Title: Lightening Shadows III-What Child Is This?
Author: Elizabeth L. Iacono
Rating: PG
Category: Story, Angst, slight hint of Romance
Keywords: Mulder/Scully UST
Spoilers: Paper Hearts, Detour
Summary: Mulder confronts Mrs. Mulder about what happened in
August of 1965, and has some waking flashbacks.
This is part three in the series. It would be best if you read
the other two first (shameless self promotion here) so you had
some idea of what's going on. Basically, what happened so far
is that Mulder's had some strange dreams that made him doubt who
his real parents are, and then finds a police report from 1965
that backed up his theory.
Archive-Sure! Just e-mail me to tell me where it is.
I already sent this to Gossamer.
Feedback-can never hurt. The addy is RhiaRamsay@aol.com
Disclaimer: to hell with making this interesting, they're not
mine. They're CC's, 1013, and Fox's. Mine are Mama, and any
of the Vineyard cops.
Lightening Shadows III-What Child Is This?
Elizabeth L. Iacono
August 24, 1965
The little boy lifted his head out of the sand and spit
some out of his mouth. He ran a hand through his dark brown
hair to get rid of the itchy sand in it. He was so lost.
He couldn't remember anything. Not where he was, or where
he'd came from, or who his parents were, or how old he was.
He only remembered one word-Fox. He tried speaking the word.
Only with effort was he able to say the word.
He looked around at where he was. He couldn't recognize
anything. He looked up at the sky. It was very dark, but still
warm enough that the little boy wasn't shivering with cold. He
looked down at what he was sitting on. He sifted some of the
tiny grains through his fingers. He couldn't remember what these
were called either.
Next he looked at his clothes. They were wet with seaspray
and sticking to his skin. It was making him colder by the
minute. He looked out over the water and saw the sky getting
brighter. But he didn't know what all this was called. He was
so unsure about what to do he didn't see the man walking towards
him.
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Officer James Singer was going for his daily early morning
walk on the beach. The beaches of Martha's Vineyard were always
busy during the daytime, so the best time to take a walk was in
the early morning. He was staring down the beach, when he
noticed a dark spot on the sand about a hundred yards down from
him. As he approached, he realized it was a little boy. He
began to walk quicker.
The little boy didn't notice him coming in until he gently
laid a hand on the boy's shoulder. The boy jumped and stared at
him. Singer bent down until he was at the boy's level. "What's
your name?" he asked the child.
The child just stared at him. The little boy knew he was
supposed to say something, but he couldn't put his finger on it.
So he said the only word that came to his mind. "Fox."
Singer nodded. This was a start. "Good. Do you know where
your parents are?" he asked next.
The boy looked scared. The man was expecting him to answer.
"Fox," he said once more.
Singer's thoughts took a different turn. Suddenly, he thought
that the boy could possibly be retarded. He was going to have to
take this slow. He stood up and took the little boy's hand. The
boy looked up at him, puzzled. "I'm going to help you, okay.
You're going to be fine now."
All the little boy would say as Singer led him back to his
house was Fox.
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August, 1998
Mulder stared at the police report. This was too
coincidental. It just seemed to add up with the dreams, yet at
the same time contradicted everything his parents told him. It
was time to call Scully. She would know what to do. She would
be able to remain calm, unlike how Mulder felt at that moment.
He wanted to scream and throw things and yet at the same time
curl up into a ball and not come out. He was royally confused.
Mulder picked up the phone and dialed in the office
number. She should still be there. It rang twice until Scully
picked it up.
-Scully.-
He sighed deeply and then spoke. "It's me, Scully."
-How are you feeling?-
He decided on honesty this time. "Not that great. Look,
could you come over here? I have to show you something."
-Of course, Mulder. I can take the rest of the day off.
I'll be right there.-
"Thanks." Mulder hung up and leaned back into his chair.
He wasn't sure as to how to tell Scully this one.
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Scully sat down on Mulder's couch and looked at a printed
out copy of the police report. "I don't know what to say,
Mulder. How did you get this idea?" She was still having a
hard time trying to grasp the concept of Mulder's latest theory.
Mulder walked over to the couch and sat down next to her.
He wasn't sure what to tell her either. So he decided on a joke.
"Do you want the truth or a really good excuse?"
"Mulder." She glared at him.
