PART NINE
By now you know, all legal stuff is in part one.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Part Nine-'There are more things in heaven and earth than
are dreamt of in your philosophy'
Catriona paced back and forth in front of the side
door to her home. Any minute now she would see the two
cars pulling up the long, sloped driveway. She knew
exactly what those two cars contained: six people, one
of which was currently unconscious and had a bed made up
for him on the couch in the family room. Her brown plaited
hair had come loose from its knot and the long braid now
dangled well past her hips.
Thirty-five years. It had been thirty-five years
since Fox disappeared. And now, those thirty-five years
seemed like they only spanned a minute.
Finally the two cars pulled up. One was Shannon's
that she recognized immediately. The other car was a
non-descript dark blue Taurus. From Shannon's car she,
Alec, and Robynne got out. From the other car came Molly
and a smaller redhead she didn't recognize. In the back
of the car Cat knew was the man her little boy had become.
Suddenly she noticed the cold wind whipping around and
burrowing its way into her bones.
"Come on in!" Cat suddenly cried. She saw the
smaller redhead start, ('That's probably Dana,' Cat
guessed) probably at her accent. Most people didn't
expect to hear it coming from her mouth. Although she
figured a name like 'Catriona' would give them a hint.
"It's frigid out here!" With that she turned and walked
in through the wooden door, leaving it open in invitation
for the others to come in.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Scully stared after the older woman walking into
the house, her skirt flaring out behind her. 'Was that
Mulder's real mother?' she wondered.
Suddenly Scully sucked in a deep breath and pressed
her palms flat against the car door. 'What the hell am
I doing?' she thought frantically. 'I'm following people
I don't know at all with a partner who could be seriously
injured--'
'But what about what your gut is telling you? That
all that's wrong with Mulder is that he's getting his
memories back. That you know deep down that this really
is his family,' that little nagging voice popped up in
her head. Scully pushed the voice back down and went
on with her mental tirade.
'And I'm willingly, willingly following people I
don't know, don't trust because of a hunch. A pretty
damn extreme hunch.'
That little voice popped up once more. 'You do
trust them though, on an instinctual level. They're
Mulder's family, they would never do anything to hurt
you.'
She mentally kicked the voice for jumping ahead
and assuming that this was Mulder's real family,
although she wouldn't admit to herself that the
voice was probably right. A hand came down on her
shoulder. Scully turned to see Shannon's hazel eyes
('Mulder's eyes,' it occurred to her) staring down at
her. "We really should get him inside. It is getting
cold out here."
Scully looked at Mulder, stretched out across the
back of the Taurus, and then up to Shannon once more.
"Yeah. That's a good idea," she said, placing a trust
in unknown sources that this situation would not turn
out badly. "Should we carry him inside?"
Shannon looked over at Molly, who rapidly shook
her head. "Nah-uh. No way." She backed up a step
and tripped on a loose piece of gravel and stumbled,
the only thing preventing her from meeting the ground
was Alec's arm suddenly going around her waist.
"I guess we carry him then," Shannon said. She
moved over to the door by Mulder's feet and pulled
it open. Scully moved over to Mulder's head. She
saw his eyes moving rapidly under closed eyelids.
She gently ran a hand through his hair, and he seemed
to relax at her touch.
"So how do you want to do this?" Scully asked, at
a loss as to how to get Mulder out of the car without
hurting him.
"Uh..." Shannon stuttered, at a loss for an idea.
Finally, after a few minutes of gentle pushing and
pulling, Mulder's body was out of the car and being
carried by the five people to the house.
They got him through the door, and Scully found
herself in a short hallway. The hallway almost
immediately opened up to a large room with a dark,
wood-beamed ceiling and white walls. To the right
and left of her the walls were embedded with windows.
The ones on the right, the front side of the house,
looked out over Staten Island, and the one on the left
facing the back of the house looked out on a garden,
grass, and trees. Her eyes then flew to the couch
facing the back window, made up with pillows and
sheets and had the woman standing at the head of it.
"You can put him right here," the woman said. The five
moved over to it and gently laid him down.
