Title: Negative Utopia Author: prufrock's love Rating: R. Not for the kiddies. Classification: Story, Post-colonization, Serious Angst, MSR, Everybody/other- but it turns out really bad, Secondary character death Summary: After the world ends, the struggle to survive at any cost continues. Spoilers: Through Season 7 Distribution: As you like or link to: www.geocities.com/prufrocks_love/utopia.html Feedback: No Disclaimer: I own none of the characters, people, or name brands, nor do I profit from them. Author's notes: There are elements of romance in this story, but die-hard MSRs who adored "Cycles" may not like this. Rereading it, it reminds me most of The Stand (but much, much shorter) and Terminator, if that helps. I have an idea for another MSR, so hold on to your flames for a few weeks - this is what the muse sent this time around. Can't piss off the muse. For those that like to play "find the obscure reference," they're not that obscure this time and include Brave New World, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaiden's Tale, Lord of the Flies, Contact, The Stand, and a few biblical (not Ghostbusters!). The Greenbrier Bunker in White Sulphur Springs, WV is a real place and (free plug) open to the public for really expensive, really cool tours, none of which profit me, either. James Randi has a foundation which offers a million dollar prize to anyone that can scientifically demonstrate the paranormal, and the prize remains unclaimed. Apologies to Randi, Newt Gingrich, and Pat Robertson - at least I didn't kill you off, and that's always a big danger in my stories. Negative Utopia by prufrock's love *** I am Mulder's now. It's still surprising to me how readily I think of myself as property. As though I have no say over my life anymore, no voice. In truth, I do not. The leader of the colony where I was living – 451 - ordered me to pack my things this morning. I obeyed, although there wasn't much to pack - a change of clothes, a few toiletries, an old picture of Mulder and one of my family. I figured I had been traded to another colony again. A doctor was a powerful bargaining chip and winter was coming. We needed supplies. Mulder was standing in the shadows of the porch next to a wooden box about the size of a milk crate. The leader lifted the lid, nodded, and without a word, handed my duffel bag to him. The deal was done. Mulder walked down the cracked steps without looking at me and got into the driver's seat of a green Jeep. I followed quickly, afraid to look back. It's been hours now and Mulder still hasn't spoken. He's older - it's been more than six years since I last saw him. His hair is cut short and his face is tanned, as though he spends most of his time outdoors. Gone are the expensive suits, replaced by serviceable denim, cotton, and leather. He is clean shaven, which is odd these days. There's a pistol and a knife on his hip, normal apparel now, and more weapons in the back seat. I see a scar on his forearm and another on his jaw, evidence of violent encounters, with who or what exactly, I don't know. He's still slim, but his body is harder, rougher. Shoulders are broader, muscles are built by survival now instead of bench presses. In short, Mulder has hardened. He doesn't seem to notice that I'm staring at him. In fact, he doesn't seem to notice much of anything except the road. Mulder just drives silently, through mile after mile through nothingness. The bigger cities were destroyed, not by the aliens, but by humans. What wasn't burned or looted in the initial panic was bombed once governments toppled and extremists got their fingers on the 'nukes' button, although only with the smaller bombs in the US. I'd heard that China was wiped clean. By the time the aliens were in place to start their breeding programs, there wasn't much left to breed with. Once colonization began, the seas boiled and the sky's fell. Any humans that could be found were rounded up and infected with Purity. The aliens gestated, hatched, and moved on within a month, leaving the planet raped not only of it's citizens, but of its civilization. What followed reminded me of a Stephen King novel - pockets of survivors began to emerge and regroup into colonies. Most survivors were those already infected with Purity or vaccinated by the Consortium – including Mulder and me - who couldn't gestate. There were a few others, though, who managed to escape the human toll and evade the aliens' concentration camps. We peaked out like gophers after the hawk flies on, searching for direction. As civilization rose from its ashes, it reformed and regressed thousands of years. There was no law except to survive. Trade what you have, if you have it, for what you need, or kill and take what you want. The strong survived, the weak either died or became property. I became property. I've been treated much better than most women. Dramatically better, even for a woman with skills which make her useful. I belong to the community, not to a single man, so the community has an interest in my being well-cared for. I've never been raped or hurt and I always have clothing and enough to eat. An elder tried to force me once and was later found with both his hands cut off, a strong warning for other men. Mulder's warning. My skills were for sale, but my body belonged to someone else. Now Mulder has come to claim it. As I notice the pressure in my bladder and the emptiness in my stomach, Mulder pulls the Jeep off the road into the trees and stops. He gets out and disappears silently into the woods. So it is true - he can still hear others' thoughts as clearly as he could six years ago. I've heard stories about the great Fox Mulder, but it's hard to separate fact from legend. Mulder is a mystery man, capable of killing with a thought. His preferred weapon is a pistol, a straight razor, his bare hands. Mulder fights for the aliens, the rebels, the humans, or for his own gain. He kills for profit, for revenge, for pleasure. He was too dangerous for any colony to accept him, so he roams. He is a monster, a hero, a tragedy. Any of the rumors could be truth or lies or somewhere in between; I had no way of knowing. I only knew that I was alone until this morning. Mulder returns and hands me a bottle of water, an apple, and a wedge of cheese from a bag in the back seat. There was no shortage of fresh water and food, but anything that required processing, like cheese, was rare. Few people have the skills necessary and those that do often used those skills to keep themselves alive, rarely having excess to trade. That was how colonies emerged - providing protection for the inhabitants in exchange for services for the colony. Farmers farmed, hunters hunted, while warriors warred. There were other benefits in a colony - a group leader could trade for things