ALL HALLOW'S EVE IV: MIRACLES (18/18)
By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger)

For Disclaimer see chapter 1

Chapter 18a: Mulder

     There is fluid in my mouth - gritty, disgusting-tasting stuff
and I am fighting those who are trying to get me to drink it.
Considering all the times I've been in the hospital, I should know
when to surrender gracefully. The problem is I'm too stubborn for
that and so, naturally, some makes its way into my windpipe. Let's
just say that for moment there I thought I was back in the birthing
pool. There is more than one pair of determined hands holding me
and doing their best to get me to swallow. I finally do - once -
but only to satisfy my tormenters. Finally, I'm allowed to thrust
the cup and the hands away.

     "Looks like he's finally decided to join us."

     I don't recognize the voice, I am too busy coughing the filthy
stuff out of my lungs, but then I haven't awakened in the best mood
for serious concentration. The stuff is foul enough to wake the
dead.

     The voice, a woman's voice, speaks again though she's not
speaking to me. "Can you tell which one we have?"

     "Mine," replies a second speaker jealously. This is a voice
that I know well. "Do you mind if I sit there? If he hauls out and
hits someone, I'd rather it be me. I have no qualms about hitting
him back."

     The first speaker had been sitting on a stool beside me all
this time. I sense her exchange places with the other.

     "Are you absolutely certain he's spoken for?" inquires the
first woman to the second as they side by each other in the tight
space. Something must pass between them, woman to woman, because
very soon the first one sighs, "Story of my life."

     Though I hear the words, all of this is making very little
sense. I've been too busy trying to tell 'up' from 'down' to catch
it all.

     When my world finally rights what I see first is a tall woman
in a long red dress. Tannis. I remember her name with some
difficulty both because it seems like such a long time since I last
saw her and because beside her is a triangle of incredible
brightness. Light. Blinding sun. It's either sunrise or sunset - I
have no idea which and at the moment I don't care. It's daylight,
and nothing else is quite like that.

     The important point to note is - I can see.

     Eagerly, I turn from Tannis to Scully who, of course, was the
second speaker. Scully. Her belovedly familiar and slightly bemused
face is half lit in the golden light. I study her face for longer
than I usually allow myself that pleasure and she doesn't find an
excuse to turn away. Maybe she's as relieved to see herself
reflected in my eyes as I am to have her image there. Have we
changed? We should have. It seems like years since I last saw her.
Then again, like coming home after a long trip, it also seems like
only yesterday.

     We don't speak, it's not really necessary. Instead, I turn
back to Tannis who has not missed our silent communication. She
seems to find it amusing. How dare she? I challenge her with a
narrowed stare down the length of my nose just as a large, sleek
gray cat leaps onto the witch's shoulder. The young woman must
adjust her balance slightly to accommodate the weight of the cat.
I notice that under her arm she carries a lidded basket which seems
to have been newly woven from the reeds and grasses of the field.

     So long ago... Wickens, potions, a circle of white stone, a
demon in fire, an animal cry of anger, a human cry of loss - and
then all hell breaking loose.

     "I'm sorry about your - " Cat was definitely not the right
word here "- friend."

     Tannis smiled, warmly this time. "It speaks - and in complete
sentences even. I was beginning to wonder whether we'd need to
bring in Teven to perform an exorcism. Many thanks for your
concern, Agent Mulder," she looked down at the basket, "but I can't
think of a more noble way for Charlotte to make her exit. It's how
she wanted to go - in battle with the rings of magic flying about
her. Slipping away quietly in the sunlight was not her style. And
her worth isn't over yet. We're going off to the meeting now. I'll
present your case before the coven. They'll all be a bit hung over,
but when I tell them about last night's fireworks I'll get their
attention and the support I need. It's a sin to kill a Shineeka and
another for tampering with the fabric of the world the way your
fiend has done. They'll deal with him. There will be no more
trouble here, not this year, not next year, not ever. I sorry to
say, however, that what is done is done. That other world exists.
Your other selves. We can't rollback time for them."

     "None of us would want you to," Scully assured her. "They have
their own lives. They've survived through the hard parts - at least
I certainly hope these past years have been the hard ones. Now they
deserve their peace."

     Inclining her head in agreement with the sentiment, Tannis
turned to push aside the edge of the tent flap. My groggy mind had
finally deduced that we were in a fairly large cabin tent. As she
leaves, the triangle of liquid gold widens, dazzling our eyes
briefly before the flap falls back into place. It must be sunrise.
The air has that crispness about it.

