"Manifest Destiny"  (2/?)
by Kelida Flynn and Slippin' Mickeys



Mulder rolled over slowly and groaned. The light was bright and his head 
spun wildly to the left. The pain behind his eyes was reminiscent of a 
hang over, but that didn't go on to explain what was happening to the 
rest of his brain. He closed his eyes and thought of how he had gotten 
where ever he was. And he couldn't remember. Anything. Not his name, his 
occupation, his family. His mind was a total blank, and he was suddenly 
very, very frightened.

He sat up quickly and regretted it instantly. His head lolled 
involuntarily towards his chest and he grabbed it with both of his 
hands. 

"Owwwww . . . Fuck me," he gasped. 

The pain was ferocious and beat in his ears and roared in his veins and 
spread from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. And then it 
faded. As quickly as it had come it had gone, and aside from the pain 
still throbbing in his skull, left no trace of its previous existence. 

"It speaks." A loud voice spoke up and he jumped and spun his head to 
his left, seeking out the source. "Not the richest language I've heard, 
but it speaks nonetheless." A man stood up from his bunk, across the 
room from Mulder's bed and slowly walked towards him. Mulder followed 
him silently with his eyes. "Fox Mulder," the man stated, "now there's a 
name I've not heard in a long time. I thought you were dead. When they 
brought you in here, you know, I almost couldn't believe my eyes, but 
I'd know that mug anywhere."

"Who?" Mulder croaked, swinging his legs over the bed and digging his 
palms into his eyes.  "What the hell is going on?" he mumbled to 
himself, head still bowed.

The man backed up and flopped back down on his own bed, his white
scrub-like pants and shirt bunching up beneath him.

"Of all the people who could beat them, I would have thought it'd be 
you."  He heaved a sad sigh and continued, "I guess I *am* the only 
survivor."

"Survivor of *what*?" Mulder asked, slowly meeting the man's eyes with 
an irritated glare. 

"This whole bloody travesty, Mr. Mulder. This colonization. This whole
wonderful expansion. This perfect instance of Manifest Destiny coming 
back to bite us right on the ass." He paused and his expression 
lightened somewhat. "More specifically though, the memory wipe, which 
you are so obviously suffering from." He ran his fingers back through 
his dusty blond hair, "You're smart. Not smart enough to avoid being 
captured, but I'd have at least thought that you'd beat the memory 
wipe." He sighed again, "Everything *is* going straight to hell in a 
handbasket."

"Who are you?" Mulder asked.  "Come to think of it, who am I? How do you 
know me? What is this place?" 

The man grinned a little and looked at him, "Glad to know they didn't 
suck your personality out too. Still as ever curious as can be."

"Whatever  you say." Mulder said, rubbing his eyes again. "I take it 
*you* managed to beat this 'memory wipe,'" 

"Of course," the older man said. "I'm a survivor."

"Well Mr. Survivor, do you have a name?"

"I have many names. But you can call me… Invictus." He grinned up at
Mulder. "Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

"Spellbinding," Mulder droned in his best sarcastic monotoned cadence.

Mulder leaned back, glowering at his roommate. "So, Invictus," he said
putting a nice austere edge on the name, "since you managed to beat this 
whole memory-wipe thing, and since you so obviously have an astounding 
grasp on my current situation, would you mind filling me in? Because as 
you have so astutely pointed out, I'm having a hard time doing it 
myself." 

"Easy, easy, Mulder," Invictus said in a hurried whisper. "If you get
worked up, they're going to hear you. As it is, they don't know my 
memory is still fully intact. As far as they're concerned, we're no 
longer two men who know far too much about their plans. Plans that are 
far more sinister and deadly than I think even *you* had ever imagined. 
We're a couple of drones that they've disappeared and are as we speak 
probably debating on whether or not to kill us. I'll tell you everything 
I know. I'll do my best to help you regain your memory, but  you need to 
realize that unless you act as confused and ignorant as you are right 
now, we stand to lose any and all hope of ever getting out of here. And 
to tell you the truth, I think that there is more hinging on our escape 
than anything you could possibly *hope* to fathom."

 "Well Invictus," he leaned back, surprising his roommate with his 
sudden concurrence,  "I'm all ears." He shrugged at the man's sudden 
look of surprise. "Do tell."

