This is a fiction story based on the characters created by Chris Carter. No infringement of copyrights held by 10/13 Productions, Twentieth Century Productions, or Fox Broadcasting is intended. All unrecognised characters and plot-lines belong to me. Names, characters, and places exist solely within my imagination, or are used fictitiously. No connection to any person, living or dead, is intended, and any resemblance is entirely coincidental. Feel free to distribute, but please keep me as the author. Danielle Culverson. This is for Bryony, a good friend, and hope-to-be house-mate. - Although you may regret it next year. Good luck in the exams. Amnesia The town of Kimmington, Kansas, was slowly stirring into wakefulness. So far, each house remained a sealed unit, and no-one moved in the streets except Lloyd, the aging milkman, with his truck, and Tommy, the paper-boy, who sailed quietly up the empty streets between the waking houses on his bicycle, making no sound but for the whir of the wheels, and the thud of the morning papers he tossed onto the doorsteps. Terry Halloway kissed her husband goodbye as he left for work, and then he departed into the empty street. The sound of his car engine drifted back into the house, and then faded away. Terry returned to the kitchen, calling up the stairs to her seven year old daughter on the way. "Jess! Are you up yet? Your breakfast's nearly ready." She continued on without waiting for an answer, and rescued the toast from the grill before it burned, replacing it with three rashers of bacon. The kettle whistled behind her, but Terry was so used to her morning routine that she was almost already turning to it. She made herself a cup of hot strong coffee, and got some orange juice from the fridge in the corner of the bright tiled kitchen for Jessica. Placing the drinks on the table, she poured out cereal, read the front page of the newspaper which she had collected from the doorstep when her husband left, and then dished up the bacon. Putting the two plates on the table, she realised that she still hadn't heard Jessica moving around upstairs. She returned to the foot of the stairs. "Jess! Are you up yet? Jessica?" There was no answer. Terry frowned in puzzlement, and went upstairs. "Jess, are you okay? Your breakfast's on the table. You don't want me to give it to the cat, do you?" Terry opened the door to her daughter's bedroom. Jessica was sitting up in bed, her knees pulled up to her chin. She shrank back away from her mother as Terry entered the room. Her face wore an expression of confusion and fear. "Who are you?" she asked, in a small, frightened voice. Terry opened her mouth to tell her daughter off for playing games, when she realised that Jessica really didn't know. "Jessica, are you okay?" she asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Is that who I am?" the young girl asked, "Jessica? I don't remember. I don't know where I am, or who you are, and I'm scared." She started to cry. Terry put her arms around her, and tried to comfort her. "Er.... Yes, you're Jessica. And I'm your Mummy. This is your home. I'll look after you. You don't need to be afraid." Jessica looked up into her mother's eyes, and it was clear she believed, but she did not remember. * * * A man in a grey suit walked through the J. Edgar Hoover building. He walked quickly and determinedly, but his mind was somewhere other than on where he was going. He avoided obstacles without seeming to register them first. He attracted the attention of many of his so-called colleagues as he passed by them, and conversations stopped and started abruptly around him. He didn't notice, and when he arrived at the elevator, the doors opened and the elevator was empty, as if it had been waiting for him to arrive. He stepped inside, and the doors closed between him and the staring eyes that had followed him. Fox Mulder stepped out of the elevator in the basement of the building. He made his way to his office, - a stuffy, warm room which no-one else wanted, but suited him and his needs just fine, - his pace quickening as though he felt something in the air. He shut the door behind him as he entered the office, and took off his jacket. There was a pile of case files on his already over-laden desk. He sat down, waited a moment while he put his mind into the right gear, soaking in the atmosphere in his "spooky" office, breathing it in, and then sat up and started work on the first of the cases which he had been passed. It was his special ability to find connections and leads where others had failed. Possibly this was the only reason he was still working for the FBI. Possibly it was more to do with his secret friends. Alone, he would be willing to bet that he wouldn't last the morning. Mulder's eyes skipped over the file, and he read short patches here and there, seemingly randomly. He took more notice of the photos, scrutinizing each one for clues. After a few minutes reading, and a few minutes thought, his eyes lit up as he came to a conclusion. The answers popped into his head from nowhere, and often other agents couldn't even see the answers he found for their cases after he had shown the evidence to them. His ability to seemingly leap beyond logic at moments led to his disliked nickname, "spooky" Mulder. Mulder picked up a pen from the desk, his fingers finding it blindly as he kept his eyes on the file. He marked a paragraph, and a few sentences further on in the report. He scribbled a few words in the margin, and tossed the file into the "Out" pile. One down. He picked up a second folder, and opened it. There was a knock on the door, and then the door opened. Mulder raised his head to see who was entering, his eyes filled with anticipation. * * * Lucietta Pearson awoke with the feeling that she had slept longer than she should have, but when she thought about this, she realised that she didn't know what time she should have woken up. Her cream and white bedroom was lit up by the morning sunlight coming through the thin curtains. She sat up, and looked about her in dismay. Where was she? She was sitting in a double bed. A photograph of an old man, probably in his early eighties stood on the nightstand beside the bed, with an empty mug. The other side of the bed was empty. There was nothing on the other nightstand. The room was strange to her, but she couldn't remember what was familiar. She got up carefully, and went over to a mirror to see her reflection. The face that looked back at her was that of a seventy-nine year old widow, - white curly hair, wrinkled skin, and haunted sunken eyes. She went over to the wardrobe, and opened it. One side was empty, the other contained ladies clothes. She took out an outfit, and dressed, and then went out of the bedroom, across the ground floor of the bungalow where she had lived for fifteen years, but didn't remember, and out into the street. "Good morning, Mrs Pearson." a passing man greeted her with a nod of his head, "You're out late today. You'll miss the ladies league meeting. You'd better hurry." "Ladies league meeting?" Lucietta asked, confused, "I.. er... I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know who you are. Come to that, I don't think I know who I am." "You don't?" the man seemed surprised, "Mrs Pearson... That's you, by the way, your name is Lucietta Pearson. I'm your doctor, Dr. Stokes. I think maybe you should come with me, and I'll check you over. You see there have been quite a few people recently suffering from memory loss. You may need some treatment to get your memory back." Dr. Stokes led the uncertain Lucietta along the street. She looked at him suspiciously. "How do I know you're a doctor?" she asked. "Erm... Quite right. You're quite right to ask. I have my card here... somewhere." He fished in his pockets, and found the card, which was tattered, but readable. "There you are. Oh, there's Mr Evans, he'll confirm my identity for you if you're still unsure." The doctor approached a man further up the street, who was doing something with the engine of his car. "Mr Evans, Mrs Pearson's having a bit of memory trouble. could you tell her who I am?" "What? Why, this is Dr. Stokes, Mrs Pearson. Surely you remember. I'm Phil Evans, from the garage." Dr. Stokes thanked Phil for his help, and led Lucietta, who was looking decidedly less worried, on up the street. * * * "Good morning, Mulder." Dana Scully greeted her partner as she entered the office they shared. The navy blue skirt and jacket she wore set off the colour of her eyes and hair, and she held a blue case file in one hand. Glancing at Mulder's desk, she saw that he had only completed one case so far that morning, and was still on the second one. There was a small patch on the desk where the jumble of papers had moved apart enough for the wooden surface of the desk to show through. She leaned over the desk, staring at it in mock dismay. "Why Mulder, I've never