     Even with the door closed, the canvas still allows plenty of
light to filter though. In that diffused brilliance I study Scully
again. Her expression hasn't changed significantly but I'm more
aware this time of how deeply the worry lines stand out on her
classically beautiful face. As usual, those lines are largely my
fault.

     "Where were you?" she asked in all seriousness. "You left
first and I've been back for hours."

     Taking a spin around the Universe? "Thinking," was what I
said, "hard as that might be to believe."

     "I hope you didn't strain yourself." She is perturbed, a least
a little. I HAD worried her.

     I've been lying on my back. Now I swing my legs around and
sit. What I want to do is pace but even if there had been room the
ground is spinning slowly. I still feel the pull of being somewhere
else, but this time just a place I visited for two hours in my
sleep.

     "Scully, have you ever had a dream that is so intense, so
vivid, that if you concentrate, if you really, really concentrate
you can stay with the story line long after the time when most
dreams would be history? That over time you can consciously affect
what happens and you are so intent in the dream that you wake up
hours later than you normally would?"

     "Occasionally," she replied, keeping her staightman cool. "I
just never thought your dreams were ever much worth sticking around
for."

     "This one was."

     Her eyes brows lifted slightly. She was willing to play this
out to see where I was going. "What was it about?"

     "The future - and the past. The fact that despite everything
there are parts of their lives - Joseph and Sara's - which I almost
envy. The fact that I don't think we're going to see them again."
I stretched. "But maybe that's just as well. It's about time that
we got on our lives and let them get on with theirs."

     Scully smiled. One of her good ones. "Amazing, for once we
agree. It's well past time to cut the cord. I'm satisfied, however,
that we were able to help." Then she is quiet and I see from her
face that she is thinking about all that happened. "Mulder, does it
bother you, what Joseph did? Giving up I mean."

     I was wondering if she was going to bring that up. When he and
I passed each other, I felt his despair and it was so - familiar -
because I have felt it in myself. A shudder passed through me now
like a ghost of that passing. "He wasn't a coward. He had every
right to be afraid. He had been given more to endure than anyone
should be asked to. Would I have responded the same way if I
thought you had died and there was no hope? Obviously I did because
Joseph did and Joseph is me."

     There in the golden light under the canvas roof Scully's eyes
widened perceptively. I'd surprised her and that takes some doing.
She had expected me to skirt all subjects having anything to do
with a personal relationships between us - past, present or future
- in this or any other universe. On our late night walk last
Christmas Eve, I'd tried my best to explain that I saw the world as
a big scary place and I wasn't talking only about ghosts and
mutants, little gray men and government conspiracies. I was also
talking about men and women alone together. This is especially true
for me considering the role models I've had in my life.

     I hope all of this explains why, at that moment, it took just
about every fiber of courage I possessed to pat the cot beside me
and slide down to give her room. With a quite beautiful but
tentative smile she accepted my invitation and moved over to join
me. She is no longer as cool as she was. I detect a tremble here
and there. It's a relief not to be the only one. Maybe we should
try matching harmonics? It could also be just pre-caffeine jitters.
We both mainline coffee in the mornings. What a disappointing
thought if that's all this is. Then again, it was November and a
cold frosty morning. Ever the chivalrous one, I picked up a blanket
and put it around her. On second thought, I inched a little closer
and put it around us both. It was instantly as warm as either of us
could have wished and then some. When I looked into her startled
but very friendly eyes, I knew that for once in my life I had done
something right.

     Now what?

     As usual, Scully came to my rescue. "Do you think they'll be
safe now?"

     Good, a nice neutral topic.

     "The Consortia had a huge set back - it will take them a while
to pick up the pieces. Joseph and Sara will never be completely
safe but I think they'll be left alone for a while."

     "Long enough to raise TWO children?" Scully asked with that
smile she reserves for domestic stuff like kids.

     Even while he scared me to death I had found Adam amazing, his
very existence a humbling concept. "Considering what over-achievers
they both are and that they have a huge extended family to help,
probably more than two." Though only her eyes changed, Scully must
have found something about my observation amusing. "What's so
funny?" I asked.

     "Not funny, just incongruous to think of you living in a place
like that. Such a warm family atmosphere. Like a village or a
commune. It must have taken you some time."

     "To do what?"

     "It must have taken you some time to get used to having so
many people around who cared."

     As a matter of fact, it did.