<><><><><><><><><><><><>

It will end where it all began--in a kaleidoscope of perfect moments.
Perfect love, perfect hate, perfect destruction, and perfect creation.  
And you will die as you have lived.

Memory would remain. For you could kill a body, but never it's soul. And 
what is a soul if not a memory?  There was hope, but little, in the 
older man's words, his narrative leaving space, but precious little for 
a soul to find it's mate. And in his tale, the only hope for salvation 
was in the mating of two souls that had been separated time and time 
again.

During his serene introspection, Fox Mulder could as yet, still not
remember. But for some reason, the unlikely, bizarre tale Invictus 
weaved before him made an odd kind of sense. He believed him, though he 
had no justification as to the honesty of the man's story. For all he 
knew, he could be in an insane asylum, his roommate a man living in a 
world he himself had created.

And while the story held the promise of the most caliginous of dark 
times ahead, it also held hope. Hope for the future, and most 
importantly, hope for himself. And hope was the only thing Mulder had to 
hold onto. 

So Fox Mulder believed.

<><><><><><><><><><><><>

Mulder sat on his bed, staring at the ground before him, digesting the
man's story piece by piece. And then he snorted. The snort turned into a 
chuckle, which turned into a full blown laugh. 

"You know," Mulder murmured between chuckles, once he had calmed down a 
little, "you're one crazy son of a bitch, you know that? But for some 
reason, I believe you." He looked the other man in the eye, "God help 
me, I believe you."

"Credero quod consolarit," the older man muttered.

Mulder took a deep, pacific breath and narrowed his eyes, looking at
Invictus questioningly.

"Credero quod consolarit, Mr. Mulder. I believe because it comforts."

"Touché," Mulder nodded and sat back. 

"So what do we do?" He leaned forward again and began speaking again in 
a hushed tone. "If what you say is true, what do we do next? How wide 
spread is this colonization? And what can I--*me* of all people--do 
about it?"

"Listen Mulder," Invictus chuckled at his new friends reaction, as 
though hearing his name for the first time, "the first thing we have to 
do is get out of here."

Mulder interrupted before he could get another sentence out. "Where is 
here again? I was a little caught up on the 'alien invasion' part of 
your story when you got to the part about where we were being held."

"Michigan," Invictus answered, chewing on the inside of his lip and 
looking fleetingly about the room.  "Sort of."

"Sort of." Mulder stated, looking at Invictus as though he'd suddenly
started speaking gibberish.  "How are we 'sort of' in Michigan?"

"Well, we're technically well within the borders of the state. Only…"

"Only…?"

"Only we're 300 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan." He looked to
Mulder, trying his best to ease into the severity of their situation. 
"In the Straits of Mackinac to be precise." 

"Oh!" Mulder said suddenly as if he'd had an earth-shattering epiphany. 
"So we just hop into the old Bubble Mobile and have Dr. Crenshaw speed 
us on up to the surface, then."

"Of course. Only we'll have to get Melvin, the freshwater wonder dolphin 
to take him a message, because yesterday, while I was running a scan on 
the supercomputer, my transmitter broke." Invictus looked at him with 
disdain.  "Look Mulder, I know all of this is a lot to swallow, but 
could you just *try* to work with me here? Please?"

Mulder sighed and reluctantly nodded.

"Now, I have a plan for getting out of here, but we'll get to that 
later. To answer your other questions, the colonization *is* widespread, 
but the colonization is most condensed on the east coast. The further 
west you move, the less control They have. Their grip is tightening here 
in the Midwest, but it's starting with the larger cities.  As far north 
as we are, in this relatively rural country, we should be okay. But we 
DO have to be careful."

"Kind of gives new meaning to the phrase, 'Go west, young man,'" Mulder
quietly projected.

"Indeed," Invictus agreed. "Look Mulder, we have to make our move soon. 
Once we're out, we have to head south, down to Lansing. I have it on 
faith that they, our government, are secretly working on a vaccine that 
can stop the colonization dead cold. *We* have to get it."

"I don't follow," Mulder said, "why do *we* have to get it? I mean, how 
can *we* stop this? If our government has a… vaccine? To stop the 
colonization, why would we have to do anything? The government will use 
it to take out the aliens, or whatever this vaccine does."

