the people from me?"

"I’m going to wish you free." Mulder says simply. "If you’re mortal again, you can’t harm anyone through misinterpreting their wishes."

"Be that as it may, there are other jinni in the world." She warns.

"I know. You’re the only jinni I know, so you’re the one I want to set free."

"This has always struck me as an age that would be exciting to be mortal during…" Jenn muses. "But I’m not sure that I can allow you to wish me free. That wouldn’t be for your benefit, and the rules are pretty specific about things like that."

"Rules? Are you unionized? Say that it benefits me by giving me peace of mind." Mulder shrugs.

Jenn thinks it over. "I don’t think that would fly. But maybe if it was made in combination with another want, it would work."

"Ah, a rider wish. I was wrong, you’re not union, you’re lobbyists."

"So what should the wish be combined with?"

"I don’t know, surprise me." Mulder tells her. "And don’t make me regret it."

"You know, I think I’ve got a good idea of something that would suit you fine."

Mulder nods, then notices that her tattoo is gone. "You did it already?"

"It’s done. And I’m free." Jenn looks happy for an instant, and it makes him realize that his last wish wasn’t wasted.

"I’m glad. Are you going to tell me what you wished for me? I don’t feel any different…" He pauses and runs a hand over his nose, reassured that it feels the same. It’s the only thing he could think of when she made the stunning good looks crack.

"You’ll see." She smiles.

"I’ll see? You’re not going to tell me what it was?"

"No. I think you’ll like the news better from someone else." She says cryptically. "You’ll definitely know what it is when you hear it. Thanks again for freeing me. You wouldn’t happen to know of a place to get a decent cup of coffee, would you?"

Mulder gives her directions to a coffee shop, and watches her leave. By the time Scully comes over to watch a movie with him, he’s decided that whatever she wished for him doesn’t warrant agonizing over, and he’ll just enjoy the things that have come to him through his own efforts. Like his relationship with Scully. He didn’t get that through wishing, but it’s more than enough.

Late April 2001

"Mulder?"

The fog lifts enough for him to realize that his name has been called. And not by just anyone, by Scully. He has to get to her. Wading through the swirling fog, her voice becomes louder. "Mulder..." Eventually he gets close, and there she is, leaning over him.

"Hi."

There’s something not right about Scully. She’s bigger. She’s… "Who are you?" He asks in a hoarse voice.

Her horrified expression for a second tells him that she bought it, so he smiles. "Oh, my God. Don't do that to me." He’s pretty sure she’d hit him if he wasn’t in a hospital bed.

"Do you know...? Do you have any idea what you've been through?"

Instead of answering he looks at her belly. Was it Jenn’s work or his? Either way it looks as though Scully is getting something she’s always longed for. "The fourth wish." He whispers. Scully doesn’t seem to notice, so he answers her question in a louder voice. "Only what I see in your face." She leans over again to touch him, and it’s all he can do to resist bringing a hand towards her belly. They’ll talk about that when she’s ready. But he’ll keep his suspicion about the wish to himself. It doesn’t matter. Looking up at her, he smiles. "Anybody miss me?"

The End