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. He
searched internally for the best way to explain it. "I've been
having these dreams lately that contradict almost everything I've
been told about my childhood."
"Maybe it was your subconscious projecting what your child
hood should have been like?" Scully suggested, always one for the
rational explanation.
"I thought the same thing at first, but sometimes it just
seemed so real. More like a flashback, or a repressed memory."
Scully leaned back against the couch. This was really
bothering him. She would do anything to try to make him smile
a little. "So what is it? Do you think you're some lost alien
or something that fell out of its spaceship onto Martha's
Vineyard?"
Bingo. Mulder laughed a little and shook his head. "No.
Maybe just some lost kid who fell out of a boat. A head injury
would explain the memory loss."
"Mulder, that kind of complete memory loss is rare. And
besides, most people don't remember their early childhood. As
you get older you have a tendency to forget the earlier memories."
"But then explain why I couldn't remember then, when I
was three?"
Scully raised a hand, then let it drop to her side. "I
can't." She looked over to him. "What are you going to do now?"
"I think I'm going to go see my mother. There's just a
few questions I have that she'd probably be the best one to ask
them to." He stood up, grabbed a bag and began to pack.
Scully stood up quickly. "What do you think you're doing?"
He looked up at her. "Packing so I can drive up and see my
mother this weekend."
"Not without me."
He looked puzzled. "What? Why?"
"Look Mulder, you haven't been sleeping enough, for all you
know you're going to fall asleep on the road and plow yourself
into a tree."
Mulder grinned at her. He loved it when she made such a
fuss because of him. He calmly consented. "Okay. Let me pack
here, and then we can take your car over to your apartment so
you can pack, and then you can drive me up to Greenwich."
He said it all in a condescending tone that earned him a punch
in the arm from Scully.
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Later that night
Mulder sat in the passenger seat in Scully's car. He was
apprehensive about going in to confront her about this. He
wasn't sure how she would take it.
"You okay, Mulder?" Scully asked.
"Yeah, I just wish I knew how she's going to react." Mulder
felt Scully take his hand in hers.
"Well, whatever happens, I'll be right there beside you,
okay?" Scully said quietly.
He smiled softly at her. "I know." They reluctantly
untangled hands and got out of the car.
Mulder looked up at his mother's home. Now, he was really
starting to doubt whether she was his real mother. Slowly, he
led Scully up the stairs with the automatic response of putting
his hand on the small of her back. With an shaking hand, he
rang the doorbell.
Scully looked over towards him. "You sure you're up for
this?" she asked quietly.
"I don't think I have any choice."
Mrs. Tina Mulder opened the door, and smiled when she saw
Mulder there. "Fox!" Mulder winced. "What a nice surprise."
Next, she noticed Scully standing there. "Hello, Ms. Scully.
Please come in." Mulder once again gently led Scully into the
house. Tina sat them both in the living room. "Would you like
anything to drink?"
"Some coffee would be good," Mulder said quickly. Tina
walked off into the kitchen.
Scully looked at him, puzzled. "I can't do this," Mulder
whispered so low only she could hear. "I just want to run away
so bad, but I know that if I don't ask I'll never find the answer."
Scully laid a comforting hand on his back. "It'll be okay,
Mulder." They couldn't talk anymore because Tina came back into
the room.
Tina handed out the coffee cups and both Mulder and Scully
said their thanks. "Well, this is definitely a surprise, Fox,"
Tina said. "You hardly ever come up here unannounced and on a
work night."
Mulder ran a hand through his hair. He reached into his
pocket and pulled out the printout of the police report and
handed it to Tina. She unfolded it, read it, and sighed.
"I was wondering when you'd find that," she said.
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Mulder's eyes opened wide. Tina had known about this. He
tried to speak but the words got stuck in his throat. He glanced
at Scully, who almost imperceptibly nodded.
"Mrs. Mulder, could you tell us exactly what happened?"
Scully questioned.
Tina took a sip of her coffee. "It's all pretty simple. The
police report there is accurate. In the early morning of August
24, 1965, a little boy was found wandering around the beach. The
officer took the boy, you, down to the local police station to
see if anyone had reported a little boy missing. They were
afraid that you had some mental problems, because the only word
you knew was Fox." She got up and stood by the window, looking
out at the oncoming night. "That was how you got the name, the
police officers started calling you that, you responded to it at
least, and for some reason it stuck. Well, you stayed at the
officer's house who found you for a week, and when they couldn't
find any information about you or your real parents, they put out
a call on the island to see if anyone wanted to officially adopt
you.
