TITLE: Lux Perpetua
AUTHOR: Lise Meitner
EMAIL: mrkeller@eclipse.net
ARCHIVE: Anywhere and everywhere
SPOILERS: None
RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATION: S
SUMMARY: The only series finale I'd like to see, or, why watching
too much early X-F is a bad thing. 
DISCLAIMER: The characters and situations of the television
program, "The X-Files" are the creation and property of Chris
Carter, Fox Broadcasting, and Ten-Thirteen Productions, and have
been used without permission. No copyright infringement is
intended.
FEEDBACK: Please. I'm considering ramping up the Kuxan Sum Cycle
again.

                         --o-0-o--

Georgetown Hospital
Washington, D.C.
Monday, May 6, 2002
4:07 pm

Fox Mulder felt sensation return slowly. First, there were sounds,
not painful ones, just noise with no sensibility. Then, the random
syllables formed into words, real English with meaning, spoken by
a voice he could never forget. He was somehow aware much time had
passed since he had heard it last. His partner was speaking in
that precise, controlled phrasing she used when talking into an
autopsy microphone. 

"Yes. Check the records under radiation-induced mutation. There
should be parallels with some of our earlier cases. Um-hum. Check
the DNA from the Tooms case. You'll find - Oh? How is he doing?" 

Mulder felt the pressure of his partner's hand on his arm as she
bent over him. His nose told him where ever he was, Scully had
just been out in the field. She smelled clean, but the slight
fragrance of her hair spray was missing. He suspected that, if he
could open his eyes, he would see she was still wearing those
hiking boots that were a size too large for her. 

"His vitals are good. Strong. There was no evidence of severe
damage when he wandered out of the woods. It's just a matter of
time before his body's had enough rest and he decides to wake up
and join the rest of us." 

Her hand shifted away, only to land again on his forehead. He
heard her indulgent little chuckle at the same time as the click
from her cell phone. She'd probably played her doctor card to keep
it in here with all the monitors. 

"Scully." He was surprised to hear himself whisper her name. 

"Mulder?" He felt the palm of her hand encircling his chin. "You
coming back to us?" 

He found it easy to open his eyes. His partner looked thinner than
when he had seen her last. But, she also seemed, it was difficult
to find the word, more *content* than he remembered her being in
years. "Yeah." He tried to raise his hand, but she had already
grasped it. 

"Don't try to move too fast, you've been unconscious for a week
now." 

She seemed more than content. His partner was distinctly at ease.
More memories flooded back, and he seemed to know the reason why.
"Motherhood suits you, Scully."

"What?" She had cocked her head at him. "What are you talking
about, Mulder? Motherhood?" 

He let his gaze travel down to her stomach. "But, I thought...
William?" 

She chewed the corner of her lip. "William who? I'm sorry, Mulder,
but my father and yours are both dead. William?" She walked to the
foot of the bed, then flipped through his charts. "We may need to
do these MRI's again." 

Mulder pushed himself up against the pillows before his partner
could reach his shoulder to restrain him. "But we had had a child,
Scully, I remember." 

"We what? Mulder, what are you talking about? How could we have
had a child?" She gripped his forehead to flick a light in his
left eye. "I don't have any ova, first of all, and we've never,
ah, well..." She straightened. "I wonder." 

He twisted on the mattress. "But, you asked for a contribution for
in vitro fertilization! I remember that distinctly."

"Hum?" From the distant tone, he could tell she was thinking. With
a sigh, she asked, "Now, why would I do that? I don't have the
time to raise a child, even if I had ova. Imagine what they'd make
of it at the Hoover Building. It's bad enough we do what we do." 

"But, you asked to be reassigned to Quantico. Agent Doggett runs
the X-Files now." 

"Quantico? I haven't worked there since before I was taken." Her
eyes narrowed. "No, there's no one there - "

"He was a little bit in love with you, Scully. There was another
agent there, Reyes, who was a little bit in love with him. And an
Agent Folmer, who was a little bit - "

"Mulder! You make it sound like Hoover Place, 90210! Success at
the Bureau demands dedicated professionals, not hormonally-crazed
teenagers in expensive suits." She crossed her arms. "So, what
were you doing in the midst of all this madness?"

He rubbed his forehead, somehow missing tangling his fingers up in
the sensor cables. "I had, I think, quit the FBI and disappeared.
For your safety." 

"You? Quit the FBI? Walk away from the X-Files? That's- Oh,
Mulder." She pulled the metal hospital chair up and sat, then took
his hand again. "You have to understand, you were taken away over
a year ago. There's no telling what was done to your memories once
the aliens spirited you off. They could have fed a whole different
life into your mind. They could have made you walk away from the
X-Files, resign from the Bureau, or something equally strange. A
child? They must have programmed you with some standard set of
'happy' memories. You told me about your dreams when the
Consortium operated on your brain. Remember? Deep Throat was alive
in that one."  

Mulder watched her studying him. He guessed she was mentally
tallying up the number and sequence of tests she would want him
put through. "Okay," he finally offered. "Did I hear you say 'the
aliens spirited'?" He tried to lean toward her, but found that too
much of an effort. "Finally considering those extreme
possibilities, Scully?" 