The group began to disperse. Robynne began to walk
into another hallway opposite the one they entered by,
saying "I'm going to get some breakfast, Gramma." Alec
went over and turned on the TV and sat himself down on
the loveseat facing it, slouching down with an exhausted
sigh. Molly bent down and unzipped her backpack. She
pulled out the little bottle that had the sickly looking
color contained in it, shifting and swirling within its
glass confinement, and handed it to the woman Scully had
determined what Shannon's, and possibly Mulder's, Mama.
"Got it," Molly grinned at her, handing her the bottle.
Cat smiled and took the bottle from her. "Perfect,"
she whispered. She walked over to one of the front
windows and pushed it open. She placed the bottle on
the windowsill and uncorked it. The sickly color flowed
out of the bottle and dissolved into the air.
"What the hell is going on?" Scully suddenly broke
in. Shannon and Cat turned to her, with puzzled looks
on their faces. Scully continued. "I mean from their
unexplainable stunt in the woods," she waved a hand back
at Alec and Molly who were both slumped on the loveseat,
oblivious to the conversation that was taking place
because they were both on their way to falling asleep,
"to why I'm here following people I don't know just
because of Mulder and his uncanny resemblance!"
Cat walked over to the couch and sat down on
the floor next to it, near Mulder's feet, showing
surprising agility for her older age. She patted
the floor and looked at Scully. "Come on and
sit down."
Scully looked wary, the conflicting feelings being
reflected in her eyes. She wasn't sure she should, but
something inside her knew that this older woman was to
be trusted. Cat suddenly grinned at her. "You feel
it, don't you," she said. "That feeling inside of you
that says I'm not going to hurt you." Scully's mouth
slowly opened, wondering how this woman knew what she
felt. Cat nodded. "I know. I've felt that feeling
many times myself." She patted the floor in front
of her once more. "Come sit down and I'll tell
you my story."
Scully slowly sat down, crossing her legs. Cat's
accented voice began to take on a singsong quality as
she began to speak. "Alec called here before while you
were in the car and told me how you had called your
partner by his first name, Fox. I had a son named Fox,
who disappeared when he was almost four years old. I
remember the date, August 24, 1965."
'That was the date that Mulder first appeared on
Martha's Vineyard according to the police report,'
Scully thought.
Cat looked at Shannon. "Get the picture from
the mantle, please," she asked. Shannon nodded and
retrieved the picture, handing it to Cat. Then she
sat down a distance away from them in an easy chair.
"This is him," Cat said handing the picture over to
Scully. Scully took it gingerly.
The picture was a black and white picture of a
little boy, no more than three years old, sitting on
a big reclining chair, still dressed in his pajamas.
The little boy had dark hair that stuck up all
different angles, with a wide smile that had an
mischievous look to it, and there was a noticeable
birthmark on his right cheek. Scully reached into
her jacket pocket and brought her wallet out. She
pulled a picture out of it that Mulder had given to
her one day. It was taken when Mulder was about eight
years old, and was of him and a four year old Samantha
at the beach. Aside from the wet, slicked back hair
of the young Mulder, and the slight difference in age
between the boys in the picture, they could have been
identical.
She handed both pictures over to Cat. "That
picture is of Mulder, Fox, when he was eight years
old," and let her fill in the rest of the blanks.
Cat nodded. "The resemblance is incredible."
Scully shook her head and rubbed a hand across
her forehead. "This is..." she couldn't finish her
sentence.
Cat smiled sympathetically. "It's a lot to take
in." Suddenly both women were distracted by movement
on the couch next to them. Scully's head whipped around
to see Mulder's body moving restlessly on the couch.
And shortly after that, his eyes opened.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Mulder's mind whirled. His head was filled with
images both unknown and yet familiar at the same time.
A birthday cake with a three on it. Walking down a rocky
beach holding onto the hand of his father. Playing a
game of catch with an older boy who looked like him, his
older brother. A tall, dark haired woman with sparkling
blue eyes, Mama, singing him to sleep. The memories all
of a sudden broke through the haziness of his memory,
and he felt his body twist on the couch. He now knew
exactly who he was before he forgot, who he grew up to
be, and who he was now. His eyelids suddenly burst
apart and he found himself looking up at a dark,
wood-beamed ceiling.
Scully's face appeared above him. "Are you
okay?" she asked worriedly, her hand stroking the
side of his face.