"One of the first people they called was your fath- my
husband and I." Mulder noted the slip, but put it to the back
of his head. "Bill had always wanted a little boy. We'd had
trouble conceiving before, and Samantha was the first one that
had carried to term. The officer knew this, and so he asked us
if we were willing to take you in. We agreed, and so you were
officially registered as Fox William Mulder, and we raised you
as our own."
Mulder took all this in. It was shocking, yet at the same
time it made sense. He wasn't sure as to whether he should have
felt horrified or relieved. This was going to change a lot of
things in his life. "Is that the whole story?" he asked.
Tina turned back to the two FBI agents. "Pretty much. After
a while you started talking again. You had decided yourself how
old you were and what your birthday was. But anything after that
you couldn't remember. We were always expecting your memory to
come back, that kind of memory loss we were told was very rare.
By the time you were ten, we had pretty much given up that any
memory was going to come back. It had been over six years at
that point. At the time the police had checked many reports of
missing children from all over Massachusetts, but none had ever
matched with your description."
Mulder slowly nodded, accepting this. he thought it was odd
that Tina never questioned how he'd found this, but had just
proceeded to tell him what had happened. "Okay. Thank you for
telling me the truth." Mulder knew this was the truth. He knew
Tina well enough to tell when she was lying, and this was one
of those times.
"It was the least I could do." She bent down and picked up
the now empty coffee cups and brought them back to the kitchen.
She could tell Mulder needed some time to digest all this.
As soon as Tina walked out of the room Scully kneeled down
in front of Mulder's chair. He was staring out into space again.
"Mulder?"
He looked down at her. "I'm okay, Scully. Really," he
asserted when he saw her raised eyebrow. He continued. "It just
bothers me that it took me this long to realize that they weren't
my real parents, that Samantha wasn't my real sister..." his voice
trailed off.
Suddenly she understood. He was afraid that this news
would put a whole new twist on his quest. "Mulder, listen to
me." His eyes focused in on her. "You loved Samantha like a
sister right?" He nodded. "You believed she was your sister,
and I'm pretty damned sure she thought of you as a brother. It's
still okay to try to find her, as long as you remember that you
thought, hell, you knew she was your sister, and that she felt
the same way." She waited with bated breath until Mulder's
face relaxed. Scully stood up to give him some space, but stopped
when his arm slipped around her waist. In a move reminiscent
of a time long ago, Mulder laid his head down on her stomach.
Scully ran both her hands through his hair, unable to move
anything else because of his arms.
"Thanks," she heard whispered, almost inaudibly, but loud
enough to get the point across. Mulder released her waist and
went over to stand by the window Tina had just occupied. He
let out a slight laugh. "This has been one hell of a day, hasn't
it Scully?"
"Yes, it has."
Mulder didn't hear her response. His head was spinning, and
he couldn't see straight. The one thing he realized was that the
image of the nondescript houses and trees across the street were
changing into...
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...into a large Christmas tree, complete with all the
trimmings. It was late at night judging by the clock on the
mantle, and the almost total darkness outside. The only light
that fell outside was from the tree, its multi colored lights
hitting the still falling snow. The beautiful glass balls
hanging from the boughs reflected the lights into his eyes.
Fox was so entranced by the sight, he didn't notice the person
walking towards him.
"What are you doing up?" Fox's head whipped around. There
was Mama, standing tall in a blue silk bathrobe.
Mulder knew for a fact he wasn't dreaming, so what the hell
was going on?
Fox fumbled for an explanation. "I wanted to wait for
Santa," the boy said. Mama smiled and sat down next to him.
"I used to wait for Santa, too, but then my parents always
took me up to bed."
Fox saw his chance. "Then we can wait for him now!"
Mama laughed and pulled Fox into her lap. "But, one night,
my parents told me that Santa didn't come unless everyone was in
bed. So I went to bed, easy as that. And when I woke up in the
morning, I knew that he'd come. All the cookies were gone, and
there were some presents under the tree that I knew for sure they
hadn't bought."
"I still wanna wait," Fox said stubbornly, his lower lip
sticking out.