seen the top of your desk since the day we were moved into this office." she exclaimed. "Well... er... I am planning on tidying up sometime." Mulder muttered, poring over the case file he was working on. "In your dreams." Scully replied, and sat down at her desk, - the tidy one. - She looked at her partner in puzzlement, wondering why he had displayed no reaction to the blue case file she had in her hands. Her eyebrows rose, and she got to her feet to put the back of her hand against Mulder's forehead. "What?" he asked. "Mulder, you're reading that file!" she exclaimed, "Are you ill?" "No, it's just complicated." "Complicated?" Scully echoed, and she looked down at the file in her other hand. "Don't you want to know what I just got from Skinner?" "What? A new case?" Mulder looked up from his work, and held out his hand for the file. Scully passed it to him. "People have been turning up with memory loss in a town called Kimmington, in Kansas." she explained, "The police have started to investigate, and the Bureau was asked to take a look. Skinner thinks it might be an X-file, so he passed it on to us." "Right." Mulder read through the start of the file. "I've booked us onto a flight, but we can't go until tomorrow. We're leaving at 6.30am for Wichita, and I've arranged for a car to be waiting for us." "Okay. Nothing to do on this until tomorrow, then?" "No, I'm afraid not." Scully replied. "Right, I'll carry on with this then." Mulder indicated the file he had been working on when his partner arrived. Scully frowned as Mulder picked up the file. "Mulder, is something wrong?" "No, why?" "You seem, well, a bit quiet this morning. Is something bothering you?" "No, I'm fine. Really." Mulder picked up the file he had been working on, and continued reading it. Scully stared at him for a moment, and then continued with her own work. * * * "I don't know what this town is coming to." Rick Landetti told his top officer and old school-friend, Angus Forrell. "This morning there were 16 more cases. That makes 29 reported cases of memory loss in the last four days. I've had to call in the FBI to deal with it. The hospital is over-run with amnesiacs. What in the world can be causing this?" Landetti paced up and down his small office as he spoke. Angus stood silently, watching his friend. They were more partners than police chief and sub-officer, and Rick often took his problems to Angus. "When will the feds get here?" Angus asked. "They should be here sometime this evening. They've got to drive from Wichita, so they could get held up along the way, but if they don't they could arrive any time now." "Did you hear who was one of the cases this morning?" Angus asked, "Lewis Vincent. Apparently he woke up in bed with that gorgeous wife of his, and didn't know who she was, or where he was, and he went and accused her of being a "lady of the night"!" "He didn't?" "He did. And she tried to calm him down, but he wouldn't listen to her, and he ran out into the street only half dressed. It took them ages at the hospital to convince him that she was his wife." "Gosh, when you forget your own wife..!" Rick shook his head in disbelief, and then looked up as he heard the sound of a car outside. The engine cut out, doors opened and closed, and then two FBI agents came into the station. "Good evening," Mulder began, "Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, FBI." He indicated himself and his partner. "Good evening, Agent Mulder, Agent Scully." Landetti nodded to them, "I'm Rick Landetti, this is my sub-officer, Angus Forrell. I hope your journey was good." "Fine." Mulder nodded, "I understand you've had 29 cases so far?" "Yes, that's right." Landetti answered, "29 as of this morning. They always seem to turn up in the morning. They're all down at the hospital, which I suppose you'll be visiting tomorrow?" "Yes, I think so." Mulder agreed. "A word of advice. - You people aren't used to this climate, and even some of us who were born here can't take it. You'd better stay inside in the middle of the day, take a rest. It's too hot in this part of Kansas for those who aren't used to it." "Yes, I guess it would be a good idea to take a break during the hottest part of the day." Mulder agreed. "Talking of breaks and rests, now that we've introduced ourselves, I hope you won't mind if Mulder and I head on to our hotel. It's been a long day." Scully told the police chief. "Good idea." Mulder agreed. Standing behind him, Scully frowned slightly. It wasn't like Mulder to agree to rest, although he usually gave in to her requests. She said nothing of it, thinking that possibly he was finally coming to understand that he couldn't work unless he got enough rest. She couldn't insist on sleep. - Mulder never slept much on the first night of a new X-file, - but she could at least get him to lie down for a while. * * * The hotel rooms were opposite each other on the east wing of the third floor of the Kimmington Grand Hotel. Mulder retired to his room without objection, and Scully went to hers. Half an hour after they had separated, Scully suddenly remembered that they hadn't finalised their plans for the next day, and she left her room to go and talk with Mulder. However, as she approached the door to Mulder's room, she heard quiet snoring on the other side. Her eyebrows rose. There was certainly something bothering him, - he wasn't settling into this case at all. - Scully returned to her room, and soon she slept also. * * * Mulder and Scully went to the hospital the next day to interview the patients suffering from memory loss. There had been 19 new admissions that morning, bringing the total up to 48. It might have taken a long time, but no-one knew anything to tell the two agents. Half way through the interviews, Mulder suggested that Scully should go and talk to the doctor in charge of the amnesia patients. "Leave you to go spreading rumours of half-baked theories around?" Scully exclaimed smiling, "Mulder, these people are scared enough already without you filling their heads with nonsense. I'm going to stay here and keep an eye on you. Besides, it will do you good to come and see the doctor with me, - learn that there are logical explanations for this." "But it would be so much quicker..." Mulder protested. "No, Mulder." Scully said firmly, and that was the end of that. * * * However, when they spoke to the doctor, he had no explanations for the mass amnesia that appeared to be striking the town. "No-one knows why it happens, but it is possible for an individual to suffer from memory loss without any apparent cause." the doctor told Mulder and Scully, "It is also possible for memory loss to come about from a blow to the head, or after severe trauma. So any one of these cases could be explained from one of these points of view, but for all of them? I'm afraid I can't offer an explanation for how so many people can be affected at once." * * * Although it had got quite warm in the hospital, the agents hadn't needed to take a siesta in the middle of the day. They had managed to interview all of the current patients, which was just as well, as they were quite aware that there would be a new influx the next day. Sitting in the car in the hospital parking lot in the early evening, they discussed what they knew so far. "It is possible to induce amnesia using drugs, but I don't see how that could happen." Scully told her partner. Mulder shook his head. "The doctor said it was possible for this to happen naturally..." "But the odds against it happening to so many people in such a short time are infinitesimally small." Scully pointed out. "You must have some idea for what is going on. Come on, spit it out." "Actually, I don't have any theories yet." "No?" Scully asked, surprised. She couldn't understand what was wrong with Mulder that day. He had let her do most of the questioning in the hospital, and was still unusually quiet. Not that he wasn't always quiet, but normally when he was silent she got the impression that he was following his crooked mental paths, looking for an answer. Today, he was just silent, and she didn't think his mind was really on the case at all. They returned to the hotel, and again Mulder went to his room without making any protest at all. Scully lay awake that night, and this too was unusual. Mulder was usually the only one who missed sleep during investigations. * * * The next day at breakfast, Scully noticed that her partner was looking tired. Normally it bothered her to think that he was spending his nights thinking about the case rather than getting the sleep he needed, but today she was actually a bit relieved. Possibly Mulder was finally settling into the case. "Busy night, Mulder?" she asked. "Huh?" "Were you up late, working on the case last night?" "I suppose." Mulder agreed, grudgingly. "Well, strange though it sounds, I'm glad to hear it. I was beginning to get worried about you. You haven't