an individual could never afford - a doctor or an electrician. Leadership was gained and maintained by violence, if necessary, and fighting between colonies was legendary. Mulder was one of the great warriors - killing for whoever bid the highest. That was the myth, anyway. It's getting dark now. Even Mulder wouldn't brave headlights in the dark - announcing he was a sitting duck to anyone who might be watching. He still doesn't speak or look at me. His face is haunted in the dying light; a man whose eyes have seen too much. He turns off the road into a long driveway and stops the Jeep behind a farmhouse where it can't be seen. I follow him inside, almost shaking with emotion. Is this where you live now, Mulder? A quiet farmer in the middle of nowhere? Are all the legends about you lies? No. No one's lived in this house for a long time. This is just a place to spend the night. I watch Mulder rig all the windows to make noise if they're opened and brace the doors closed, locking out the night. He finishes his rounds in the bedroom, standing at the bottom of a stranger's bed. I take the hint. I unlace my boots to get them off and let my jacket fall on the floor. Jeans off next, then over-shirt. I don't have any pajamas, so I lay down on the bed in my panties and t-shirt. I love you, Mulder - please don't hurt me. I'm scared. I pray he hears me. He doesn't bother to even undress. In the dark, I hear him set something heavy and metal on the night stand - a gun, and the bed shifts as he lays beside me. I'm very still, waiting for a touch. When it doesn't come, I roll away from him and will sleep to take me instead. We slept like this once, Mulder. Do you remember that night? Knowing there would never be another like it - two scared people trying to save each other with flesh in the night. The bed shifts again as Mulder moves towards me. I try not to flinch. A hand rests lightly in the small of my waist, tentative and comforting, and I feel safe. For the first time in six years, I feel safe and I sleep. Dawn. I wake to Mulder wrapped around me and I forget for a sleepy second that the world has ended. We're still in DC or a motel room somewhere and Mulder has fallen asleep in my bed. God, Mulder, don't you have your own room? Not that I'm complaining, but it doesn't look good. Then sun burns away my dream and I remember. No more motels, no more FBI, no more innocence. We aren't staying here. Mulder is filling the Jeep's gas tank and loading supplies that were hidden in an outbuilding. This must be a safe house he uses. Rumor has it that he criss-crosses the country regularly alone, making the trip that others fear. The walled colonies are safe; the empty plains filled with real Road Warriors are not. I get in the Jeep as Mulder starts it and another day on the road begins. He looks at me, really looks at me for the first time with sad eyes. Oh, Mulder - I love you. No matter what you've done or who you've become, I love you. I feel him inside my mind, listening. He puts the Jeep in gear, eyes straight ahead. I brave a hand on his denim arm and he lets it stay. Mulder drives without stopping across the plains. There are fields gone to seed and an occasional shell of a burnt house visible from the road. I wonder how these people died. They probably weren't killed in the initial riots - did any of them survive, escape the alien's concentration camps? Or did they lie terrified under chicken wire while the black oil dripped onto them, gestating and exploding in their bodies as it took life? Mulder stops to let me empty my bladder again and I see a figure approaching the Jeep from behind as I return. I yell for Mulder to look out and he pivots and pulls the trigger without hesitation. The shot catches the dark-skinned boy in the center of his forehead, killing him instantly. Mulder must have become a better marksman since I last saw him. I examine the dead boy out of habit and in my need for something to do in my shock. He doesn't have a weapon. "How did you know he was going to hurt us?" I ask Mulder. "I didn't," comes his response as he starts the Jeep. I get in, leaving the body of a boy not old enough to have peach fuzz on his face laying in the road for the buzzards. I know Mulder can talk now, but he doesn't say anything else as he drives. I let my mind drift away from the horror and sleep lightly against his shoulder in the warm sun. I can't judge him. I didn't have to survive what he survived. Mulder was the reason I was safe and sheltered in all this madness. *** The phone rang just after midnight on a Monday morning. Damn it, Mulder - it's a holiday. No chasing bad guys on a holiday. I figured he felt too lousy to do anything anyway - he'd had another monster headache Friday afternoon and I'd sent him home to sleep it off when I couldn't find anything wrong. I had a CT scan scheduled for him on Tuesday. Mulder's voice on the line was forceful: "Pack like you're going camping and call your mother. Tell her to get out of the city. I'll be there in thirty minutes, Scully." I was already stuffing a bag. "Why, Mulder? Where are we going?" "They're coming." And he hung up. I didn't need to ask who "they" were. Mulder took a Bureau car - he could care less about protocol. If he was right, by tomorrow, there wouldn't be anyone to object. We drove southwest, flying down the interstate as visions of 'them' chased us. Sunrise found us just over the Virginia border and revealed giant discs in the sky, looking remarkably like Independence Day. I wondered if Mulder ever saw that movie? Mulder stopped behind a huge hotel and I realized where we are. The Greenbrier. The Greenbrier bunker in White Sulphur Springs. The bomb shelter built covertly under the luxury resort decades ago to house Congress in case of nuclear attack. It wasn't a government secret anymore - but the aliens didn't know that. Skinner was already there, as were The Gunmen and a few politicians I recognized from CNN, waiting to close the doors. Mulder and the others pulled the concealed blast doors shut with an immense metallic echo, sealing us off from the world before its inhabitants awoke to find judgment day had come. As Skinner spun the wheel on the second door, locking us behind tons of reinforced steel, silence pervaded. Were we all there were? Out of five billion people, were we ten or so the only ones who knew? How did Mulder know? "I can hear them in my head," he answered me. I didn't ask out loud. "I can hear you, Scully," he said. "Hear, Scully." "Hear, Scully." *** I shake myself awake. Mulder is speaking, his voice rusty. "We're here, Scully. We won't stay, but you can clean up." "Here" is yet another farmhouse with chickens in the yard and children playing on the front steps. A woman comes to the door, holding a rifle. When she sees Mulder, she