     She must have read my mind and moved on quickly. Scully knows
where the quicksand is. "It wasn't really such a bad place for a
safe house."

     "No it wasn't. Very - home-like."

     I caught the rise of one eyebrow. She remembered our
discussion from last Christmas just as I did. One of the issues
that kept us apart was how very unsettled and un-home-like our
lives were - our jobs, the stress, the travel, the erratic hours,
the danger.

     "There are all kinds of homes, Mulder. Personally, I think for
all its coziness Sara must spend a fair amount of her time pulling
Joseph down off the walls."  That drew a smile from me which
encouraged her to go on. She placed her hand so lightly on my chest
and for such a short time that I barely felt it. "Home can be
inside, too, as the old saying goes."

     Home is where the heart is, she means, but she knew better
than to use certain five-letter words like 'heart' any more than to
use certain previously mentioned four-letter words. Not only is it
a disconcerting to have someone know me so well, but that touch was
very much a surprise. Involuntarily, I stiffened. Immediately, I
realized that she had read my response as a rebuff because she
clutched her edge of the blanket a little more tightly around her
left shoulder, effectively increasing the distance between us. For
once, however, she'd read me wrong.

     Don't go...

     But as much as I wanted to keep her close I was all too aware
that I had only to turn my head and there she'd be, our faces
within inches. That would be too close, too soon. In the end I
compromised. I turned half way.

     "Do you remember what we talked about last Christmas?" I asked
hesitantly and then wished I hadn't. It was suddenly far too warm
under the blanket.

     She responded so quickly that clearly it had been on her mind
as well. "We discussed a lot of things," she said softly.

     "True. I remember I said that I needed time to get Joseph's
life out of my system."

     I think I actually saw her expression fall. "Are you trying to
tell me that you have to start all over again?"

     It hurt her to think so. She cared. Unexpectedly, that made a
warmth begin to kindle down low which was purely hormonal.
"Actually, no. It may have been Joseph's life but it was my
thoughts, my actions, my decisions. And I definitely had time to
think. What I want to tell you is that all those months, what I
missed most was not sight or hearing or even the full use of my
body. When Skinner finally pounded into my head how to communicate,
you were the only one I really wanted to talk to."

     Those lips of hers had protruded a little, nearly quivering.
A small sign but one that spoke volumes to me. "I'm sorry it took
so long for me to reach you." The way she said it, it sounded like
a confession.

     "There's no need for apologies, not between us."

     "Not true," she corrected. "Between us there has to be time.
Our lives depend on it. Despite what you may think, I don't always
know the way your mind works." I thought that statement came out
with more than a little sadness. We sat in silence a little longer,
like statues barely touching. As though she thought the
conversation over, she inched away a little as if preparing to
leave the warmth and me. I felt a little surge of panic. I could
feel the situation slipping out of my hands.

     "Speaking of minds," she went on, "you've been under a lot of
stress lately. We have the tent until noon. You should rest." She
gave my hand a sisterly pat. "Rest. And you'd better get used to
not being blind and deaf and crippled any more because Skinner will
run us ragged tomorrow."

     I caught myself frowning. She had struck a nerve. More than
one in fact. The edges of my mood turned dark. "Scully, don't go.
Not just yet. I need you to be honest with me. You know me better
than anyone. You know that I don't perceive the world the way
'normal' people do. If that's not being half blind and half deaf,
I don't know what is. And crippled? Emotionally, psychologically...
I'm a mess."

     "Mulder," she began, then stopped. I felt my jaw tighten as I
ground my teeth. I shouldn't have spoken. I'd said far too much.
But her eyes were still on me and they were soft. Deliberately, she
leaned towards me to brush that unmanageable lock of hair from my
eyes. Normally I don't mind when she does that. Like my hand on the
small of her back, it's one of the few physical gestures of
affection we've allowed ourselves over the years, but today I don't
want her mothering or her sistering. Today I'm afraid that we'll
never go beyond that and I know that if that happens it will be all
my fault.

     Something in my face must have betrayed me because she
withdrew and I nervously pushed that hair back on my own. There's
pain in her expression. "Mulder, I don't like to hear you tear
yourself down so. You are so much better than you think you are."

     The air feels heavy in my chest as if it doesn't want to move.
If I say nothing else here, she'll rise, pat me on the shoulder and
allow me to get some rest - alone.

     And we'd go on - like always.

     But not this time. I don't want to be alone. I don't ever want
to be alone again.

     So tell her, you idiot!