been yourself lately. I was beginning to miss the dark circles under your eyes." Scully smiled across the breakfast table at her partner, and spread margarine on her toast. "Are we going back to the hospital again today?" "Yes. I've already called them. There have been another 24 cases this morning. The doctor hasn't made any progress yet on restoring the lost memories." "Hm." Scully swallowed her mouthful, "We'll leave immediately after breakfast, then?" * * * They got to the hospital before most of the patients awakened from their sleep. The hospital wards were quiet apart from the occasional snore, and the mutterings of a few people who talked in their sleep. The patients woke gradually during the morning, and the partners spent their day much as they had the day before, interviewing the new admissions. It grew very warm that day, and most of the patients took a siesta. Mulder and Scully stopped work, and sat down to eat lunch while they waited for it to cool down. As the day grew cooler, the patients began to awaken. Mulder and Scully talked with Lucietta Pearson for a while, despite the fact that they had already interviewed her once. It was while they were talking to her that Lewis Vincent woke up. Vincent cried out in his sleep, and his cry awakened him. He sat up suddenly, his face flushed, his breathing quick and harsh, and his face filled with fear. Mulder and Scully quickly crossed the ward to him. "Mr Vincent? Are you alright?" Scully asked the 41 year old man. "I... I had a bad dream." Vincent replied. His voice was shaky. "Do you remember what it was?" Scully asked. "Er... I don't remember much. I..." he paused, trying to stop his voice from wavering, "I was lying down in bed. There was a light shining down on me. Like at the dentist. I felt something touch the top of my arm." Vincent clutched the offending limb with his left hand as he spoke. "You don't remember anything else?" Scully asked, "No sounds, smells, feelings? No pain? Or emotion?" "Only fear." Vincent replied, "I only know I was afraid." * * * Mulder and Scully talked about Vincent as they drove back to the hotel that evening. "Come on then." Scully told her partner, "Out with it. I know what you must be thinking, so get it out of your system." "I don't know what you mean." Mulder said, his eyes on the road ahead of them. "Mulder," Scully sighed, exasperated, "every time someone mentions strange noises, or bright lights, you immediately start spouting nonsense about UFO's. Why don't you just bring it out into the open now, and then I don't need to worry that you're going to end up telling one of those patients one of your strange theories." "But Vincent couldn't have seen a UFO." Mulder said, sounding confused, "He said he was lying down in bed, so he must have been inside. Even I know that no-one can see a UFO from inside a building." Scully said nothing. She glanced sidelong at her partner. Something was seriously wrong here. She had known that Mulder wouldn't think that Vincent had seen a UFO from inside. Mulder would have thought that Vincent was an abductee. That was it. Mulder would have thought that Vincent was an abductee. The man sitting beside her didn't. Come to that, he hadn't been acting like himself throughout the investigation. It would be obvious enough why, if this wasn't her partner who was sitting next to her. But if he wasn't Mulder, then who was he, and why was he pretending to be Mulder? And where was Mulder really? Scully stopped herself. She was getting as paranoid as her partner usually was. That was something else. The person she was with wasn't paranoid like Mulder. He didn't get excited at new X-files, or depressed over long journeys. He didn't object to resting. He slept on the first night of the case, and didn't come up with any theories, spooky or otherwise, for what was going on. How could she be certain? Now that she thought about everything that had happened, she was fairly sure, but her scientific mind needed proof. Then she came up with the answer. "Fox?" she asked cautiously, "Why don't you call me Dana any more? It's "Scully" all the time now, even when we are alone. I know you don't want to give people the wrong impression, but..." "I... I'm sorry, Dana. I hadn't realised I was." "Mulder" replied. Scully smiled. Now she knew. * * * At breakfast the next day, Scully made a suggestion to the man posing as her partner. "We ought to come back and take a siesta today. There's no point in rushing around when it's so hot, trying to keep up with the new cases. We're obviously not going to be able to. Most of the patients want to take a siesta anyway, and we're only keeping them awake by working." she said. "I suppose you're right." "Mulder" agreed, "We could do with the rest. We could return to the hotel before midday, and rest until 3pm, and then return to the investigation." * * * The morning at the hospital went much the same as the previous day. When Scully told "Mulder" that it was time for them to return to their hotel, he made no objection. They went to their separate rooms. Scully telling "Mulder" to make certain he got some sleep before they parted. However, she wasn't planning on sleeping. In her briefcase she had a list of the addresses of the victims so far. She slipped out of her room after collecting the list, and pushing a few pillows under the covers of her bed to make it look as though she were sleeping, and crept downstairs. A few minutes later, Scully pulled the hire car up outside the house of the first victim on her list, Jessica Halloway. She looked around the outside of the house, making a few notes, looked for signs of forced entry, and found none, but she noticed that the type of lock on the door was easy enough to open if you had had training. Scully visited all the homes on the list before she had to return to the hotel. They were all different, and their seemed to be nothing to link them together except that they all had locks on their doors which she could easily have opened using her FBI training without leaving any trace. She returned to the hotel, and got back to her room not long before 3pm. A few minutes later, "Mulder" came to her door to wake her, and they returned to the hospital. Scully found it difficult to remember that the man she was working with was not her partner. He looked so much like Mulder, and even talked like him. However, every time he called her Dana it was a brutal reminder that the man she was with was an impostor. * * * That night, after they had returned to their rooms, Scully sneaked out again. She visited lots of houses that night, not just ones where the victims lived. As she worked, she began to notice a pattern emerging. The other houses around those of the victims had locks which were much harder to open without leaving evidence than the locks on the doors of the victims' houses. Discounting all the houses with these superior locks, it became obvious that the victims were falling in some sort of order, starting on one side of the town, and spreading across. By 2am, Scully had predicted the addresses of many of the victims for the next day. Her night's work done, she returned to the hotel. * * * The next day at the hospital, Scully's predictions were proved correct, although she didn't know what this meant. Thirty new cases, and no more evidence for the "partners" led to Scully suggesting that they go to the library instead, and look through old newspaper reports to see of anything like this mass amnesia had happened in the past. "Mulder" agreed, although he was not aware that Scully just wanted a chance to rest, as she had work to do at the hospital later. She was hoping that more people would start having bad dreams like Lewis Vincent's. When they returned to the hotel for siesta, Scully stayed in her room for an hour, and then checked on "Mulder". He was sleeping. She drove to the hospital, and waited for the victims to wake. Scully's hopes were fulfilled when several of the sleepers awoke from bad dreams. They each remembered a light being shone in their faces while they were lying in bed, and one said that she thought it was the light of a torch. They also remembered a cold pain in the tops of their right arms. Scully had hopes that the drugs the doctor was giving them were finally working, and thinking of the drugs caused her to think again about drug-induced amnesia. She went to talk with the doctor, and found that he had taken blood samples from each victim as they were admitted. He had only the samples taken from that morning's new admissions remaining, but he agreed to let Scully do some tests on those samples, and she arranged to come back that night to do the tests. * * * Scully returned to the hotel again that night after spending all afternoon with "Mulder" in the library. She did tests on the blood samples, and was unsurprised to find a small amount of a drug she knew to induce amnesia in each sample. She also