lowers the gun and returns to the house without speaking. Maybe no one speaks outside of the colonies. Mulder gets a bag out of the back seat and takes it in the house as I stand in the yard. He's bartering - the rest of the cheese and some cigarettes for whatever this woman sells. I can guess what it is that she sells. Women didn't fare well After. That was all it was called - Before and After. Firstly, there weren't many women After. I was probably the only female that had been vaccinated, and very few had been infected with Purity. Most of the others that survived were flukes - hunters out in the woods, fisherman out in boats - almost all men. The aliens were thorough in their sweeps; hiding in the basement didn't save you. After the aliens left and rebuilding began, women were important pawns, but pawns. Some lived as wives if their husbands were powerful enough to keep them safe, but most didn't. Women with medical training like me were in high demand, but others made their way with the skills they had. Like this woman. Her swollen belly and the children on the porch were evidence of another post-colonization phenomena I had encountered - no birth control. I'd delivered many babies in the last five years, most of them unwanted. Latex breaks down quickly and pills, if you could find them, were outdated. Within two years, any woman of childbearing age looked like something out of the middle ages. I'd seen some women with five children under the age of five. Mulder comes out and nods to me. I step over a dark- haired toddler and preschool-aged boy on the wooden floor and go to him. I know this woman. I've seen her. Then I remember - she's one of Mulder's informants. Worked for the UN. Name starts with 'm' - Miranda, Matilda? It doesn't matter - now she's just a whore. She must have a man around somewhere; there was no way she lived alone out here. I see Mulder in the back yard with the little boy and the toddler - they know him, he must be here a lot. Then I realize who Miranda/Matilda's protector must be. Again, I do not judge. Our parting words were 'Survive. No questions.' I did what I had to; I guess Mulder did too. The blonde woman grudgingly fills the tub for my bath, carrying water from a pump in the yard and heating several pots on the stove. I lay back in the luxury; I can't remember the last time I bathed in something besides a stream. There is even soap and razors. Shampoo and conditioner. There was no shortage of supplies After, but getting them from place to place was still a problem. Anything with a shelf life that survived the looting was there for the taking and there weren't enough people left for there to be shortages; the supplies were just in isolated pockets. Several colonies had established local trade routes, but not many. Most were self- sufficient, trading for what they need with whoever happened by. Mulder must bring her these things. Looking out the window as I dry, I see Mulder offer the older boy a lollipop. The boy takes it shyly and sits beside Mulder on a bench, leaning against him. They could be any father and son or uncle and nephew enjoying the warm sunshine in their back yard Before, except that I saw Mulder shoot another boy point- blank this morning. Sometimes, I'm sure it's not real. That this is a bad dream that I'll wake up from. It's - surreal. Aliens invading, civilization collapsing. It was every movie I'd seen or book I'd read. There were even jokes about it – the colony I was living in was '451,' and 'Alpha' before that. Drugs and alcohol were 'soma.' There were unpeople and big brothers, road warriors and savages. A rival leader was a 'Randall Flagg' and a woman not a whore or a professional was a 'Martha.' Post-apocalypse humor. Clean clothes have appeared in place of my dirty ones and I put them on, marveling that they fit. I remember silk and cashmere fondly - it was still available, but useless. Cotton, denim, wool, and leather. Mad Max meets John Wayne. I dry my hair in the breeze and watch Mulder bathing in the creek. The little boy sits on the bank, holding Mulder's gun and knife, still savoring the last licks of his lollipop. That child can't be more than four. When Mulder returns to the house, hair still damp, he opens the hood of her old truck in the driveway. He tinkers a bit and the engine hums to life. My Mulder that couldn't fix a dripping faucet. The woman brings Mulder a rag to wipe off his hands and a glass of water. I didn't get a glass of water, but I get the feeling she doesn't like me very much. If I were her, I wouldn't like me very much, either. It's afternoon now. Only a few more hours of daylight. Another man with a familiar face emerges from the corn fields, holding the customary rifle. Krycek. Wonder how well he shoots with one arm? He and Mulder exchange glares and the oldest boy runs and hides behind Mulder as the toddler goes to Krycek. Krycek leers at me and Mulder puts a hand on the pistol on his hip, warning him. Krycek turns and vanishes into the fields without a word, the toddler trailing after him. Guess Mulder is the better shot. The woman brings a baby to me to check. I pronounce her fine and the woman nods and returns to the house, closing the door behind her, never speaking to me. I'd like to check her pregnancy and the other children, but that isn't requested. Mulder starts the Jeep and I get in. I'm not asking any questions - I don't think I want the answers. The oldest boy climbs in over me and settles himself in the back seat, fastening his seatbelt, humorously enough. Mulder just drives west into the dying sun. We spend the night in another abandoned house with the boy sleeping curled up against my chest and Mulder against my back like some bizarre blended family. I still don't know the boy's name or why he's with us. Like Mulder, the child doesn't say much. Morning brings more west again. I can see the outlines of the gray Rocky Mountains in the distance. The miles hum by as the air cools, the Jeep's knobby tires singing against the asphalt, lulling me. *** The bunker smelled like a battleship - lots of metal and gray paint. Vast. No sounds invaded to tell us what was happening above us - were the rebels striking back or was the planet wiped clean? Mulder said the ships were moving into place and would soon begin collecting specimens. That was the word he used; how the aliens think of us. No, the rebels were losing. People were dying. Mulder closed his eyes and scanned through the radio stations of thoughts he must have been hearing. He couldn't find my mother or Bill, but that didn't mean anything - there were so many thoughts to listen to and he could only listen, not necessarily know who he was listening to. The bunker had space and provisions for several hundred people and we were less than a dozen. Our watches