     Instead I panic and for the strangest reason - I can't find
the words. I was so eloquent last Christmas, reciting all the
reasons why we cannot, as Scully puts it, 'be together'.

     Now when being together is all I want...

     Somehow I stammer. "I know you believe in miracles, Scully. I
guess I do now, too. Would it be greedy to wish for one more?"

     I sense her relaxing back into the cot. She had been preparing
to leave but I realize happily that she hadn't really wanted to.
"Depends on what the wish is. Hopefully, this time it won't require
either divine or supernatural intervention."

     I turn all the way towards her. As I expected, this is close.
So close that her blue eyes widen in not only surprise but also -
interest. "This time," I tell her, "only human intervention."

      And that is when I did it. I very intentionally kissed Dana
Scully.  Dana Scully - friend and defender, my strength and my
anchor. After all these years I kissed her on the lips for the very
first time. I won't say that at the same time I didn't also have
very intense memories of Joseph and Sara kissing and doing far more
than kissing, but this was the first kiss for us and so - special.
As first kisses go it was soft, unhurried and not intended to set
off any fireworks. I didn't want to scare her away. I've been told
that I can be a very scary person.

     And best of all, I realized - kissing didn't require any words
at all.

     Dana sat very still afterwards, obviously trying to think of
a snappy comeback. She found one.

     "That's it?" she asked, her voice a strangled whisper.

     "That and what comes after," I hinted in a miserable attempt
at being romantically roguish.

     Now the whites showed all around those blue eyes. With an
effort she cleared her throat. "THAT's what you've been thinking
about for the last two hours and forty-five minutes while I sat
here worrying that you'd gotten lost - who knows where - on your
way back from Neverland."

     Lamely, I answered, "I guess so."

     Now I remember why I don't date much any more. Rejection makes
me feel like a mongrel who's just been whipped for tracking mud
into the front parlor. Before I could slink away too deeply into
that metaphor two slim, soft fingers raised my fallen chin so that
I was forced to meet her eyes. They were shining. These were not
the eyes of a woman who'd just been insulted. My heart started
beating again.

     "So where's the miracle fit into this?" she asked with - I
could have sworn - mischief in her voice.

     "That you wouldn't slug me for suggesting such a thing. I know
I said last Christmas that I needed to wait until I got my life
together. I know things still aren't together, but waiting until
I'm fifty or sixty or dead has rather lost its appeal."

     She hadn't moved before. She was the one who moved closer now
and planted a kiss that put the Fourth of July to shame. An
astounding time later I got my breath back.

     "I guess you're not angry."

     "Only that it took you so damn long, Fox Mulder. If you'd
chickened out one more time, I think I would have had to shoot you
again." Then her hand raised and she brushed the hair back from my
forehead and this time there was nothing in the fashion of a mother
or a sister in the way she did it. Now I know what free fall feels
like.

     "As you may remember, we have this tent until noon," she
purred. "Why don't you demonstrate to me the 'what comes after
part'."

                         * * * * * * * *

Chapter 18b: Joseph (Epilogue)

     And they lived happily ever after. The End....

     At least that's what I'd like to write but Sara says that
after slaving away at this thing for six months that I should end
it right.

     "People are going to have questions," she says, "about how we
all turned out."

     "No, they won't," I replied. We are the only ones who think
this is important. Walt and Helen have read drafts and they smile
and think it's a very imaginative little piece, but Science
Fiction/Fantasy was never their preferred genre. They see it at its
worst as a twisted bit of dark fiction which Helen would love to
turn over to a proper psychoanalyst. At its best they consider it
the product of a mind that finds life here boring after the years
of the X-Files and the seven years since which, until recently,
have been marked by so many crises.

     Sara and I, however, we know better. We know it's all true.

     Being not only true but truly dangerous to the stability of
our lives here and perhaps to our very world, I never intended that
the story should be recorded but Sara decided that I should either
'write the damn thing down or quit spewing angst' about how I
should.

     Sara has such a colorful way with words. If plotted, I predict
that the disintegration of her vocabulary would be found to be
directly proportional to the number of years she's been married to
me.

     In order to maintain harmony on the home front I've written
it, or rather I should say, I've compiled it. Sara agrees that it's
only fair that that task should fall to me since I'm the only one
whose voice was never really heard during the most recent crisis.

     I admit that I did miss a lot but to tell you the truth I
really was just as glad to let Mulder take the hits for a while.
What it also means is that I had to depend heavily on Mulder and
Dana and Tannis and Sara to providing all the exciting parts and
for that I thank them.