found an unknown drug in each sample, something she had never seen before. She tried to isolate it, but was unable. The door of the lab she was working in opened behind her. "Agent Scully." It was the doctor in charge of the amnesiacs. "I thought you might want to know, - I think the drugs I'm using are starting to have an effect. Several of the cases are reporting that their memories are returning. Seven year old Jessica Halloway, who was the first victim, has made an almost full recovery just this afternoon. She still can't remember what happened the night before she lost her memory though. Did you find anything?" "Er... I'm not sure yet. I need the information on my computer to check these results." Scully made an excuse, although she already knew what she had found, without the help of her computer. "I am glad that the drugs you are using are beginning to work. Hopefully everyone will make a full recovery." Scully also had another hope which she did not mention to the doctor. She knew that there weren't many houses remaining with easy locks to open, and she was hoping that there wouldn't be many more new cases. Scully went with the doctor to the private room where Jessica was sleeping. The young girl seemed disturbed, and she cried a little in her sleep. She woke suddenly, her dark eyes big and scared. "Jessica?" Scully asked, "Are you okay? Did you have a bad dream?" "You... you're that lady who came to talk to me the other day." Jessica whispered. "Yes, that's right. I'm called Dana. I want to help you. Did you have a bad dream, Jessica?" Jessica nodded fearfully. "I was in my room at home, and there was a strange man in my room. He had a torch, which he shone at me, and two needles." "Needles?" "You know, like the doctor gives you to stop you catching measles." "An injection." Scully breathed. Jessica nodded. Finally, Scully's suspicions were confirmed. She spoke to Jessica for a little while, but the girl remembered nothing after the second injection. Then she returned to the hotel, and got a few hours sleep. * * * "I don't think there's any need for us to stay here any longer." "Mulder" said as they drove away from the hospital at the end of the morning two days later. "The victims memories are coming back, and there were no new admissions this morning at all. There doesn't seem to be any reason for what has happened." Scully nodded quietly. She hadn't made any more night trips or done any work during siesta since the night she did the tests at the hospital. None of the patients whose memories had returned could remember the night before their mysterious amnesia came on. "Yes, I thought so." she agreed, "I'll arrange our flight home when we get back to the hotel. If we're lucky we might be able to get on the red-eye." * * * They were lucky, and the next morning they were back in Washington. Both of them worked on their reports, anxious to finish the paperwork so they could go home and sleep off their long journey. "Mulder" didn't know that Scully was writing a whole different report to the one they were doing together. When they had finished, she offered to take the report up to Assistant Director Skinner for approval. "Mulder" thought that the report which left the case open, and made no explanation for what had occurred was the one which Scully handed in, but actually, what she took to Skinner was all her own work and her own findings, and the other report had been put through the shredder. When Scully returned to the office, she sat down at her desk, and looked across at her partner. He was searching through the papers on the desk for something. Then he changed his mind, and went to look in the filing cabinet. He had his back to her. Scully stood up, and drew her gun. "Fox." "Hmm." He turned around, and she raised her weapon, certain that this was still the impostor. "Dana, what are you doing?" he cried, seeing her gun. "You're not Agent Fox Mulder." Scully said calmly. Keeping her gun on him, she moved forward and disarmed him. "I don't know who you are, but you've obviously been trying to wreck this investigation. I hope you're satisfied." "Dana, what are you talking about? I'm your partner." the man insisted. "No, you're not. Mulder never calls me Dana. He always calls me Scully, and always has." "But you asked me to call you Dana!" the man was becoming flustered. "Mulder also hates his first name. No-one ever calls him Fox. He won't accept it." "What is wrong with you, Scully?" the man cried in disbelief. "You asked me to call you Dana, so I did. I thought that if you wanted to call me by my first name, then that was up to you. Maybe no-one else does, but I'd make an exception for you." Scully cocked her head on one side, "Okay, maybe. What is your sister's name?" "What?" "You heard me." "I don't have a sister!" the man cried. Scully smiled. "Not on file, you don't. But you used to have. Mulder would have known that. He would also know what happened to her, and when. But you don't, do you?" "I don't like to talk about it." "You can't talk about what you don't know." "But... she died!" "No, she didn't." Scully said calmly, "She disappeared, just like you would if I let you go." She pulled the trigger on her gun. The shot was not fatal, but it removed her problem. She sat down wearily, and looked away from the fallen body for a moment. She had wondered if she would be able to pull the trigger on the man who looked so much like her partner, and now she couldn't look at the body. The sound of the shot brought other agents running into the basement office. The first of them was Agent Greeber. "Agent Scully! Are you alright? I heard... Oh!" Greeber dropped on one knee beside "Mulder", and checked for a pulse. "He's still alive." he reported, "I know he's irritating, and we all feel like doing it at times, but there wasn't any need to shoot him, Scully." "That's not Mulder." Scully said weakly, her gun still dangling from one limp hand. "Agent Scully, are you feeling alright?" Greeber asked. "I'm fine, just get that thing out of here as fast as possible will you? This office smells bad enough already." * * * Fingerprinting and DNA checks proved that the man was called Edward Sevan. The FBI had a lot of details on him, and knew he was connected with a lot of underworld groups, but he had never been charged with anything. A clever combination of a wax mask and cosmetic surgery had changed his appearance. Scully had to give a statement about what had happened leading up to the shooting, but no action was taken against her. Only one problem remained. Where was the real Mulder? This problem was solved a few days after the case was closed, when a young rookie agent came to the basement office. "Agent Scully! Agent Mulder's been found in his car in the multi-story car park he uses." the rookie told Scully. She got to her feet, grabbed her handbag and coat, and followed the rookie to the car park. Mulder was lying down in the back seat of the car, unconsciouss. The car was unlocked. Scully got in, and sat in the front seat. She leaned over, and felt for his breathing and pulse. "He's still alive!" she said with relief, "Has someone called for an ambulance?" "Yes," the rookie answered, "I did, on my way to fetch you." * * * An hour later Mulder regained consciousness in hospital. Like the victims of the case just closed, he had no memory of where he had been, but this appeared to be because he had been sedated. "You know, I actually missed you. He didn't have depressions, or first night sleeplessness, and he didn't come up with any crazy theories." Scully told her partner, "In fact, it was your mad ideas that made me realise that he wasn't you. Whenever anyone mentions bright lights, or strange sounds, I immediately expect you to start crying "abductee", but he didn't, and when he mentioned aliens, he didn't sound at all convincing. When he let me call him by your first name, and called me Dana, I knew he wasn't really you." "I'm glad that you did work out he wasn't me, or I might still have been wherever I have been for the last few days." Mulder smiled. "Mm." Scully mused, "It was difficult though, actually shooting him. He looked so much like you, and sounded like you, except in what he said. He started trying to twist my words and confuse me, but I really got him when I asked him about your sister. He didn't know you had one, or what had happened to her." "Well, let me put your mind at rest about my identity. My sister's name was Samantha, and she went missing when she was eight years old." Mulder said quietly. "What do you think happened to her?" Scully asked, a glint in her eye as she tested him. "You don't like to believe it, but I saw her abducted by aliens." Mulder said gravely. "I've never been so pleased to hear something I don't believe." Scully smiled. The End. I'd greatly appreciate any comments or constructive criticism from fellow X-Philes. Email me at . Danielle Culverson. This