One cheek creased. "You'll find a lot of things have changed in
your absence, Mulder." He resigned himself to being tucked in
carefully before her cell phone rang. He fell asleep as she was
explaining to her caller that the flight test range needed three
day's advance notice before the prototype could be taken out.
Somewhere. 

                         --o-0-o--

J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington, D.C.
Monday, May 13, 2002
9:02 am 

Mulder found it odd to be here again. Just seven days ago, he
could barely walk to the bathroom, but today he had taken the
Metro in to work, just like old times. He had, over Scully's
protests, checked himself out of the hospital and she had driven
him home to Alexandria. His apartment was clean and his
refrigerator stocked with vegetables and fruit. It was obvious his
partner had been here before him. The fish appeared to be the same
ones from before he left, which meant that she had taken care of
them, or had looked high and low for replacements. 

"Agent Mulder!" The guard at the front desk stepped out to reach
for his hand. "Good to see you back." He smiled as he clipped on a
temporary badge. "AD Scully restarted all your paperwork, but that
takes time. You'll have to have a new photograph taken." 

He looked over at the sound of the quick steps he knew belonged to
only one person. "There you are." 

She touched his arm. "Why didn't you call me, Mulder? I was
expecting to give you a ride in today."

He shook his head. "I wanted to try this on my own." He chuckled
at her impatient little sigh. "I only rode to Glenmont and back
before I got here." 

She cocked her head. "Mulderrr." She walked to the elevators,
pressing the up button before she turned to him. "You didn't, did
you?"

He snorted. "Even if I'd been away for a decade, I wouldn't get
lost on the subway, Scully. Where are we going? To see Skinner?" 

She sent him an odd little glance. "Eventually. Right now, I'm
taking you up to the X-Files offices." 

He waited as the doors slid open. "Up? Did I miss something here?" 

She tipped her chin toward him. "Just you wait, G-man." 

The car stopped at the fourth floor. Once they exited, they were
stopped by an earnest young agent waving a Palm Pilot. "AD Scully,
we need to talk about the meeting you've scheduled at NIH next
week. There's a conflict with - Oh, Agent Mulder! So nice to
finally meet you." Mulder found his hand being pumped with vigor. 

"Likewise." He tapped his partner's shoulder. "Scully, this is the
second time I've heard 'AD' in front of your name. What's that all
about?" 

She swept her arm in the young agent's direction. "Fox Mulder,
meet Tom Jensen. He's a geneticist working with us on
cross-species mutation and genomic analysis." She stepped away
from both of them, just as two more agents, both female, one
African-American, the other Asian, joined them. 

"AD Scully." The African-American woman barely glanced at Jensen
before handing Scully a blueprint. "We've tested the aerodynamics
of the wing-shape as measured from the latest recordings, and they
appear to be an improvement over the set on the prototype." 

Mulder watched his partner read the document over carefully.
"Scully?" 

She handed the sheet to the Asian agent. "Does this agree with the
models you ran?" 

The woman answered softly, "Yes, it does. We had to correct for
wind speed and direction, but, it appears it will work in the
upper atmosphere." She raised her dark eyes to Mulder's puzzled
gaze. "So glad you are well, Agent Mulder. We were worried you
would never be returned." 

Scully introduced the African-American as Ariana Lytton, and the
Asian as Ming Chen, rattling off a string of degrees Mulder knew
he would never remember. Both had PhD's in engineering, so he'd
have to call them Doctor. Or Agent. Or both. He'd ask Scully which
was correct later. 

"So, are you ready?" His partner's words cut into his thoughts. 

"Ready?" He repeated carelessly. 

"To see your office." Scully was wearing a mysterious little smile
that unnerved him.

He pushed his fears away with a wave of his hand. "Lead on,
Watson." 

She escorted him to a door with a glass inset bearing his name,
then twisted the handle and turned back. "After you." 

He stepped through cautiously, then stopped. His partner had
painstakingly recreated his basement office here, or, as
painstakingly as her perpetual orderliness would tolerate. He
waited for her, then closed the door behind them. Once she had
settled into the creaking wooden chair in front of his desk, he
walked over to her. He rearranged his name plate and a stack of
case files, then sat on the front edge before bending over her and
crossing his arms. "Okay, spill. What's with all those people?
What's with the AD Scully business?"

She smoothed her skirt with both palms before she looked up at
him. "There was a videotape of your abduction, Mulder. Clear,
perfect, better than anything we had to date. I watched it." She
folded her hands in her lap. "That was the start, if you must
know." 

He walked around the desk to slump into his chair. "Start?" 

She straightened. "It was proof, Mulder. Unquestionable,
incontrovertible proof. Director Skinner and I took it to Director
Freeh. We had to have answers, and if he wasn't going to back us,
we were prepared to go to the media with it. Fortunately, he did.
We finally had the Bureau's resources at our disposal, and I was
determined not to waste them." 

He rubbed his eyes. "So, what about Doggett?" 

She leaned forward. "Doggett? I told you when you woke up, there
is no - " 

He nodded. "Yes. Agent John Doggett. He was assigned to look into
my - What?" 