said it was night again, although there was no sign. No way to tell night from day. We fanned out through the dormitories and rooms, trying to get our bearings in our new world. Mulder and I found a room on a floor all to ourselves - I wanted him to have his space. When he closed the door, I sat on the bed, buried my face in my hands, and cried. Mulder held me as I shook, sharing my tears. I could feel him inside my head, a gentle probing pressure. Light pressure to feel what my body felt, more intense throbbing to listen to my thoughts. He could feel my grief and shock, but I couldn't feel his. Early in the morning, I had finally fallen asleep against his chest when I heard him startle awake and gasp. "It's quiet." "What's quiet?" I whispered, like the aliens would hear us fifty feet underground under twenty feet of cement and steel. "The thoughts - it just suddenly got very quiet." Mulder listened in the blackness, tuning to someone who might have an answer. "Mushroom clouds, Scully - nuclear bombs. They've wiped out the cities." "The aliens?" "No, we did it." God, he must have just heard millions of people die. What that must sound like... "Are the aliens still coming?" "They're coming - they want me. They're looking for me." "Why, Mulder?" "They know I can hear them. They want me to help them communicate. They can't find me, though, so they're searching... they're searching for you. The chip - they're searching by the chip in your neck. I can hear them. They haven't found you yet, but they will. They don't want you, Scully; you already have Purity - so do I, but they'll still kill you to get me." He had to run, to get away from me before the aliens could get him. But where could he run too? We were locked under tons of steel. "The bombs are still exploding, Scully - the cities are burning and they can't search through all the interference. Not for another few hours, anyway. Then I'll have to go." There was no more talking. Alone in the dark, cinderblock room, in the too-narrow, too-short bed, I kissed him. I couldn't let him go without him knowing I loved him. No, without showing him I loved him. He already knew. I could feel Mulder being distracted by his thoughts, pulled away from me by the screaming tides. "Just me, Mulder. Come inside me," I told him, and the throbbing in my head increased until it blocked out even my listening to my own thoughts. I could feel my body's sensations, but there was no cognition, no rationalization, no doubts. As a woman whose thoughts had always interfered with love-making, it would have been a frightening experience, except that I couldn't feel fear. Only pleasure. Mulder shared my every sensation, intensifying his own experience, and allowing him to play my body like a fine violin. He came because he felt me coming because he was coming because I was coming. Together, we were a complete cycle. Afterwards, our bodies separated, but Mulder stayed in my head, listening to my sleepy thoughts. My fears. My desires. In that night, he knew me. "They've found you, Scully. They're coming." I bolted upright at those words. Mulder was dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed. "I love you. I'll ask Skinner to take care of you - just stay with him. I've been listening to everyone and he's the best choice. He won't let anyone hurt you, but... he likes you, Scully. Just do what he says, okay? I'll come for you when I can. Until then, I want you to survive - no questions about how you do it." A thousand thoughts flooded my mind at his words. No, don't leave me. Run, Mulder - don't let them catch you. Take me with you. I don't want Skinner- I want you. I can take care of myself. How long - how long until you can come? Hurry. I love you, Mulder. Please. But Mulder was gone. I heard his footsteps in the long hall. I ran to catch up and heard him talking to Skinner. "Take care of her, sir. I can hear what's happening outside and I don't want that to be her. I won't let them hurt you all, but you'll have to keep her away from other men. Just you. Don't let anyone else... Don't hurt her, sir." Mulder must have heard my thoughts, because his next words were, "I'm sorry, Scully. Go back - I don't want you to hear this. Just survive – no questions." I retreated back into the room, sitting on the still- damp spot on the bed, curling into a ball and sobbing. Down the long hall I heard twenty tons of blast door swing slightly open, then a monstrous clangy thud as it slammed shut again. *** We stop for lunch and to let the restless little boy stretch his legs. I ask him his name as Mulder slices another apple for him, cutting off the peeling like my mother used to do. The child shrugs, huge hazel eyes watching me. Old eyes. "Boy. We just call him boy," Mulder says. Boy nods. I haven't heard him speak yet either. Mulder seems to know what the boy needs, just like he knows what I need. He gets a rifle out of the back of the Jeep and vanishes into the tall grass and random rows of corn. After about twenty minutes, I hear a shot and see a large bird fall from the sky. Dinner. "He won't hurt you, you know." So the boy can speak. I thought it might have become a lost art. His slow, measured words are too old for his years - they remind me of the way Gibson Praise spoke. "He's taking you someplace safe. He loves you." "Can you hear like he can?" I ask and the boy bobs his head up and down childishly - the way a four- year-old should. A shit-eating grin crosses his face and mischief glimmers in his eyes. He reminds me of someone I used to know Before... Mulder. He reminds me of Mulder. This is his son. The toddler and the baby were Krycek's, but this boy is Mulder's. A second shot and another bird drops from the sky. Mulder must be hungry. Two geese are added to the back of the Jeep and we pull back on the road. West. Always west. *** The first problem in the bunker was boredom. There was nothing to do, day after day, week after week. Frohike cooked, Skinner and Byers maintained the generator and the water processing plant, but for the rest of us, there was nothing that required our time. I did one round of kitchen duty before I was removed by a unanimous vote. Of course, I get trapped in a bunker with Newt Gingrich and Pat Robertson with nothing to do. Wherever Mulder was, he was laughing his ass off. Langley tried using his laptop to interface with the antiquated communications system, but there was no dial tone. No network still standing for the modem to link with. No TV or cable transmissions. Then he got the short wave radio working. The Gunmen spent every free hour scanning that radio, searching for life like the SETI project. I often sat with them for lack of anything better to do, listening to the static. I was day dreaming one afternoon when I heard Langley shout: "Randi! You owe me