     While I'm musing about what to say next, Sara comes to drape
herself over the back of my chair. She wants to see how I'm doing
now that I finally have a chance to add my own voice to the saga.
I remind her that it was my voice in the journal at the end of Book
II. And the dramatic Christmas Eve escape? Most of that was mine.
Grudgingly, she grants me that this is all true but it's been a
while since then and what have I done for her lately?

     She gets a swat on her lovely bottom for that which sends her
out of the room laughing. At least now I can get some work done.

     Correction, now I can try to get some work done.

     Inspiration doesn't exactly hit when you need it. All right
we'll go with the tried and true method and bring everyone up to
date for starters.

     Eighteen months have passed - my time - since the destruction
of the Compound. Sara and I have two children now and a third on
the way. Our second we call Tara. We couldn't use 'Dana' but got as
close as we dared. Tara is twelve months old now, a non-stop
talker, a terror on two legs, and an expert on wrapping every male
in the Center around her little finger. In other words, perfectly
normal in every way.

     My vision has improved, thank you for asking. The improvement
took its own sweet time, but since the lens replacement I see at
least as well as I ever did. In fact, unless I'm very tired I don't
even need my reading glasses any more. Sara misses them so much
that she had the lenses in my wire rims replaced with glass for my
last birthday.

     It must be a female thing. For some reason they turn her on.
Whatever the reason, let's just say that I'm wearing them now which
means that she leered at me on her way from the bedroom to the
kitchen.

     I guess this summation had better be short.

     Where was I? Sara's leers distract me? No, before that... Ah,
yes, changes over the last year and a half.

     What was briefly hinted at the end of the previous narrative
has proven to be true - the alien proteins do continue to evolve
their host even after we are removed from the tank. Kenneth is also
affected so at least I'm not alone is this. Kenneth and me and ....
there's another but I'll get to that.

     The changes are gradual outside of the hibernation-type
environment of the tanks but measurable if you know where to look.
Only the Center's inner core is kept informed - Sara, of course,
Skinner, Helen, Louis, Kenneth and Ellie. What is the affect? I'm
still trying to figure that out but being able to 'touch' Mulder's
life at will is certainly part of it. It's an odd kind of
telepathy. Where do you think I got Mulder's part of the story
from? Do you think he would have just told me? So much of it was so
personal and, as you might imagine, so close to home that the
process of putting his soul down on paper was almost physically
painful.

     Tannis's part came through Ellie from Eli. (Eli tells us, by
the way, that Tannis has found a passionate six foot six wicken
master to connugle with and is very content these days.)

     Ellie, as you must have gathered by now, is a fixture here at
the Center. She's in charge of the parapsychology department. Once
Scully 'departed' she set her sights on poor lost Ken who was quite
happy to be found. In fact I don't think either Ken or Ellie were
seen except for meals for several days after our return to the
Center. Not that I know that from personal experience - Sara and I
weren't much in evidence either.

     Dana's part of the story came not from Ellie - since Ellie
considers anything that happened during her co-habitation with Dana
confidential - but from Sara who knows all. Note that it took quite
a few months of digging to separate out all the time lines and for
me to supply the missing bits that Dana wasn't around for. It was
a wrenchingly stressful time but also very rewarding. Both of us
had holes to fill. We are certainly closer for it. For a while
there we had a game of Twenty-Questions going like no one has ever
had. When the tension got to be just too much, we just fell back
upon non-verbal communication. I'd be willing to bet that for a few
weeks there we must have set some kind of record for the percentage
of time spent engaged in non-verbal communication.

     (Sara has drifted back in. The vixen is waving a corned beef
sandwich under my nose as she reads over my shoulder - being
pregnant always increases Sara's appetite about three hundred
percent. I think she is trying to hurry me up. She almost gags when
she gets to the 'non-verbal communication' part which leads her to
suggest that I write a marriage enrichment book after this. I just
told her that I hope I don't have to get paid by the word because
there is just so many ways you can say F*ck. In payment for that I
just got whacked over the head with her latest medical journal.)