"Oh, Fox," Mama said. "Come to bed. By the time you fall
asleep and wake up it'll feel like no time has passed at all,
and in the morning, you'll see that he came."
"Awright," Fox agreed, but still not wanting to go back to
bed.
Mama carried him up a flight of wide stairs, and then into a
bedroom. As Mama tucked him into his bed Fox asked "Will you
watch the gifts tonight, Mama?"
Mama's brow wrinkled. "Why?"
Fox sat up. "The gift eaters."
"Gift eaters?"
The little boy nodded earnestly. "Yeah. Col said that
on Christmas Eve, the gift eaters came after Santa and eat all
the gifts. And then, they eat the littlest kid in the house,"
he finished with wide eyes.
Mama groaned and rolled her eyes. "Don't worry and don't
listen to your brother when he says things like that. I'll keep
the monsters away." She kissed him on the forehead. "Now go to
sleep."
"Sing to me please Mama," came from the bed. "It'll keep the
monsters away."
The older part of Mulder thought back to a time in a forest,
when he wanted someone else to sing to keep the monsters away. He
still wasn't sure if it was Scully's singing that kept the
MothMen away.
Mama came back to the bed and sat down on the side of it.
"Of course I'll sing."
"Can you do a Christmas song?" Fox asked.
"Sure," Mama smiled at him, and began to sing.
"What child is this
Who lay to rest
On Mary's lap
Is sleeping
Whom angels greet
With anthems sweet
While shepherds' watch
Is keeping..."
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Mulder was brought back to the present by Scully's hand on
his back. "Are you okay? You really zoned out there for a
minute."
A minute? Was that all that really passed? Mulder thought.
"Yeah. I'm just really tired. Maybe we should start
getting back home?" he asked hopefully.
"All right. Go say goodbye, and I'll warm up the car."
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By the time they hit New Jersey, Scully was beginning to
fall asleep at the wheel. Mulder was busy staring out the
window. "Hey, Mulder, I'm going to pull over and get some hotel
rooms for the night. I'm really tired."
"It's no problem. I'm dead on my feet myself."
Scully pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of the
first motel she saw that was nice looking. She parked the car and
walked into the lobby. Two minutes later she came back with a
key. "We're in luck. They've got one room left with two
double beds."
"Good," Mulder said. By this time he was too tired to care
about much except for settling down for the night.
Scully drove the car down to the room and they entered it
together. It was a small room, designed for people spending most
of their time on the beach, as shown by the sliders in the back
that provided a direct line down to the beach.
Mulder just barely stripped down to his boxers and got into
bed before he was out like a light. Soon, Scully followed suit
and fell asleep quickly in the other bed.
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The next morning, actually a little before since the sun
hadn't risen yet, Scully awoke to find the other bed empty.
She stopped worrying when she saw the slider door open with the
screen pulled across it. Beyond that, she saw Mulder's bare back
and him sitting on the sand. She got out of bed, grabbed her
bathrobe, and went out to join him.
Mulder heard her approaching and turned around to greet her,
and motioned her to sit down next to him. They looked like an odd
combination, her in a terry cloth bathrobe and him just in a pair
of jeans. Before she could think anymore Mulder began to speak.
"Y'know, I was just thinking. This was where it all
started." He waved a hand out at the sea. "Am I going to have
to begin here to find out the truth, or will this new path lead
us here?" Mulder sighed and looked out at the sky and the bright
orange line that was just starting to blossom at the horizon.
Scully turned to him and placed a hand on his cheek.
"Well, whatever happens, I'm here, okay." Mulder placed his hand
over hers and held on to it tightly. Then, Scully leaned forward
and softly brushed her lips with his. It was meant as comfort and
received as comfort, but both couldn't help but wonder what more
would be like.
"We'll do this together," Mulder said, and they both turned
to watch the sun rise.
Not the end :)
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To be perfectly honest, I don't know who wrote the Christmas
song. But it's not mine. Part four is in the works. I'm not
sure where's that one's going so far, but I still think I
have maybe one or two more parts until I get to the BIG part.
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"True love, it's the greatest
thing in the world."
Miracle Max
The Princess Bride
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"Men will fight bravely and be
heroes, but for a last ditch
defense against any odds, get
a mother."
Lightbringer
High Wizardry
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geocities.com/rhiaramsay)