"The vaccine actually makes humans immune to effects of a certain… 
weapon… that the aliens are using to make the population of Earth a 
slave race. But Mr. Mulder, our government can no longer help. While 
they've developed and continue to develop this vaccine, they've been 
working with the aliens for well over fifty years. And now that the 
aliens have come, our government is useless to stop them. They're trying 
to buy some time by working in cahoots with the aliens, but the aliens 
are too powerful. They have too much control. We're the only ones who 
can stop this now, Mulder, we're the only ones that can do anything. But 
we need all of the help we can get… We need your partner."

Mulder was about to question Invictus once more, when the sound of the 
lock sliding back on the door silenced them both. As the handle was 
turning, Invictus harshly whispered, "Remember Mulder, total ignorance! 
You don't know what's going on!"

The door opened, admitting two armed men in military fatigues. They
brusquely walked in, grabbed Mulder by the arms and ushered him quickly 
out into the hallway. Mulder shot Invictus a worried glance as the door 
shut swiftly behind them, and locked with resounding clunk.

<><><><><><><><><><><>

"What the hell?"  Richter began pacing around the corridor, his face 
spitting mad.  "As though we didn't have enough people here.  We don't 
even know who that woman is!"

"Will you calm down for once," Cynthia snarled, her hands on her hips.

"Will you shut up for once?" he snarled right back, walking straight up 
to her face, close enough to step on her toes.

Margaret then stepped in between them and tried to break up their 
impending fight.  Scully, though, was distracted.  As the shouts and 
angry curses faded into background sound, she found herself following 
the woman into the kitchen.  Blue ocean light filtered in through the 
large window by the sink, only broken up by the shape of the woman 
leaning over the sink drinking water out of her cupped hands.

"I'm sorry about this," she began just as Scully had opened her mouth to 
speak.  "I don't want to intrude, but I can't help it.  They," she said 
this word with such venom and hatred, Scully could almost feel it 
vibrate into her bones, "they are watching me.  Us."

"It's not your fault," Scully replied.  She moved closer until she was 
leaning next to the dark-haired woman on the counter.  "Ignore Richter.  
He can be a real high-strung ass, even when he doesn't apply himself."

This caused a tiny ripple of laughter.  Scully smiled back.  "I'm Scu. . 
. Dana.  Dana Scully"  

"Scully?"

She smiled softly to herself, as though she were tasting the memory.
"My . . . friend use to call me that, but he's not around anymore." She 
licked her lips.  "Just call me Dana."

"I'm sorry, the name just sounded familiar to me."  She shifted her feet 
and turned so she would face Scully straight on.  "I'm sorry about your 
friend." There was a slight, pregnant pause.  "I'm Elspeth Parr."  She 
reached out her hand, her long, strong fingers grasping Scully's tiny 
one.

"Nice to meet you Elspeth, under the circumstances."  Scully made a 
gesture in the air with her hand.  They both grew quiet, shifting 
uncomfortably in the newness of their acquaintance.  Suddenly, there was 
a crash of feet running down the stairs and a loud, boisterous voice 
ringing in through the hallway.

"The prodigal son has returned!  Jodie . . . ."  There was a scoop in 
the cadence of his voice.

Together, Scully and Elspeth migrated towards the front entrance.  There 
Jodie Adler stood, a brighter shade of girl, facing a lanky Asian man.  
His face was comically alive, grinning like a man completely unaware of 
the reality around him.  There was something certainly enviable in that, 
Scully thought as she moved in more to greet Nathaniel Liu, in all his 
jester-like fashion.

"Well hello, who do we have . . ."  Nathaniel's smile suddenly faded as 
his eyes honed in on Elspeth.  They flickered for a moment of 
recognition, but he turned away somewhat confused and greeted the rest 
of the household.

<><><><><><><><><><>

Six of them sat on the porch and watched with seeming apprehension the 
setting of the sun.  As its flaming orange dipped into the cool recess 
of the blue and green horizon, there seemed to be a chill coming in from 
the tide behind them, black and thin, sweeping through like a sonic 
boom.  Jodie sat perched on the railing that circled the house, her 
head, made up in messy braids, resting tiredly against a column.  The 
only movement she made was the occasional glance over at Nathaniel who 
was busily engaged in conversation with Elspeth.