is a fiction story based on the characters created by Chris Carter. No infringement of copyrights held by 10/13 Productions, Twentieth Century Productions, or Fox Broadcasting is intended. All unrecognised characters and plot-lines belong to me. Names, characters, and places exist solely within my imagination, or are used fictitiously. No connection to any person, living or dead, is intended, and any resemblance is entirely coincidental. Feel free to distribute, but please keep me as the author. Danielle Culverson. This is for Bryony, a good friend, and hope-to-be house-mate. - Although you may regret it next year. Good luck in the exams. Amnesia The town of Kimmington, Kansas, was slowly stirring into wakefulness. So far, each house remained a sealed unit, and no-one moved in the streets except Lloyd, the aging milkman, with his truck, and Tommy, the paper-boy, who sailed quietly up the empty streets between the waking houses on his bicycle, making no sound but for the whir of the wheels, and the thud of the morning papers he tossed onto the doorsteps. Terry Halloway kissed her husband goodbye as he left for work, and then he departed into the empty street. The sound of his car engine drifted back into the house, and then faded away. Terry returned to the kitchen, calling up the stairs to her seven year old daughter on the way. "Jess! Are you up yet? Your breakfast's nearly ready." She continued on without waiting for an answer, and rescued the toast from the grill before it burned, replacing it with three rashers of bacon. The kettle whistled behind her, but Terry was so used to her morning routine that she was almost already turning to it. She made herself a cup of hot strong coffee, and got some orange juice from the fridge in the corner of the bright tiled kitchen for Jessica. Placing the drinks on the table, she poured out cereal, read the front page of the newspaper which she had collected from the doorstep when her husband left, and then dished up the bacon. Putting the two plates on the table, she realised that she still hadn't heard Jessica moving around upstairs. She returned to the foot of the stairs. "Jess! Are you up yet? Jessica?" There was no answer. Terry frowned in puzzlement, and went upstairs. "Jess, are you okay? Your breakfast's on the table. You don't want me to give it to the cat, do you?" Terry opened the door to her daughter's bedroom. Jessica was sitting up in bed, her knees pulled up to her chin. She shrank back away from her mother as Terry entered the room. Her face wore an expression of confusion and fear. "Who are you?" she asked, in a small, frightened voice. Terry opened her mouth to tell her daughter off for playing games, when she realised that Jessica really didn't know. "Jessica, are you okay?" she asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Is that who I am?" the young girl asked, "Jessica? I don't remember. I don't know where I am, or who you are, and I'm scared." She started to cry. Terry put her arms around her, and tried to comfort her. "Er.... Yes, you're Jessica. And I'm your Mummy. This is your home. I'll look after you. You don't need to be afraid." Jessica looked up into her mother's eyes, and it was clear she believed, but she did not remember. * * * A man in a grey suit walked through the J. Edgar Hoover building. He walked quickly and determinedly, but his mind was somewhere other than on where he was going. He avoided obstacles without seeming to register them first. He attracted the attention of many of his so-called colleagues as he passed by them, and conversations stopped and started abruptly around him. He didn't notice, and when he arrived at the elevator, the doors opened and the elevator was empty, as if it had been waiting for him to arrive. He stepped inside, and the doors closed between him and the staring eyes that had followed him. Fox Mulder stepped out of the elevator in the basement of the building. He made his way to his office, - a stuffy, warm room which no-one else wanted, but suited him and his needs just fine, - his pace quickening as though he felt something in the air. He shut the door behind him as he entered the office, and took off his jacket. There was a pile of case files on his already over-laden desk. He sat down, waited a moment while he put his mind into the right gear, soaking in the atmosphere in his "spooky" office, breathing it in, and then sat up and started work on the first of the cases which he had been passed. It was his special ability to find connections and leads where others had failed. Possibly this was the only reason he was still working for the FBI. Possibly it was more to do with his secret friends. Alone, he would be willing to bet that he wouldn't last the morning. Mulder's eyes skipped over the file, and he read short patches here and there, seemingly randomly. He took more notice of the photos, scrutinizing each one for clues. After a few minutes reading, and a few minutes thought, his eyes lit up as he came to a conclusion. The answers popped into his head from nowhere, and often other agents couldn't even see the answers he found for their cases after he had shown the evidence to them. His ability to seemingly leap beyond logic at moments led to his disliked nickname, "spooky" Mulder. Mulder picked up a pen from the desk, his fingers finding it blindly as he kept his eyes on the file. He marked a paragraph, and a few sentences further on in the report. He scribbled a few words in the margin, and tossed the file into the "Out" pile. One down. He picked up a second folder, and opened it. There was a knock on the door, and then the door opened. Mulder raised his head to see who was entering, his eyes filled with anticipation. * * * Lucietta Pearson awoke with the feeling that she had slept longer than she should have, but when she thought about this, she realised that she didn't know what time she should have woken up. Her cream and white bedroom was lit up by the morning sunlight coming through the thin curtains. She sat up, and looked about her in dismay. Where was she? She was sitting in a double bed. A photograph of an old man, probably in his early eighties stood on the nightstand beside the bed, with an empty mug. The other side of the bed was empty. There was nothing on the other nightstand. The room was strange to her, but she couldn't remember what was familiar. She got up carefully, and went over to a mirror to see her reflection. The face that looked back at her was that of a seventy-nine year old widow, - white curly hair, wrinkled skin, and haunted sunken eyes. She went over to the wardrobe, and opened it. One side was empty, the other contained ladies clothes. She took out an outfit, and dressed, and then went out of the bedroom, across the ground floor of the bungalow where she had lived for fifteen years, but didn't remember, and out into the street. "Good morning, Mrs Pearson." a passing man greeted her with a nod of his head, "You're out late today. You'll miss the ladies league meeting. You'd better hurry." "Ladies league meeting?" Lucietta asked, confused, "I.. er... I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know who you are. Come to that, I don't think I know who I am." "You don't?" the man seemed surprised, "Mrs Pearson... That's you, by the way, your name is Lucietta Pearson. I'm your doctor, Dr. Stokes. I think maybe you should come with me, and I'll check you over. You see there have been quite a few people recently suffering from memory loss. You may need some treatment to get your memory back." Dr. Stokes led the uncertain Lucietta along the street. She looked at him suspiciously. "How do I know you're a doctor?" she asked. "Erm... Quite right. You're quite right to ask. I have my card here... somewhere." He fished in his pockets, and found the card, which was tattered, but readable. "There you are. Oh, there's Mr Evans, he'll confirm my identity for you if you're still unsure." The doctor approached a man further up the street, who was doing something with the engine of his car. "Mr Evans, Mrs Pearson's having a bit of memory trouble. could you tell her who I am?" "What? Why, this is Dr. Stokes, Mrs Pearson. Surely you remember. I'm Phil Evans, from the garage." Dr. Stokes thanked Phil for his help, and led Lucietta, who was looking decidedly less worried, on up the street. * * * "Good morning, Mulder." Dana Scully greeted her partner as she entered the office they shared. The navy blue skirt and jacket she wore set off the colour of her eyes and hair, and she held a blue case file in one hand. Glancing at Mulder's desk, she saw that he had only completed one case so far that morning, and was still on the second one. There was a small patch on the desk where the jumble of papers had moved apart enough for the wooden surface of the desk to show through. She leaned over the desk, staring at it in mock dismay. "Why Mulder, I've never