about a million dollars, mother-fucker!" A man's voice crackled through the static, "I got it right here - been using it for toilet paper." James Randi. The great skeptic. A hero of mine and a nemesis of Mulders - on the other side of that radio, our link to life on the other side of the blast door. I sat next to Pat Robertson at breakfast. God definitely had a sense of humor. According to Randi, the aliens seemed to have collected all the humans they were going to take. The saucers had moved on, along with the faceless rebel fighters. The larger cities had been destroyed and Randi hadn't seen another person since Before. He'd been out on his boat with his dog when they came and returned to shore a week later to find his house, his family, and his town all gone. Now it was just him and an old dog, sitting in a lighthouse beside the ocean. Waiting. Did we stay in the bunker or did we leave? Skinner voted to stay, as did The Gunmen, but the others wanted to go. No one asked me. Society was already changing. The final decision was to open the blast doors but to stay in the bunker, so Skinner and Byers unlatched the huge gray door, leveraging their weight against its squealing hinges as it opened. There was nothing alive except deer grazing in the ruins of the resort and dogs looking for their masters. No people. Mulder was right - the world had suddenly become quiet. In many ways, our group was very well off. We had a stronghold that was practically impossible to penetrate. I had a medical background and the Gunmen had technical knowledge; Skinner had a marine's survival training. The politicians - well, they - they had lots of opinions. No cities near us had been bombed, so no fallout. We had food and water to last for months. We started rebuilding. We weren't the only ones who knew about the bunker, of course. Men began to appear out of the woods and from the road leading into the valley, clutching rifles and backpacks. Some were mountain men native to the area, some were military men already infected with Purity that survived the bombs and the riots. All were men, though. And all were lonely. Within six months, there were more than a hundred men living in Alpha Colony. Alpha-males. Skinner was never humble. I slept in the same room as Skinner at night after one of the new men got a little too persistent. I usually hid out in the bunker clinic or stayed with the Gunmen in the radio room during the day. Our colony began to form, order out of chaos. If we had a leader, it was Skinner, but we were still pulling for democracy. It wasn't working. Skinner had been asked several times what he wanted for me - the men assumed we were lovers. Skinner had never mentioned whatever he and Mulder discussed, and he hadn't made a move that could have been construed as sexual. There were several gay couples that formed, but most men watched me. I knew having me around was becoming a problem - limiting his ability to lead. Skinner spent his time babysitting me instead of commanding. Mulder was right, I needed protecting, as much as I hated it. This was a society where the strong survived and the weak suffered, and I was one of the weak. One man in particular was a problem. He'd made his way north from Tennessee, and I always thought he was probably a relative of the Peacock family. No too bright. Didn't like hearing "no." Skinner and the counsel that had formed to make decisions told him to leave after he grabbed me in the shower on day. He refused and Skinner shot him in the back of the head, execution-style. After that, Skinner was our leader and no one questioned him. Men came to me for medical treatment in the bunker clinic with Byers, usually, looking on with a rifle. It was that bad. Two hundred men and one woman. I was a target and a weakness. One night, I felt a soft throbbing in my temples, like a migraine, except it didn't hurt. More like a doctor gently kneading an abdomen, pushing, searching. The pressure increased and I knew it was Mulder - listening to my thoughts from wherever he was. He could still do it, even after the spaceships moved on. I laid back on my cot and welcomed him. Skinner was asleep in his bed against the wall, so I let my hands roam over my body, knowing Mulder could feel the sensation. Sleep came and he had left me when I awoke. Mulder came often for a while when I was at Alpha Colony, usually at night, but sometimes in the day just to listen to me. To make sure I was safe. I had no way of knowing where he was or why he didn't come get me, but I knew he was alive - somewhere in the vast emptiness outside that valley. Skinner appeared in the clinic one day complaining about his head 'feeling funny.' I found no evidence of neurological problems or any illness in my rudimentary exam. He said it didn't hurt, just felt 'funny.' I sent him back out to work on the barn we were building for the livestock, ordering him to return if it actually hurt. The men frequently developed vague complaints in order to get to see me and I figured Skinner was just whining. Not that Skinner ever whined. It was still bothering him as we got ready to go to bed, which worried me. I rechecked him, but he was still in excellent health - all the outdoor physical activity suited him. I couldn't find anything wrong and he insisted it didn't hurt, just throbbed; pressure like someone was examining him from the inside. It was Mulder. It was Mulder listening to him. Listening hard and long, more than necessary to gather any information about our group or about Skinner and me. Mulder wanted to feel what Skinner could feel. I knew what Mulder wanted to feel. That meant Mulder couldn't ever come back to get me. I didn't explain what was happening to Skinner - I doubted he wanted a third in our bed. I just slipped off my clothes in front of him and waited. The birds and the bees and the monkey babies, Mulder. Birds do it, bees do it, even educated M.D.s do it. I just closed my eyes and licensed his roving hands. Skinner didn't question me that night. Afterwards, I went back to my own bed and slept alone. "That was Mulder, wasn't it?" he asked me the next morning. I nodded and he left, his face bearing the same stern, controlled expression it always did. It didn't happen again for several weeks and Mulder didn't listen to me, either. I filled my days with stitching up wounds, removing splinters, and even performed an appendectomy I was very proud of with the assistance of a very green Byers. There were more fights - struggles for power and supplies. Most of the men in this colony were ones I would have thought of as bad guys Before. Covert government agents, MIBs, and special forces among those that had Purity, mostly military and mountain men with the training to survive among those that weren't infected. Skinner was holding on to