Across from her sat Richter McLachlan in a wicker chair, his face still 
contorted into the pose of a man too angry to be true.  Scully brushed 
away her hair with the full palm of her hand and took a moment to 
scrutinize him.  He was very handsome, she could see that, and beneath 
that angry veneer in his ice blue eyes she was almost sure he was hiding 
something--pain she guessed.  They call carried scars miles deep these 
days, she thought soberly.  Some, though, wore theirs like a badge; a 
right to be angry, while some carried their wounds around as ghosts and 
shadows infused in and out through every cell living and dead in their 
bodies.

Ghosts, Scully thought sadly.  I have too many ghosts, and too little of 
life around me.  Margaret Scully brushed by then, touching her 
daughter's hand.  Scully gazed up at her mother and reached out for her 
hand.  She squeezed it, a fine, relieving pressure, and then Margaret 
excused herself and entered the house.

" . . .fate," Nathaniel trailed off as Scully picked up the tail end of 
their conversation.  His hands flew in a nervous flourish.

Elspeth took a long sip of water and smiled with only the corners of her 
lips turning up.  "You are so full of contradictions, Nat.  You tell me 
that you believe in fate, but then you also go on about some resistance 
and how we have to fight.  If it's all premeditated by fate, then what 
is the point?"

"You don't believe in fate?" Richter shot out, his eyes burning into 
Elspeth the whole time.  He had been watching her throughout the entire 
conversation, but what his thoughts were, they were a mystery to all but 
himself.

Elspeth turned her dark eyes toward him and levelled him with her stare.  
"I believe in free will, yes."  She said this slowly, and her voice 
seemed to grow deeper and stronger.  There was a razor gleam in her eye.  
"I think we all manifest our own destinies.  The universe is full of 
chaos.  Our choices merely bring a little more order."

"But our choices are made to simply carry us along the path that fate 
has already set down, Elspeth!" Nathaniel said emphatically.  He slammed 
one fist into the palm of his other hand.  "It's fated that the 
colonists would come.  It was fated that *you* showed up today at this 
house and not another one.  It is fated that there is a resistance and 
that it will fight for its freedom."

"Sounds like you're just trying to find a loophole to get yourself out 
of having responsibility for your own actions, Nat," Richter 
interjected.

"Exactly," Elspeth agreed, a strange look crossing her face as she 
turned to stare at Richter.  Returning her eyes to focus in on 
Nathaniel's, Elspeth continued.  "But now tell me more of your 
resistance."

"There's a meeting tonight."  His voice fell to a hush.  "Very covert 
and secretive."  He winked at Jodie.  "Are you all interested in coming?  
How about it?"  Elspeth nodded, as did Richter, albeit reluctantly.  
Jodie was all excitement. Nathaniel turned his attention now to Scully.  
"Dana?  Are you in?"

Scully turned her head up.  She paused a moment, almost for the dramatic 
effect, considering his offer.  She pursued her lips together and 
responded definitively with the strong voice she had been missing for 
the last few months.

"Yes."

<><><><><><><><><><> 

The contrast in between the cool night and the swelter of the hidden 
warehouse room where the meeting was almost knocked Scully off her feet.  
The strains of autumn lacing the air that had inundated Scully's lungs 
earlier were suddenly and violently expelled as the scent of ocean 
rotted wood and old tires pushed inward.

There were more people packed into that small room than Scully had seen 
in ages.  They were a cornucopia of races, genders, and Scully 
suspected, humans and hybrids.  She did not make this observation out 
loud, though.  From what she knew of Richter from their brief 
acquaintance, it was obvious that he had a long-standing hatred for 
everything and anything not human.  She wasn't ready to antagonize him 
any, or have him go berserk on them during the meeting.

The heat inside was generated by the numerous bodies moving about.  
Nathaniel took lead and pushed through to the front up by a stage.  
Scully forward and leaned up on the stage.  Her cheeks were flushed, but 
her hands were cold.  She pressed one palm to her face and circled 
around to survey the surroundings.  It was dark and wild--there were 
people dressed in rags and those dressed in suits.  It was chaos and 
confusion, but she felt a new energy as she stood there amongst the 
nameless masses, her ears filled with the roar of thunder.

Nathaniel climbed up on stage and yelled for silence.  Slowly the crowd 
hushed and he began to speak.