     Of the two significant clouds that still hang over my head,
one is not really a cloud, at least Sara doesn't see it that way.
Somehow during all this intimate time we've spent together over the
past five years, Sara has became exposed to me and all my 'foreign'
antigens. 'Exposed' is her term. She equates it to a vaccination.
I've learned - under pain of a night's banishment from the
connubial bedroom - not to call it 'infected'. What it comes down
to is that she is changing, too, and in her own way. She is
actually pleased about this because it means that my uniqueness
will be less likely to pull us apart this way. For all Sara's
sophistication, she had a very real fear that, like some tragic
hero in a B-grade Sci Fi flick from the sixties, I would somehow
grow beyond her. That I would develop into some kind of
intellectual giant and come to look down upon mere humans as only
so many ants. What she's found, as I have, is that nothing could be
further from the truth. We grow but 'out' rather than 'up' and in
what we see and feel we have grown rather closer to the earth and
to life than above it. Sometimes we take the children and lie all
day in the woods listening to life like some New Age hippies and
never speak a word, a least not in a language anyone but the wind
would understand.

     How this is going to affect the children or whether it already
has, we don't know. Adam is a deep, serious boy with a frightening
IQ. I was that way as a child. What goes around, comes around, I
guess. With Tara it's too early to tell except that her vocabulary
seems pretty extraordinary for a child her age. Our third had
already been conceived by the time we knew for certain about Sara's
'exposure'. When she 'got it' is unknown but more than one
physician believes that the first molecules were transferred almost
immediately and that its affects have only become strong enough to
be measurable now.

     So much for safe sex. Actually, my personal belief is that the
mode of transmission was the buckets of tears I cried on her
shoulder over the years.

     As far as the children are concerned, time will tell, but then
life has always been a chase after the unknown. Except for our
concern for the children, our current situation is no different,
Sara tells me, and as a bonus we don't have to spend a third of our
time living out of a suitcase.

     Ah, I tell her, but if we were still with the X-Files and
traveled as we used to, we would be cutting our motel bills in
half.

     But, she reminds me, we would be getting only about half of
our customary amount of work done in a day so our cases would take
twice as long.

     True.

     In the narrative a great deal of angst was made of my 'giving
up' when I was told that Sara had died. I won't try to weasel out
of that one. I was fucking depressed. (There I said it. In this
case it's a swear word and has no sexual connotation so I can spell
it out and we don't have to give this an 'PG17' rating, or at least
that's what I'm told.) My depression, however, was caused by more
than the loss of Sara and my guilt and even more than by my abysmal
physical condition. It was when I emerged from the tanks for the
second time that I began to receive 'emanations' from Mulder in
'Life Prime'. Not a lot of information, just flashes, and certainly
not enough to make sense, but enough to lead me to believe that
either I had really gone over the edge this time or I was a pawn in
the most devilish power trip in history - or both.

     This is the second significant cloud in my life only this one
has no silver lining. It's huge and black and erupts far too often.
When it happens to me, Sara just leaves me alone or holds me as I
sob out my self-pity and fury at the unfairness of my life - of all
our lives here.

     I don't like being used. I have never liked it. Even as Mulder
I never did and my capacity for putting up with that sort of sh*t
is considerably less than it used to be.

     (Sara has swatted me again, this time for my language. All
right, I apologize. I'll put in the asterisks. I just think I
should be allowed to lay it on the line for once. She understands
and is trying to distract my anger by nibbling on the back of my
neck on the sensitive spot just above the big scar from my first
trip to the tanks. It's unfair - she knows that drives me to lust.
But then maybe it's not unfair at all. She has her own vocabulary
when it comes to this non-verbal communication thing and she is
trying to remind me of what we DO have.

     What we have is something special and wonderful and something
which Dana and Mulder were just getting around to experimenting
with the last time I peeked in.

     What this is all coming down to is that, angry as I am at how
I've been jerked around, and as much as I abhor at times being my
own personal X-File, I am not Fox Mulder any longer. I am - me. I
have my own fears and my own nightmares which are neither very much
fun. I live my life in protective custody, which is not what I
would have chosen, but I do have my linguistics work which is
fascinating and important and which puts me closer to the truth
than I ever thought I would come. Someday the alien group Sam is
with will come back and then I suspect the fur will fly. In the
meantime, I'm respected, I have a home, I even have - gasp -
friends. I have a real family now. A family of blood and ties
closer than blood. I have children and so I hold the future in my
arms - and I have Sara.

     I would not trade any of these for Fox Mulder's current hell.
I just hope that he'll have gained as much as I have once he comes
to the end of his own quest.

The End

I hope you enjoyed this series. No more parts are planned but who
knows. 'No one - and nothing - ever dies on the X-Files.' I love e-
mail so please write and I encourage you to e-mail the authors of
all works you enjoy. Thanks for reading.