power, barely, and I was more and more a liability for him. Skinner came to me the next time, making love to me gently and silently. He said only that Mulder was listening and asked my permission. I closed my eyes and gave it. Whatever Mulder wanted. It happened again a week later and then not for another month. I never dreaded it - Skinner was a good lover - but I missed Mulder in my head, listening for me. *** Mulder has stopped the Jeep again and the boy has already climbed out, running towards a house. A young man with glasses opens the door for the child and he scampers inside. The man - no, the teenager, smiles at me and waves. Mulder is bringing in our bags and the two birds he shot. When I reach the front door, the young man grabs me in a big bear hug and lifts me off my feet. Whoever it is, he's definitely friendly. Those glasses... Gibson. It's Gibson Praise. That's right - he could hear the same way Mulder could. Can. If he'd been infected with Purity Before, he was useless to the aliens an a host, so they would have let him live. He was about ten or eleven Before, making him about sixteen or seventeen now. Gibson! I kiss him square on the lips before I can stop myself. Mulder hands the birds to a girl with, of course, a big belly. She goes outside to clean them as I watch her, worried. She's barely hit puberty - her hips are still very narrow. Might be about thirteen years old at the most, although she's tall. She was going to have trouble having that baby. Maybe that was why Mulder wanted me. Oh please, don't let this be his child too. She's a child herself, Mulder. *** It was actually a pregnant woman that caused me to leave Skinner's Alpha Colony. Another leader made an offer too good to turn down - trade me for a veterinarian they had and the other group would stop trying to take the bunker - call a truce. The leader had a wife pregnant with twins, according to the vet, and they needed a doctor. I saw Skinner's eyes as he thought about it. The other colony had women and more civilians, so less infighting for power and more stability. They were even rumored to have prostitutes, so it wasn't likely I would be raped. Skinner was having difficulty keeping order among his men and waging a battle to keep the bunker and protecting me. He couldn't fight a war on two fronts. Something had to give. Skinner never asked me what I wanted. My AD, who always respected my work as a woman in the FBI, never asked me. I didn't want to go and I told him so. "Mulder was only listening the first time." That was all he said. The dozen or so other times we'd had sex, it was just because he wanted the release, so he lied to me. I was packed and ready to leave in an hour. Byers tried to object and Skinner shot him dead. There were no further arguments. *** The pregnant girl cooks the birds over a fire outside, looking like the Native Americans that lived here before the white men came. I can see the Indian features in her face - she's probably full blood. Black hair to her waist, high cheekbones. She would have been a child on a reservation maybe, one that was overlooked by the aliens. I feel Mulder behind me on the steps, sitting with his legs on either side of me. He pulls off the hat I usually wear to avoid attracting attention as a redhead and unbraids my hair. It's long now - it's easier to let it grow than to try and cut it. I feel the gentle tugs as he combs out the tangles, then buries his face in it, breathing deeply. He rebraids it the way he must have learned on Samantha's hair decades ago, fastening it with my elastic band. When he gets up, I reach back for my hat, but Mulder keeps it. "Leave it off," he says. "No one will bother you." After dinner, I lay in bed beside Mulder, listening to Gibson and the girl having sex upstairs. The boy is restless in front of me, tossing and turning. Finally the boy whispers to me: "Gibson isn't hurting her. You can go to sleep." I feel Mulder shift and the boy leaves silently. I hear the couch springs creak as the boy lays down in the living room, banished to the other end of the house. Mulder runs his hand over my shoulder and down my arms, up over my stomach and resting it between my breasts. "Do you want this, Scully?" He can hear what I want, he just wants the words to come out of my mouth. "You don't need to be afraid - I won't hurt you." Mulder stands up and undresses, revealing more scars on his body. Then he lies back on the bed and waits, the way I waited for Skinner. "If you want me, you make love to me." Mulder has never been passive about much of anything, and an apocalypse hasn't changed that. His hands rest on my hips as I slide down slowly, further and further without hesitation, gritting my back teeth against the pressure on my cervix. There, Mulder - does that tell you how much I want you? A hand on the small of my back - on my tattoo, and on my waist guide me as I rock. My orgasm comes almost instantly and I lay against his chest as he continues to guide my hips, faster and faster until I feel his body arch under mine. Only afterwards do I feel him inside my head, searching as I doze. *** I wondered after I left Skinner's colony if he hadn't lied to me. Only woman or not, I couldn't see him taking advantage of my trust. But I'd heard Mulder give him permission to use my body as he wanted - as though Mulder was the one that got to give permission. Regardless, I was leaving. I sat in the passenger seat of the Army transport truck as we drove to my new home and marveled at the landscape. I hadn't ever been out of the valley - it was too much of a risk. The men brought me whatever I wanted or needed, although they all thought I needed lots of lingerie instead of long underwear. This was either southern West Virginia or northern Virginia, I couldn't be sure - beautiful, still country. Herds of deer grazed beside to road, free of the hunters that once kept them thinned out. Most houses I saw were still standing - whole and empty. My driver - the leader, saw me smile when he stopped for a stop sign and used his turn signal, as though the old traffic rules still applied. "No one's going to hurt you - we just need a doctor," he assured me. Mister, as long as you aren't Walter Skinner, I don't care if you make me dig ditches, I remember thinking. He kept his word. No one harmed me and I wanted for nothing. Two weeks later he had a set of healthy identical twin girls and I was the colony hero. My life went on as it had before - aches and pains, accidental cuts and the occasional gunshot wound. Deliver babies and care for the dying. Much the same, except that Mulder came to me at night again, listening. *** I heard Mulder chuckle deeply in the dark. "Ah - to be sixteen again." Then I hear a girl's giggles upstairs and I understand. I kiss Mulder - it's been so long since