seen the top of your desk since the day we were moved into this office." she exclaimed. "Well... er... I am planning on tidying up sometime." Mulder muttered, poring over the case file he was working on. "In your dreams." Scully replied, and sat down at her desk, - the tidy one. - She looked at her partner in puzzlement, wondering why he had displayed no reaction to the blue case file she had in her hands. Her eyebrows rose, and she got to her feet to put the back of her hand against Mulder's forehead. "What?" he asked. "Mulder, you're reading that file!" she exclaimed, "Are you ill?" "No, it's just complicated." "Complicated?" Scully echoed, and she looked down at the file in her other hand. "Don't you want to know what I just got from Skinner?" "What? A new case?" Mulder looked up from his work, and held out his hand for the file. Scully passed it to him. "People have been turning up with memory loss in a town called Kimmington, in Kansas." she explained, "The police have started to investigate, and the Bureau was asked to take a look. Skinner thinks it might be an X-file, so he passed it on to us." "Right." Mulder read through the start of the file. "I've booked us onto a flight, but we can't go until tomorrow. We're leaving at 6.30am for Wichita, and I've arranged for a car to be waiting for us." "Okay. Nothing to do on this until tomorrow, then?" "No, I'm afraid not." Scully replied. "Right, I'll carry on with this then." Mulder indicated the file he had been working on when his partner arrived. Scully frowned as Mulder picked up the file. "Mulder, is something wrong?" "No, why?" "You seem, well, a bit quiet this morning. Is something bothering you?" "No, I'm fine. Really." Mulder picked up the file he had been working on, and continued reading it. Scully stared at him for a moment, and then continued with her own work. * * * "I don't know what this town is coming to." Rick Landetti told his top officer and old school-friend, Angus Forrell. "This morning there were 16 more cases. That makes 29 reported cases of memory loss in the last four days. I've had to call in the FBI to deal with it. The hospital is over-run with amnesiacs. What in the world can be causing this?" Landetti paced up and down his small office as he spoke. Angus stood silently, watching his friend. They were more partners than police chief and sub-officer, and Rick often took his problems to Angus. "When will the feds get here?" Angus asked. "They should be here sometime this evening. They've got to drive from Wichita, so they could get held up along the way, but if they don't they could arrive any time now." "Did you hear who was one of the cases this morning?" Angus asked, "Lewis Vincent. Apparently he woke up in bed with that gorgeous wife of his, and didn't know who she was, or where he was, and he went and accused her of being a "lady of the night"!" "He didn't?" "He did. And she tried to calm him down, but he wouldn't listen to her, and he ran out into the street only half dressed. It took them ages at the hospital to convince him that she was his wife." "Gosh, when you forget your own wife..!" Rick shook his head in disbelief, and then looked up as he heard the sound of a car outside. The engine cut out, doors opened and closed, and then two FBI agents came into the station. "Good evening," Mulder began, "Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, FBI." He indicated himself and his partner. "Good evening, Agent Mulder, Agent Scully." Landetti nodded to them, "I'm Rick Landetti, this is my sub-officer, Angus Forrell. I hope your journey was good." "Fine." Mulder nodded, "I understand you've had 29 cases so far?" "Yes, that's right." Landetti answered, "29 as of this morning. They always seem to turn up in the morning. They're all down at the hospital, which I suppose you'll be visiting tomorrow?" "Yes, I think so." Mulder agreed. "A word of advice. - You people aren't used to this climate, and even some of us who were born here can't take it. You'd better stay inside in the middle of the day, take a rest. It's too hot in this part of Kansas for those who aren't used to it." "Yes, I guess it would be a good idea to take a break during the hottest part of the day." Mulder agreed. "Talking of breaks and rests, now that we've introduced ourselves, I hope you won't mind if Mulder and I head on to our hotel. It's been a long day." Scully told the police chief. "Good idea." Mulder agreed. Standing behind him, Scully frowned slightly. It wasn't like Mulder to agree to rest, although he usually gave in to her requests. She said nothing of it, thinking that possibly he was finally coming to understand that he couldn't work unless he got enough rest. She couldn't insist on sleep. - Mulder never slept much on the first night of a new X-file, - but she could at least get him to lie down for a while. * * * The hotel rooms were opposite each other on the east wing of the third floor of the Kimmington Grand Hotel. Mulder retired to his room without objection, and Scully went to hers. Half an hour after they had separated, Scully suddenly remembered that they hadn't finalised their plans for the next day, and she left her room to go and talk with Mulder. However, as she approached the door to Mulder's room, she heard quiet snoring on the other side. Her eyebrows rose. There was certainly something bothering him, - he wasn't settling into this case at all. - Scully returned to her room, and soon she slept also. * * * Mulder and Scully went to the hospital the next day to interview the patients suffering from memory loss. There had been 19 new admissions that morning, bringing the total up to 48. It might have taken a long time, but no-one knew anything to tell the two agents. Half way through the interviews, Mulder suggested that Scully should go and talk to the doctor in charge of the amnesia patients. "Leave you to go spreading rumours of half-baked theories around?" Scully exclaimed smiling, "Mulder, these people are scared enough already without you filling their heads with nonsense. I'm going to stay here and keep an eye on you. Besides, it will do you good to come and see the doctor with me, - learn that there are logical explanations for this." "But it would be so much quicker..." Mulder protested. "No, Mulder." Scully said firmly, and that was the end of that. * * * However, when they spoke to the doctor, he had no explanations for the mass amnesia that appeared to be striking the town. "No-one knows why it happens, but it is possible for an individual to suffer from memory loss without any apparent cause." the doctor told Mulder and Scully, "It is also possible for memory loss to come about from a blow to the head, or after severe trauma. So any one of these cases could be explained from one of these points of view, but for all of them? I'm afraid I can't offer an explanation for how so many people can be affected at once." * * * Although it had got quite warm in the hospital, the agents hadn't needed to take a siesta in the middle of the day. They had managed to interview all of the current patients, which was just as well, as they were quite aware that there would be a new influx the next day. Sitting in the car in the hospital parking lot in the early evening, they discussed what they knew so far. "It is possible to induce amnesia using drugs, but I don't see how that could happen." Scully told her partner. Mulder shook his head. "The doctor said it was possible for this to happen naturally..." "But the odds against it happening to so many people in such a short time are infinitesimally small." Scully pointed out. "You must have some idea for what is going on. Come on, spit it out." "Actually, I don't have any theories yet." "No?" Scully asked, surprised. She couldn't understand what was wrong with Mulder that day. He had let her do most of the questioning in the hospital, and was still unusually quiet. Not that he wasn't always quiet, but normally when he was silent she got the impression that he was following his crooked mental paths, looking for an answer. Today, he was just silent, and she didn't think his mind was really on the case at all. They returned to the hotel, and again Mulder went to his room without making any protest at all. Scully lay awake that night, and this too was unusual. Mulder was usually the only one who missed sleep during investigations. * * * The next day at breakfast, Scully noticed that her partner was looking tired. Normally it bothered her to think that he was spending his nights thinking about the case rather than getting the sleep he needed, but today she was actually a bit relieved. Possibly Mulder was finally settling into the case. "Busy night, Mulder?" she asked. "Huh?" "Were you up late, working on the case last night?" "I suppose." Mulder agreed, grudgingly. "Well, strange though it sounds, I'm glad to hear it. I was beginning to get worried about you. You haven't