She had cocked her eyebrow at him. "It's nice to know the aliens
worked your memories of Clarence Thomas into your alternate life." 

"So, no Monica Reyes?" He watched her shake her head. "Okay. No
William, no Doggett, no Reyes. I take it Kersch isn't a problem,
either?" 

She sent him a broad, relaxed smile. "No. As I said, I wasn't
going to let this opportunity go to waste. Director Skinner and I
immediately demanded the budget for the X-Files increase by a
factor of ten. I've brought on experts in photogrammetry,
genetics, forensics, engineering, archeology, exobiology." She
pointed to his computer monitor. "If you power your screen up,
you'll see a layout of our Group's organization." 

He studied the charts before he looked up at her as she bent over
him. "Our group? Yours and Skinner's?" 

She straightened to lean against the desk. "No. Yours and mine. AD
Skinner remains our superior, but he has a political scientist and
a diplomat to assist him."

"What?" He found his feet. "A diplomat? Scully, what's going on
here?" 

She pressed down on his shoulder. "You'd better be ready for some
extreme possibilities yourself, Mulder." 

He took a breath, then waited as she took the wooden chair.

"While we were gearing up the group, I was approached by a
contact, a source, who claimed to know where you were and who had
you." She was smoothing her skirt again. "He had information about
the remaining members of the Consortium that allowed us to arrest
them. All of them. Krycek, Marita, Strughold, all of them." 

Mulder sighed. "You keep using the past tense, Scully. This
source?"

She twisted on her seat. "He turned out to be an alien, a law
enforcement agent like us. The Consortium had allied themselves
with a rogue group of outlaws from his home world. He was tracking
them down and attempting to bring them to justice." She waved her
hand at the glass door. "Those prototypes you heard abut? He gave
us the plans, showed us how to build the machines and develop the
technology to make extra-solar travel possible. He helped us catch
our criminals in return for us helping him catch his." 

"So, where was he all the time *we* were trying to bring the
Consortium to justice, Scully?" 

"Waiting. Watching. When it was just you and I, Mulder, there was
no way we could bring our enemies down on our own. But, with the
Group, there was a critical mass that he felt would be
successful."

He leaned forward. "But, he's dead, isn't he?" 

She walked around to tap a few keys. "Yes. In a raid on one of the
facilities in the Cascades. The abductees they were taking were
never leaving the planet. They couldn't, because the distances in
space are just too vast. They were being hidden in secret
locations around the world. He was killed in a cave-in while we
were attempting to break into one of them. But that was what woke
you, and several dozen others. It took weeks to round every one of
you up in that terrain." She bent over him again. "You escaped us
to the very last, G- man." 

He chuckled. "So," he asked as he turned to his computer, "I have
a lot of reading to do, don't I?" 

She smiled. "Yes. Take your time. I'll be in and out to answer any
questions." She patted his shoulder once before stepping to the
door. "Catch you up for lunch?" 

"Yeah, sure." But, engrossed as he was in his reading, he failed
to hear the six queries shouted at his partner as she opened the
door.

                         --o-0-o--

J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington, D.C.
Monday, May 20, 2002
11:17 am

"Scully!" Mulder bellowed out his door. "Scully! Come check this
out!" 

She extricated herself from a group of agents to join him. "Yes?" 

He was pushing down his sleeves. "This mine you said was
abandoned? I think I was there for part of the time I was gone.
The layout, it seems familiar somehow." 

She clicked through several computer screens. "Okay. We can have
Agents Railford and Meeks go on ahead with the sensors. They're
following up on a lead about thirty miles from there. Let me make
some calls." 

Once she was finished, she turned to him. "Glad to have you back,
Mulder. It's been a long, long time since we've had your insights
to guide us." She held his gaze for a significant moment.

He bent into her face, then walked to hold the door for her. "You
know, I remember an old X-File about giant bats roosting in caves
not too far from there." 

She stepped through ahead of him. "Giant bats? What do they do?
Steal sheep? Drink the blood of cows?" 

He touched her back. "All that, and they have chameleon
tendencies. They can blend in anywhere, which is why they're so
successful at escaping probing and prodding by biologists. Think
of it, a new species." 

They dodged a group of agents, Mulder shielding Scully from
detection long enough to escape. 

Once they were in the elevator, she snorted. "Giant camouflaged
blood-sucking bats. Oh, Mulder." 

He punched the button. "Hey, I'm doing you a favor getting you out
of that office, Scully." 

                         --o-0-o--

                              FINIS

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Finished 1/26/2

Yup, it's me, Mary Ruth Keller. The denizens of the Endies Board
appreciated these fevered thoughts so much I thought I'd float
them in a bit wider waters. Ten points for guessing where the
title comes from. ;-)

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=====o======================================================o=====  
Mary Ruth Keller    "Is it possible disdain should die while she hath  
Silver Spring, MD    such meet food to feed it, as Signior Benedick?"  
mrkeller@eclipse.net                     Much Ado About Nothing  
http://www.eclipse.net/~mrkeller/stories.html  
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