I've heard him laugh. I wasn't sure that he still could. He kisses me back and I learn that forty-five knows a few things sixteen doesn't. Nestled naked in his arms, I wait for morning. Dawn brought a change of vehicles and more west. It is colder in the mountains and Mulder gives me a winter coat and put one on the boy - he's planned this trip for some time, although I'm still cold with the top off the Humvee. Gibson and the girl sit in the back seat, silent as we drive. There is no trace of the lover I'd heard laugh in the dark last night – only a silent man with a grim expression and a driven look in his eyes. After lunch, Gibson drives while Mulder sleeps in the back seat. Neither of us slept much last night. Gibson didn't either, from what I heard. Gibson keeps the vehicle in the middle of the two-lane, as one who had learned to drive without other cars on the road. Mulder did the same, as though he had erased any memory of Before. The girl rides shotgun, literally, holding a rifle in her slight arms while the little boy stares fascinated as the mountains grow larger. I have so many questions. Where have you been, Mulder? Why didn't you come for me? Join the colony under another name, if nothing else. Was this child conceived with her while you were listening to Skinner make love to me? The timing was right, but how could you do that to me? What happened to you to harden you into someone I barely recognize? Are you a killer, a martyr, or a victim? Where are you taking me? Why don't you talk to me? Do you remember all those nights together - long talks in a rental car about anything and everything as we drove in search of the truth? Do you remember who we were, Mulder? I can feel Mulder listening as he sleeps, but I get no answers - only silence in the Army vehicle as the mountains pass. Gibson slows as we round a blind turn and Mulder wakes, picking up the rifle he used to shoot the geese yesterday. The girl stands and braces herself, gun against her shoulder, ready as the boy gestures for me to get down. As we cower behind the seat, the Humvee lurches forward and I hear the girl lay down a line of cover. Several shots answer and Mulder fires twice. There are sickening wet sounds as his bullets find flesh and the squeal of tires as we round the curve too fast. Then it's over and the boy sits back up, pulling on my sleeve for me to follow. Mulder leans the rifle against the door of the Humvee and goes back to sleep, his son curled against him. Gibson isn't as sensitive about taking bathroom breaks, so the boy is squirming all over the place before I brave asking him. He pulls over without a word. What I wouldn't give for some of the friendly banter Mulder and I used to have. Actually, I'd settle for a good fight right now. All these men listening to each other's thoughts is getting to me. I drag my feet as much as possible, taking the boy into a rudimentary women's bathroom at a visitors' welcome center. It's in perfect working order- there are no women left alive to use it and it's hard to break a pit toilet. There's still brochures in racks, so I get several to entertain the boy. When we return, the girl is pacing and Mulder finally has an expression: annoyed. Mulder and Gibson fight without words, pointing at the girl and the vehicle. The boy translates for me: "She's having the baby too soon. Mulder wants to leave her here, but Gibson wants to wait and take her and the baby with us. He says he won't leave without her and you can deliver the baby. Mulder says she's going to die anyway and he should just shoot her now. That there isn't such a shortage of pussy that he needed to be fucking a child..." Mulder and Gibson freeze as the boy says those words, the argument instantly over. Mulder unpacks several sleeping bags - we're staying. Hours later, the girl is still pacing the tile floor, rapidly getting weaker. Gibson walks with her, worried, while Mulder sits with his back against the wall of the visitor's center and stares straight ahead, his rifle on the floor beside him. The boy sits on the other side of him, oddly silent, like the children that lived through the first holocaust. The next day comes without much change except that the girl is lying in the floor now, no longer able to walk. I have my bag with a scalpel and basic medical supplies, but nothing to perform a C-section, which is what she needs. If we were near a hospital, I'd take her there, but we're in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. Mulder's right - she's going to die. I see Gibson kiss her forehead and Mulder raise the rifle before I can finish that thought. I open my mouth to say 'no,' but she's already dead in a pool of blood. I can still take the baby, but Gibson shakes his head. There's no way to save a premature baby here, anyway. Mulder rolls up the sleeping bag he was sitting on and starts the Humvee. Again, I get in the passenger's seat, leaving a child's dead body to the scavengers. By nightfall, we're through the mountains. We stop at dusk, Mulder choosing a Victorian-style house strategically set atop a hill. There are actually deer in the front yard, so a fat doe cooks while Gibson and Mulder put the top on the Humvee. After we eat, Mulder isn't sleepy, and Gibson finally takes the boy to bed with him, leaving me to Mulder. "I'm not a monster, Scully." At last - he speaks. I'm sure the angels are rejoicing. "I survived, just like you did. I don't question what you had to do." I didn't shoot any children, Mulder. "I did what I had to do. Would you rather have watched her suffer for hours?" "Stop that!" I scream at him. "Get out of my head!" "I don't blame you if I frighten you, or even if you hate me, but don't question my motives about you. You're the one thing I still care about. The one thing I still love." What about your son? What about Gibson? "I thought you might want the boy - Marita doesn't want him and Krycek hates him. He's a good boy, Scully, but you don't have to take him. I worried about that." "Will you kill him too, if I don't want him?" I will speak out loud! "No, I'll take him back to his mother and kill Krycek." He says it like it's the obvious choice. "I guess I just want some answers, Mulder. Where you've been, what you've done. Why you didn't come for me sooner. What you've become. I just saw my friend shoot a teenage girl in the face without flinching - that's not the man I remember." "I'm not the man you remember, Scully. Not even close." More silence as he leads me to the bed he's made, zipping two sleeping bags together. I let him undress me and himself, then slip under the top sleeping bag with him. "You know, this is the best way to keep warm, Scully," he says as his knees part my legs, hands on my breasts. That was an echo of my Mulder, curled up beside me in a forest with