been yourself lately. I was beginning to miss the dark circles under your eyes." Scully smiled across the breakfast table at her partner, and spread margarine on her toast. "Are we going back to the hospital again today?" "Yes. I've already called them. There have been another 24 cases this morning. The doctor hasn't made any progress yet on restoring the lost memories." "Hm." Scully swallowed her mouthful, "We'll leave immediately after breakfast, then?" * * * They got to the hospital before most of the patients awakened from their sleep. The hospital wards were quiet apart from the occasional snore, and the mutterings of a few people who talked in their sleep. The patients woke gradually during the morning, and the partners spent their day much as they had the day before, interviewing the new admissions. It grew very warm that day, and most of the patients took a siesta. Mulder and Scully stopped work, and sat down to eat lunch while they waited for it to cool down. As the day grew cooler, the patients began to awaken. Mulder and Scully talked with Lucietta Pearson for a while, despite the fact that they had already interviewed her once. It was while they were talking to her that Lewis Vincent woke up. Vincent cried out in his sleep, and his cry awakened him. He sat up suddenly, his face flushed, his breathing quick and harsh, and his face filled with fear. Mulder and Scully quickly crossed the ward to him. "Mr Vincent? Are you alright?" Scully asked the 41 year old man. "I... I had a bad dream." Vincent replied. His voice was shaky. "Do you remember what it was?" Scully asked. "Er... I don't remember much. I..." he paused, trying to stop his voice from wavering, "I was lying down in bed. There was a light shining down on me. Like at the dentist. I felt something touch the top of my arm." Vincent clutched the offending limb with his left hand as he spoke. "You don't remember anything else?" Scully asked, "No sounds, smells, feelings? No pain? Or emotion?" "Only fear." Vincent replied, "I only know I was afraid." * * * Mulder and Scully talked about Vincent as they drove back to the hotel that evening. "Come on then." Scully told her partner, "Out with it. I know what you must be thinking, so get it out of your system." "I don't know what you mean." Mulder said, his eyes on the road ahead of them. "Mulder," Scully sighed, exasperated, "every time someone mentions strange noises, or bright lights, you immediately start spouting nonsense about UFO's. Why don't you just bring it out into the open now, and then I don't need to worry that you're going to end up telling one of those patients one of your strange theories." "But Vincent couldn't have seen a UFO." Mulder said, sounding confused, "He said he was lying down in bed, so he must have been inside. Even I know that no-one can see a UFO from inside a building." Scully said nothing. She glanced sidelong at her partner. Something was seriously wrong here. She had known that Mulder wouldn't think that Vincent had seen a UFO from inside. Mulder would have thought that Vincent was an abductee. That was it. Mulder would have thought that Vincent was an abductee. The man sitting beside her didn't. Come to that, he hadn't been acting like himself throughout the investigation. It would be obvious enough why, if this wasn't her partner who was sitting next to her. But if he wasn't Mulder, then who was he, and why was he pretending to be Mulder? And where was Mulder really? Scully stopped herself. She was getting as paranoid as her partner usually was. That was something else. The person she was with wasn't paranoid like Mulder. He didn't get excited at new X-files, or depressed over long journeys. He didn't object to resting. He slept on the first night of the case, and didn't come up with any theories, spooky or otherwise, for what was going on. How could she be certain? Now that she thought about everything that had happened, she was fairly sure, but her scientific mind needed proof. Then she came up with the answer. "Fox?" she asked cautiously, "Why don't you call me Dana any more? It's "Scully" all the time now, even when we are alone. I know you don't want to give people the wrong impression, but..." "I... I'm sorry, Dana. I hadn't realised I was." "Mulder" replied. Scully smiled. Now she knew. * * * At breakfast the next day, Scully made a suggestion to the man posing as her partner. "We ought to come back and take a siesta today. There's no point in rushing around when it's so hot, trying to keep up with the new cases. We're obviously not going to be able to. Most of the patients want to take a siesta anyway, and we're only keeping them awake by working." she said. "I suppose you're right." "Mulder" agreed, "We could do with the rest. We could return to the hotel before midday, and rest until 3pm, and then return to the investigation." * * * The morning at the hospital went much the same as the previous day. When Scully told "Mulder" that it was time for them to return to their hotel, he made no objection. They went to their separate rooms. Scully telling "Mulder" to make certain he got some sleep before they parted. However, she wasn't planning on sleeping. In her briefcase she had a list of the addresses of the victims so far. She slipped out of her room after collecting the list, and pushing a few pillows under the covers of her bed to make it look as though she were sleeping, and crept downstairs. A few minutes later, Scully pulled the hire car up outside the house of the first victim on her list, Jessica Halloway. She looked around the outside of the house, making a few notes, looked for signs of forced entry, and found none, but she noticed that the type of lock on the door was easy enough to open if you had had training. Scully visited all the homes on the list before she had to return to the hotel. They were all different, and their seemed to be nothing to link them together except that they all had locks on their doors which she could easily have opened using her FBI training without leaving any trace. She returned to the hotel, and got back to her room not long before 3pm. A few minutes later, "Mulder" came to her door to wake her, and they returned to the hospital. Scully found it difficult to remember that the man she was working with was not her partner. He looked so much like Mulder, and even talked like him. However, every time he called her Dana it was a brutal reminder that the man she was with was an impostor. * * * That night, after they had returned to their rooms, Scully sneaked out again. She visited lots of houses that night, not just ones where the victims lived. As she worked, she began to notice a pattern emerging. The other houses around those of the victims had locks which were much harder to open without leaving evidence than the locks on the doors of the victims' houses. Discounting all the houses with these superior locks, it became obvious that the victims were falling in some sort of order, starting on one side of the town, and spreading across. By 2am, Scully had predicted the addresses of many of the victims for the next day. Her night's work done, she returned to the hotel. * * * The next day at the hospital, Scully's predictions were proved correct, although she didn't know what this meant. Thirty new cases, and no more evidence for the "partners" led to Scully suggesting that they go to the library instead, and look through old newspaper reports to see of anything like this mass amnesia had happened in the past. "Mulder" agreed, although he was not aware that Scully just wanted a chance to rest, as she had work to do at the hospital later. She was hoping that more people would start having bad dreams like Lewis Vincent's. When they returned to the hotel for siesta, Scully stayed in her room for an hour, and then checked on "Mulder". He was sleeping. She drove to the hospital, and waited for the victims to wake. Scully's hopes were fulfilled when several of the sleepers awoke from bad dreams. They each remembered a light being shone in their faces while they were lying in bed, and one said that she thought it was the light of a torch. They also remembered a cold pain in the tops of their right arms. Scully had hopes that the drugs the doctor was giving them were finally working, and thinking of the drugs caused her to think again about drug-induced amnesia. She went to talk with the doctor, and found that he had taken blood samples from each victim as they were admitted. He had only the samples taken from that morning's new admissions remaining, but he agreed to let Scully do some tests on those samples, and she arranged to come back that night to do the tests. * * * Scully returned to the hotel again that night after spending all afternoon with "Mulder" in the library. She did tests on the blood samples, and was unsurprised to find a small amount of a drug she knew to induce amnesia in each sample. She also