"You are all here because you believe in the same cause.  You believe in 
preservation, in life.  You believe in the human race!"  A roar erupted 
from behind Scully, and she was numb with the excitement flying threw 
her veins.  Nathaniel then quieted them with his hands.  "We can be all 
talk, though, but what we need is action if we want to save ourselves 
from this cruel fate we have been dealt!"  He winked down at Elspeth 
whose face was glowing with sweat, and whose eyes were fierce and 
enraptured in the moment.  "Join me, people!  Human or hybrid.  Man or 
woman.  Resist their slavery, their death. Together, we have the genius 
of a crowd, the strength and combined forces to win this battle!"  Jodie 
scrambled up on stage and grasped him in a hug.  He gave a great laugh.  
"Young and old, join us!"  

"Hybrid?" 

Scully spun around to see Richter, his jaw set in controlled anger.  
Elspeth turned and stared at him.  When he turned his gaze on her, she 
did not turn away.  Instead, she trained her stare even harder until he 
looked away.

"Don't let your hate overwhelm you, Richter.  I know there's a good man 
in there somewhere."  He did not look back.

"Your attention, please," Nathaniel shouted from the above the roar of 
the  crowd.  "We are honored today to have with us one of the 
co-founders of the resistance in the midwest."

Elspeth stared up.  "What are you doing, Nat?" she asked calmly.  He 
reached down and grabbed her hand.  "We need you, Elspeth.  Speech."

Up on the stage now stood Nathaniel and Jodie to one side, and Elspeth 
front and center in.  She looked straight on, but was the picture of 
calm.  Scully shivered suddenly despite the heat.  Elspeth looked almost 
accustomed to this.  Then she spoke, and all eyes turned on her.

"We are all afraid.  Many of us, very alone."  She looked down, but 
Scully could not tell if Elspeth was looking at her or at Richter who 
was now transfixed, perhaps paralyzed by Elspeth's presence.  "But we 
must dash this fear and find strength and logic."  Her hand curved into 
a crescent and she brought it up to her heart.  "Be passionate.  But 
don't let yourself be ruled by your emotions.  Work together, but do not 
trust everyone you meet.  You must be strong.  This is war.

The enraptured silence continued, and Elspeth continued, her blue shirt 
glowing in the dimness of the room.  

"I was brought here a few days ago from a compound in Michigan.  And 
there I saw many men, many men and women that you might once have deemed 
leaders and paragons of strength.  But they were broken.  They had given 
in to the colonists."  Her eyes glistened with impending tears brought 
on by her heightened state of emotion.  "But there, I saw a man that 
some of you might know of.  Almost a legend.  They had him, but he was 
not broken."  She said this, clipped and concise, her face breathless 
but intense.  "They gave him their worst.  They tortured him 
psychologically and physically.  They did things to him so inhuman that 
your blood would chill if you knew.  But this man--Fox Mulder--did not 
break.  As much pain as he must have been suffering, he did not forsake 
us and our cause.  He risked everything by not caving to their whim.  
Follow his example.  We *shall* win this."

The world suddenly heaved and Scully felt herself jerking as though she 
were caught in a storm.  The audience around her exploded, arms flying, 
fists reaching toward the sky in new resolution.

Elspeth then looked down at Scully, and her face contorted.  She 
mouthed, "You *are* Scully."  Scully nodded numbly and watched as 
Elspeth leapt off the stage and grabbed her by the arms.

"He's alive?"

"Goddammit, yes!" Elspeth cried, spinning around with Scully.  "*You* 
are Scully!"  she laughed again.  Noticing Richter looking at them both, 
Elspeth walked over to him and took a hand.  "Will you join me, Richter?  
Will you join us?"

A wall came crumbling down, and Richter McLachlan nodded, his face 
almost softening.

"She is *Scully* afterall, whatever that means."

Elspeth embraced him, and Scully laughed to herself as she watched the 
blush rising in his cheeks.

"Time to go," Nat called, and they left, new men and women suddenly 
transformed by the re-emergence of the human spirit.

<><><><><><><><><><>

Despite everything.  Despite the past.  Despite the future. Despite 
herself, Dana Scully was feeling it again.  The glow; the slow rumble in 
her stomach and shine returning to her eyes.

They walked through the beautiful Rhode Island night like worshippers 
returning from a holy crusade.  Scully was alive.

If Mulder could rise from the ashes, so could she.