Title: Musings on the 27th of November
Written by: SpookyLady
Disclaimer: Fox Mulder, Bill Mulder, Mrs. Mulder, Samantha
Mulder, Dana Scully, Phoebe Green, and Diana Fowley are not mine,
they belong to Chris Carter, 1013, Fox Broadcasting, and possibly
to the actors who play them. I’m not getting any money for
this story, so don’t sue me. If you will, you just get my
X-Files FanFic notebooks, and I have a ton of them. So better
don’t.
Category: Story
Rating: G
Spoilers: minor references to "Fire", "The
Host", "Travelers", "The End" and
"The Beginning"
Summary: Mulder’s musings about his life, family and Scully.
Archive: Yes
Dedication: to Brendan, the person who introduced me to the
X-Files and disappeared from my life before I understood what he
meant to me.
Special thanks to: Cathy "Scully" N., the ultimate
Skinner fan, and Susan, my proofreader, who is the nicest person
in the world, Chris Carter, for inventing our favorite character,
and David Duchovny (the cute mole on his cheek when he smiles
says it all).
* * *
"Did he see it because he was disturbed or was he
disturbed because he saw it ?" Mulder, "Folie A
Deux".
"Nobody else on this damn planet trusts me or ever
will.....You are my one in five billion." Mulder, to Scully,
"Folie A Deux."
"Everything is fine, as long as it is not Spooky Fox,"
Mulder, to Ish when asked about what Indian name he would have,
"Shapes".
"Mulder ? He’s a jerk... well, he’s not a jerk,
he’s just obsessed with his work." Scully to her
friend, about Mulder, "The Jersey Devil".
* * *
Samantha disappeared twenty-five years ago, on 27th of November, 1973. And now is 27th of November, 1998. Tempus fugit. Die Zeit fliegt. Time flies.
The twenty-seventh of November was the dreaded day of the year when I sat at home and stared at the wall when the other kids were finishing their Thanksgiving turkeys. We gave up celebrating Thanksgiving after Samantha’s abduction, then we gave up Christmas and Easter and all other holidays. I never got any presents except money. My parents didn’t know much about me, so they just gave me money, leaving it to me to get what I want.
Every time when I think about that night, I start to feel odd. That night turned my life around, mixed up my plans and marked me forever. Something happened that night that left a deep trace in my soul and my memory. The strange thing is, I have an eidetic memory, and I can’t remember many things that happened before the 27th of November, 1973.
The first thing I remember after Samantha’s disappearance is that when my parents came home, I was still kind of frozen in the same position, one hand extended towards my dad’s gun, the other covering my eyes, which were fixed on the window. Mom broke down immediately, and Dad was furious.
"Where is Samantha ?" he demanded, looking at me
with rage."Where is she ?"
"She ... is ... gone... She... is ...gone..." I
mumbled, my own voice seeming to belong to someone else.
"What happened ?" he asked again, shaking me.
"The light..." was all I managed to say.
After Mom regained consciousness, she tried to talk to me. But all I could do was just cry. Dad carried me to my room, and sat there for some time, looking at me, but I could see that he was not thinking about me. He was a strange man, and I never understood him.
Next day my mother felt better, and she called me to her room. She was lying on the bed, looking really sick. I stared at her for some time, and then she began to cry. She tried to say something to me, but I couldn’t understand a word of what she was saying. I tried to read her lips, and suddenly I understood what she was saying: "You are my only child now, Fox."
From that moment I knew I’ll never be the same Fox Mulder again. My life was changed. My childhood was gone together with Samantha. I stood in the middle of my mother’s room, the world revolving much too fast for me. I closed my eyes, and let the floor slip away. When I woke up, I was no longer who I was before.
I soon became unpopular in school, and my all my friends were gone. I closed myself inside my little world, and threw away the key. In the yearbook they entitled me The Most Spooky Person. That’s where my nickname came from.
When my parents divorced, I used to hide in my room and cry. They never suspected it. I always got all money I needed. We were a wealthy family. But my parents never understood that all I wanted was to be loved. But they just gave me the money, which I gave to the other kids in my class. I didn't need money, I needed someone who would care about me. My parents divided the property, they even divided me. I had to spend six months with my Mom and six months with my Dad until I turned eighteen.
Why did they do this to me ? I ask myself today. After Samantha was gone, our family was not a family anymore. But after the divorce Dad, Mom and me became three strangers. Just Dad’s death reunited me and Mom. But the question about my father divided us again.
I went off to Oxford. There, I was the same Spooky Mulder, with good grades and paranoid behavior. Phoebe seemed to like me, and I liked her, but in the depths of my consciousness I always knew she did not care about me.
I could never really fall in love with anyone because women
were just laughing in my face when I told them my life story.
"Oh, Mulder, don’t tell me that crap," they always
said. "Tell me about your real life."
But what was my real life ? My life was a quest to find Samantha,
to see her again, to be with her. There was no place in my soul
for anyone else then her. People never understood that. They
still don’t.
I relive Samantha’s abduction every day. You may call me crazy or spooky, but I’m just like everyone else. If someone dies, you are sure that they are dead. But in my case I just always have to wonder: is Samantha dead ? is she alive ? does she remember me ? who abducted her ? All those questions are not answered, and I need to find the answers before I die. I need to see Samantha again, I want to have my sister back.
When I discovered the X-Files, everyone told me I was an idiot and total nitwit but I continued to search for the answers I felt I had a right to know. But I couldn’t find them, and everyone around laughed in my face. But I did not care what they thought of me. They had all they could have: family, life, everything they wished for. I was not like them, I was just ‘that Spooky kid’, just ‘the best analyst in the Violent Crimes Unit’, just the best in everything except life.
I thought that Diana understood me. She seemed so sincere and caring, and I, I thought that it was true, that I found the love of my life. I married her, and thought I would be happy. But I was wrong. After she got drunk one night and told me what she thought of me, I was shocked. When she got sober, she told me the same, even worse, and went away. We lived together for one month.
Then she came back, asking me to forgive her and take her back. I forgave her, but I couldn’t take her back. Not after the words she said, not after the pain they caused me. And I had my Scully, so Diana didn’t have anything to do in my life. When she pulled that gun on me I knew my relationship with her was ultimately over.
Like Eddie van Blundht said, I’m a loser by choice. If I would forget about Samantha and try to climb up the ladder I would have a very high position now. But given a choice to resist or serve I chose to resist.
At the time when I was in despair that I was going to fail, providence sent me Scully. She entered my little world, and established herself there the very first time I saw her. Now she is a permanent resident there, and she keeps changing it with each smile, each movement, and each word.
Scully filled the empty space in my life with something else then grieving. She is the only one whom I can trust, the only one who understands me, and my only friend. Scully will never betray me, like everyone else does. I can’t really explain my feelings for her. They couldn’t be expressed in words.
It’s the day after Thanksgiving, and I’m sitting at the table in the dining room, in the same house my life changed many years ago. For many years we held our own silent vigil, remembering the demise of our family. My mother’s chair stands empty on my right, and on my left and in front of me are another two empty chairs. Samantha’s been empty for a long time, Dad’s for three years, Mom’s just this time. I sit and wonder: will I seat at this table this time next year ?
* * *
Comments ? Questions ? E-mail me at beyond_the_sea@usa.net