found an unknown drug in each sample, something she had never seen before. She tried to isolate it, but was unable. The door of the lab she was working in opened behind her. "Agent Scully." It was the doctor in charge of the amnesiacs. "I thought you might want to know, - I think the drugs I'm using are starting to have an effect. Several of the cases are reporting that their memories are returning. Seven year old Jessica Halloway, who was the first victim, has made an almost full recovery just this afternoon. She still can't remember what happened the night before she lost her memory though. Did you find anything?" "Er... I'm not sure yet. I need the information on my computer to check these results." Scully made an excuse, although she already knew what she had found, without the help of her computer. "I am glad that the drugs you are using are beginning to work. Hopefully everyone will make a full recovery." Scully also had another hope which she did not mention to the doctor. She knew that there weren't many houses remaining with easy locks to open, and she was hoping that there wouldn't be many more new cases. Scully went with the doctor to the private room where Jessica was sleeping. The young girl seemed disturbed, and she cried a little in her sleep. She woke suddenly, her dark eyes big and scared. "Jessica?" Scully asked, "Are you okay? Did you have a bad dream?" "You... you're that lady who came to talk to me the other day." Jessica whispered. "Yes, that's right. I'm called Dana. I want to help you. Did you have a bad dream, Jessica?" Jessica nodded fearfully. "I was in my room at home, and there was a strange man in my room. He had a torch, which he shone at me, and two needles." "Needles?" "You know, like the doctor gives you to stop you catching measles." "An injection." Scully breathed. Jessica nodded. Finally, Scully's suspicions were confirmed. She spoke to Jessica for a little while, but the girl remembered nothing after the second injection. Then she returned to the hotel, and got a few hours sleep. * * * "I don't think there's any need for us to stay here any longer." "Mulder" said as they drove away from the hospital at the end of the morning two days later. "The victims memories are coming back, and there were no new admissions this morning at all. There doesn't seem to be any reason for what has happened." Scully nodded quietly. She hadn't made any more night trips or done any work during siesta since the night she did the tests at the hospital. None of the patients whose memories had returned could remember the night before their mysterious amnesia came on. "Yes, I thought so." she agreed, "I'll arrange our flight home when we get back to the hotel. If we're lucky we might be able to get on the red-eye." * * * They were lucky, and the next morning they were back in Washington. Both of them worked on their reports, anxious to finish the paperwork so they could go home and sleep off their long journey. "Mulder" didn't know that Scully was writing a whole different report to the one they were doing together. When they had finished, she offered to take the report up to Assistant Director Skinner for approval. "Mulder" thought that the report which left the case open, and made no explanation for what had occurred was the one which Scully handed in, but actually, what she took to Skinner was all her own work and her own findings, and the other report had been put through the shredder. When Scully returned to the office, she sat down at her desk, and looked across at her partner. He was searching through the papers on the desk for something. Then he changed his mind, and went to look in the filing cabinet. He had his back to her. Scully stood up, and drew her gun. "Fox." "Hmm." He turned around, and she raised her weapon, certain that this was still the impostor. "Dana, what are you doing?" he cried, seeing her gun. "You're not Agent Fox Mulder." Scully said calmly. Keeping her gun on him, she moved forward and disarmed him. "I don't know who you are, but you've obviously been trying to wreck this investigation. I hope you're satisfied." "Dana, what are you talking about? I'm your partner." the man insisted. "No, you're not. Mulder never calls me Dana. He always calls me Scully, and always has." "But you asked me to call you Dana!" the man was becoming flustered. "Mulder also hates his first name. No-one ever calls him Fox. He won't accept it." "What is wrong with you, Scully?" the man cried in disbelief. "You asked me to call you Dana, so I did. I thought that if you wanted to call me by my first name, then that was up to you. Maybe no-one else does, but I'd make an exception for you." Scully cocked her head on one side, "Okay, maybe. What is your sister's name?" "What?" "You heard me." "I don't have a sister!" the man cried. Scully smiled. "Not on file, you don't. But you used to have. Mulder would have known that. He would also know what happened to her, and when. But you don't, do you?" "I don't like to talk about it." "You can't talk about what you don't know." "But... she died!" "No, she didn't." Scully said calmly, "She disappeared, just like you would if I let you go." She pulled the trigger on her gun. The shot was not fatal, but it removed her problem. She sat down wearily, and looked away from the fallen body for a moment. She had wondered if she would be able to pull the trigger on the man who looked so much like her partner, and now she couldn't look at the body. The sound of the shot brought other agents running into the basement office. The first of them was Agent Greeber. "Agent Scully! Are you alright? I heard... Oh!" Greeber dropped on one knee beside "Mulder", and checked for a pulse. "He's still alive." he reported, "I know he's irritating, and we all feel like doing it at times, but there wasn't any need to shoot him, Scully." "That's not Mulder." Scully said weakly, her gun still dangling from one limp hand. "Agent Scully, are you feeling alright?" Greeber asked. "I'm fine, just get that thing out of here as fast as possible will you? This office smells bad enough already." * * * Fingerprinting and DNA checks proved that the man was called Edward Sevan. The FBI had a lot of details on him, and knew he was connected with a lot of underworld groups, but he had never been charged with anything. A clever combination of a wax mask and cosmetic surgery had changed his appearance. Scully had to give a statement about what had happened leading up to the shooting, but no action was taken against her. Only one problem remained. Where was the real Mulder? This problem was solved a few days after the case was closed, when a young rookie agent came to the basement office. "Agent Scully! Agent Mulder's been found in his car in the multi-story car park he uses." the rookie told Scully. She got to her feet, grabbed her handbag and coat, and followed the rookie to the car park. Mulder was lying down in the back seat of the car, unconsciouss. The car was unlocked. Scully got in, and sat in the front seat. She leaned over, and felt for his breathing and pulse. "He's still alive!" she said with relief, "Has someone called for an ambulance?" "Yes," the rookie answered, "I did, on my way to fetch you." * * * An hour later Mulder regained consciousness in hospital. Like the victims of the case just closed, he had no memory of where he had been, but this appeared to be because he had been sedated. "You know, I actually missed you. He didn't have depressions, or first night sleeplessness, and he didn't come up with any crazy theories." Scully told her partner, "In fact, it was your mad ideas that made me realise that he wasn't you. Whenever anyone mentions bright lights, or strange sounds, I immediately expect you to start crying "abductee", but he didn't, and when he mentioned aliens, he didn't sound at all convincing. When he let me call him by your first name, and called me Dana, I knew he wasn't really you." "I'm glad that you did work out he wasn't me, or I might still have been wherever I have been for the last few days." Mulder smiled. "Mm." Scully mused, "It was difficult though, actually shooting him. He looked so much like you, and sounded like you, except in what he said. He started trying to twist my words and confuse me, but I really got him when I asked him about your sister. He didn't know you had one, or what had happened to her." "Well, let me put your mind at rest about my identity. My sister's name was Samantha, and she went missing when she was eight years old." Mulder said quietly. "What do you think happened to her?" Scully asked, a glint in her eye as she tested him. "You don't like to believe it, but I saw her abducted by aliens." Mulder said gravely. "I've never been so pleased to hear something I don't believe." Scully smiled. The End. I'd greatly appreciate any comments or constructive criticism from fellow X-Philes. Email me at . Danielle Culverson.