"I...I remember everything," he said in a
breathy, whispery way. He sat up abruptly, staring
wildly around him. His eyes fixated on Cat, staring
into hers. "Mama," he whispered, and Cat smiled a wry
grin. Mulder let out a deep breath and slouched against
the back of the couch.
Scully sat up on her knees and touched his face
with her fingertips. "What's going on, Mulder?"
she asked.
"I remember everything," he said, staring her
in the eyes. "Who I was before I was with the
Mulders. It's all back in my head." His eyes
wandered around the room once more. "I've been
in this room before."
Cat's voice spoke up from behind Scully.
"Well if you are who I think you are you've spent
quite a lot of time here. You grew up in this house."
Mulder and Scully looked at her, and then back
at each other. "I think she's right," Mulder said.
"I think she's..." he couldn't finish the line, out
of fear or hope or maybe a combination of both.
Scully nodded. "I think you're right." Mulder
smiled slightly with surprise at her quick acceptance,
but he had figured something had happened while he was
taking a little trip into his memories. "But I think
we should do a blood test, just for confirmation."
She looked over at Cat.
"I've no objections to that. It's best to be
positive. Although I'm sure that Mulder here is my
dear, sweet long lost son," Cat smiled serenely.
"Sweet?" Scully said disbelievingly, and Mulder
pouted. "I can think of plenty of words to call you,
but sometimes sweet isn't one of them," Scully
grinned in a playful way.
"Oh believe me, he was no angel as a kid either,"
Cat spoke up, and Mulder and Scully sat back to listen
to her. "The amount of trouble this one got into had me
running around frantic a good part of the day."
Scully looked pointedly at Mulder, and he hung his
head, trying not to laugh at her expression. Cat's
description sounded decidedly Mulder-like. By this
time Mulder and Scully were sure that he was Catriona
Ramsay's son, even without the proof of a blood test.
And Cat knew it because of the bond that is shared
between all families.
Cat spoke up, voicing an observation she had come
to from watching the short interaction between the two
F.B.I. agents. "So you two are just partners, huh?" she
asked, her crooked grin signifying she thought
otherwise. Mulder and Scully both blushed and looked at
the floor.
"Is it that obvious?" Mulder asked.
"The way you were acting in here it is. Outside,
though, is probably a whole different story." Cat
winked at them. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone
who's not supposed to know."
Mulder straightened up, swinging his feet onto
the floor next to Scully. "I've got a question though.
What the hell was going on in that forest? I've seen
some-" here he glanced at Scully, "-pretty strange
things in my time and I've got to say that this was
one of the strangest."
Cat primly folded her hands in her lap. "In
short, a Cader-Ieran, a soul stealer, was coming
into the woods through a time slip, a sort of bridge
between times, and attacking those five kids because
he needed their souls for food," she said bluntly.
Scully gaped at her. "You expect us--" she
began to say out of habit, but then she realized
exactly what she saw in the forest that morning
and revised her question. "What about the Dragon?
I know I wasn't hallucinating this morning and I saw
Alec physically transform into a Dragon, a creature
of myth and legend."
Mulder's mind thought back to some of the dreams
he had, and some of the story began to come together.
"I had some dreams about this," he said. "About you
showing me, Shannon, and Colin a diagram of the family
tree in a cave and you telling us a story about there
being Dragon blood in the family. Seeing Shannon make
her hand get covered in scales, Dragon scales. And
you telling me that you were a Witch." Scully sat in
silent agreement, having heard what happened in his
dreams before.
Cat nodded. "Those things all happened, and
it's all true. The Ramsay family is one of the few
families in this world that are descended from
Dragons. No one knows the logistics of this, but
somehow, the blood running through the veins is part
Dragon. That includes you."
"But Dragons have never been proved to exist,"
Mulder said. "Most medieval accounts of Dragon
sightings have never been considered accurate."
"Some are. Some are of people using the Dragon
side of their heritage, whether it be for transportation
or like Alec was doing this morning, to defeat some evil
that needed to be defeated. Some are actual Dragons, not
people with Dragon blood. The appearance of an actual
Dragon is rare, they don't come out often because they
don't have the human blood in them, and can't blend in
with ordinary people. And some...some are just the
delusions of people looking for explanations of
ordinary things."