a sore shoulder, and listening to me sing Three Dog Night off-key. Maybe there are only echoes of that man left. In the floor of the looming house in the pitch blackness, that is enough. I feel him penetrate, and oddly, it feels exactly like my Mulder, so I will my body to relax. Gibson is gone in the morning. I don't know where he could have gone - we're in the middle of nowhere. The boy woke us up - standing over me before dawn announcing he was scared of the dark. Boy, you're not the only one, and there's a hell of a lot of dark out there. We eat cold venison for breakfast and set off again. More west. *** I would feel Mulder listening to me, checking that I was all right. It took him a while to locate me after I went to the new colony, but after he found me, I felt him often. When the one man tried to rape me and I fought him off, I'm sure that it was Mulder that cut off his hands. Others must have thought the same thing, because that's when I heard the first rumors about him. The ex-FBI agent that could read minds. Fought with the rebels during the initial alien attack, using his gift to beat the aliens at their own game - or the other way around, depending on who was telling the story. He'd been all over the Earth After, even crossing the oceans. Now he roamed, searching for a woman. Others said he just roamed to kill for the highest bidder or for revenge. If there was a war between colonies, Mulder was there, bringing death with him. If you wanted something transported across the country, through the badlands, he was your man. The legends said he was the cruelest person alive. I didn't know what to believe, so I just waited. I couldn't leave and I wondered of Mulder would ever come for me. After a few years, I decided the answer was 'no.' *** "Are you my mother, now?" the boy asks as we cross from Utah into Nevada, the 'Welcome' sign still standing. A few vehicles had approached and dropped back quickly when they saw Mulder behind the wheel as we crossed the desert. They watched, but didn't threaten. His mother? I suppose I am. Always wanted a little boy - in fact, I always wanted one with Mulder. A little boy with his hazel eyes. Odd how things turn out. "Good. I've listened to Mulder think about you a lot." "Please don't listen to me think without permission - it's rude." The boy looks confused, but I feel him leave my head. Mulder was still there, though. "Okay - I was just wondering about you. Mulder tried for so long to buy you and I just wanted to know what you were like." I see Mulder look back at the boy, warning him. "No, Mulder- I want to know. Is that what happened?" Mulder nods 'yes,' staring straight ahead. "They wouldn't let you go, no matter what I offered. I've tried for years." I think of the wooden crate on the porch of the house I used to live in. "What did you finally trade, Mulder?" "A man's head," a little voice in the back seat says, before Mulder silences him with another look. Hours follow as Mulder turns south, following the coastline. California. Lunch is silent, an unspoken battle between Mulder and the boy. That boy need a name. "I want to be Barney. I heard him in a book, once," he says with his mouth full. Christ - a nuclear war and an alien invasion and I can't escape Barney. Is there a second choice? "John Doe. That's what Mulder's thinking." I can live with John. John it is. Get out of my head, John. The sun is setting as Mulder turns off the main road through the wine country and into the soft hills. I'm surprised when he turns on the headlights - he must know the area where we are very well. Forty- five minutes later, where we are is parked in front of a cabin in the middle of nowhere. America is mostly middle-of-nowhere, now days. We walk inside and Mulder flips a light switch and, wonder of wonders, lights come on. The cabin has power. There is a pump at the sink for fresh water and enough freeze-dried food for years in the pantry. When I open the closets, there are clothes for me and the boy and extra linens. A big bed downstairs and a smaller one in the loft, both made up and ready. A stove on the center of the cabin for heat and cooking, a shortwave radio to communicate. Firewood stacked outside the back door and a rifle over the front door. Toys in a toy chest. Books. This is Mulder's home - this is where he was taking me. Now I'm home. We're home: Mulder, me, and John Boy. I smile at Mulder and I see a faint light behind his eyes. "You'll be safe here, Scully," is all he says. Mulder sleeps with me in the big bed and John Boy sleeps in the loft. Lovemaking is unhurried, the way I always wanted it to be. Slow and sweet - I can see my Mulder in this man. When I wake, Mulder is gone, both physically and from my head and John Boy is asleep beside me. The Humvee is still sitting in the driveway, the tank refueled with diesel, and Mulder's supplies are on the table where he left them last night. Initially I think he's just gone outside to use the bathroom or gone hunting, but John Boy says he isn't coming back. I put a kettle on for coffee, still watching through the window a week later. John Boy wants coffee - sure, why not? A four-year-old that has seen people murdered and listened to Mulder's thoughts could handle a watered-down cup of coffee. We sit in the swing on the front porch, as the sun rises over the hills, charging the solar panels on the roof. "Is he not coming back right now, or is he never coming back, John?" "He doesn't know. He doesn't think you can forgive him." "What for?" I could forgive Mulder anything. "Oh - lots of things. Helping the spacemen catch people so they wouldn't hurt the ones in the bunker. Leaving you. The man having sex with you – he feels really bad about that. Killing lots of people, especially the sex man." The sex man? Skinner? Mulder killed Skinner? "Un huh. That was the head in the box. Oh - sorry. I won't listen anymore." I sit in shock as my coffee cools. He killed Skinner in exchange for me - that was the trade he made - so the leader of Colony 451 could take over the bunker and Alpha Colony. Mulder killed his friend and cut off his head and brought it to the leader in a box like a birthday gift. That was how bad he wanted me. Mulder is wrong - I can forgive even that. I watch the road that runs up the isolated hill to my cabin, linking me to this brave new world. Maybe one day Mulder will come driving up that road in his Jeep, coming for me like he promised. John Boy goes out to play in the dewy grass as I sit, remembering to sip my tepid coffee. There is a tire swing in the tree beside the Humvee and a tree house that Mulder must have built for him. A labor of love by a man who thinks he's lost. As I finish my coffee and the cup that John Boy forgot, I feel a familiar pressure behind my forehead. Mulder is listening. ***