Scully looked up at Mulder, the fantastic tale
astounding her and making sense at the same time.
He sat, the wonderment obvious on his face. "What
about you being a Witch?" was Mulder's next question.
Cat shrugged. "I am. Not a Witch in the Disney
sense of the word, the evil witches whose sole purpose
is to be bad. And we're not like Wiccans either.
This kind of Witch is someone who is more in touch
with the world around them. Basically we can
communicate with nature. We can talk with everything
from trees to the ocean. When we cast spells we're
asking nature to help us. Sometimes nature will help
us without our even asking, a Witch just realizes
exactly what's going on where an ordinary person
wouldn't. Our powers are there from birth. You
can't predict which family a Witch is going to come
from. It's not like Dragons, where the blood is passed
down from generation to generation, they just appear.
There have been some theories saying that Witches
evolved as a balance for Dragons. Dragons are
notoriously hot-tempered, whereas a Witch is more
prone to think things through. When a mission is
undertaken, like this morning, a Dragon and a Witch
always work in a pair to form a balance."
"So how do I recognize a Witch?" Mulder asked.
Scully sat back, knowing that the questions more
applied to Mulder than herself. She was content
for the moment to sit back and soak this newfound
knowledge in.
Cat let out an exasperated breath. She was
surprised he didn't figure out who the other Witch
was yet. "It's instinctual," she shrugged. "Neither
a Dragon nor a Witch is ordinary, and they can each
sense that quality in the other. That and the fact
that Witches and Dragons are naturally drawn to each
other." Cat began to stare pointedly at Scully.
Scully caught the stare and shrunk back a little
uncharacteristically. "What are you looking at me
for?" she asked shakily. Mulder looked down at her
too, worrying about her sudden discomfort.
"Have you had any experiences recently that would
be considered out of the ordinary?" Cat asked calmly.
"You think I'm a Witch?" Scully gaped incredulously.
"I think it's highly possible," Cat said softly,
trying to calm the agitated Scully down. She knew,
though, just from looking at Scully that she was
indeed a Witch who had a connection with her son.
"Still, has anything that's out of the ordinary
happened to you very recently?"
Scully bit her lip, deep in thought. One
incident in a school bathroom came to mind. She felt
Mulder's hand stroke her shoulder. "What is it?" he
asked, close to her ear.
She closed her eyes and then slowly re-opened
them. "Yesterday, up at the school, I had confronted
Molly in the bathroom, and in her backpack, I saw one
of her books turn into another book. It was different
from the school textbook; it was leather bound, with
gilded pages."
Cat nodded. "Molly cast a glamour on the book,
an illusion to disguise the true nature of some
things from ordinary people. It's not so easy to
hide things from a fellow Witch."
Scully sat back against the front of the couch
and crossed her arms in front of her. Mulder slid
off the couch to sit next to her and wrapped an arm
around her shoulders. Cat reached over and rubbed
Scully's arm comfortingly. "Don't worry, you'll
get used to it. Most Witches realize their abilities
when they're very young. And the young accept these
things much more easily than adults do."
"I think I've got to get used to some things
myself," Mulder whispered in her ear, and Scully
let out a small smile and leaned her head against his.
"I've got a question," Scully said, still leaning
against Mulder. "What was that thing that Molly pulled
out of that creature? What she had in that bottle?"
"Those were the souls the Cader-Ieran had taken.
You can't destroy a soul, so they're imprisoned inside
the Cader until the Cader dies. At that time the
souls go back to their original bodies, if they're
still alive. If they're not, well, it's believed
they have a choice to go on either to the afterlife,
or to be reincarnated into another body. What Molly
did was move up that process a little bit. It sounds
a little brutal, but when she pulled the souls out of
the Cader, she effectively killed it. What I did was
release the souls so they could find their way back to
their respective bodies." Cat smiled at them.
"Any more questions?"
Mulder smiled an identical grin back at her.
"You know it."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
At that moment, the five kids who were comatose,
Jenna Dreiser, Adam Douglas, Michelle Sellers,
Peter Lanson, and Jason Ericson, came back to life,
their souls restored to their bodies.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
END PART TEN-'There are more things in heaven and earth
than are dreamt of in your philosophy'
(
geocities.com/rhiaramsay)