Title:  Carbon Copy
Author:  syntax6
Rating: PG
Category: VA
Spoilers: Requiem (I know, I know, who needs 
another one of these, right?  But this wouldn't 
leave me alone until I wrote it down.)
Summary: The inheritance of a quest
Archive: please ask permission
Feedback:  makes the world go round!  I'd love 
to hear from you.  Syn_tax6@yahoo.com



When she was four, she had escaped her mother in 
the grocery store.  Mom had been too busy 
squeezing cantaloupes to notice her daughter 
following the crowd of knees out the sliding 
doors to the gumball machine.  It was a fancy 
one, a miniature roller coaster for bright pink 
and yellow balls.  Scully had watched the jaw 
breakers go loop-de-loop while inside her mother 
screamed and screamed her name.  

"I'm sorry, Mommy," she had said that night, 
wrapped safe in kitten pajamas and her mother's 
arms.  "I'm sorry."  She hadn't understood how 
easy it was for a person to disappear.  She 
hadn't yet learned that screaming didn't always 
bring them back.

Yelling had worked some miracles, though.  It 
kept her in the basement with their files, with 
the air that still whispered of their arguments 
and dust that tickled with their laughter.  It 
kept his case open when men who had never met
Mulder had tried to stuff him in a folder.  
After so many years of investigation, he had 
become the real Six Million Dollar Man.  

"This is not what Joe Taxpayer had in mind when 
he agreed to fund the Space
Program," the Director had told her with a 
frown.

"I'll work it off the clock," she'd answered.  
"Just don't limit my resources."

They had, of course.  So she had supplemented 
with her own money, buying no-name groceries and 
driving a car that was eleven years old.  She 
bought second-hand suits and used the savings to 
haunt Missing Persons Departments in the greater 
Oregon area.  She met people in underground 
parking lots.  She hacked the DOD computers.  
She never gave up hope.

But she never thought she'd find him.

-------------------

"E.T. phoned home."

It was dark and she was twisted the sheets.  Her 
phone was upside down. "What?"

"The airport in an hour," he said.  Byers' 
voice, not a dream.  A pause, then
he cleared his throat.  "I think you should come 
alone...until we're sure."

"Of course," she said, squinting in the light, 
already half-way into her clothes. The words 
tasted light and strange on her tongue.  "Until 
we're sure."


--------------------

"Where's your bag?" he asked her, as if they 
were vacationing in the Bahamas instead of 
catching a five a.m. flight to Seattle.

"I forgot it.  What's going on?"

They sat in an empty lounge that smelled of 
stale smoke and long good-byes. Byers rubbed his 
hands over his face.  "I'm not sure of all the 
facts myself. Frohike caught it on the scanner a 
couple of hours ago, from the Seattle PD." 
He hesitated.  "You know he'd be here in person 
if..."

"I know."  She squeezed his forearm gently.  "Go 
on."

Byers took a deep breath.  "They found him in 
the woods, unconscious and suffering from 
exposure.  From the description, it sounds like 
a match ­ right down to the mole on the cheek."

Her heart turned over inside her chest.  "There 
have been matching descriptions before."

Byers shook his head in bemusement.  "I know, 
but this time he woke up enough to give them a 
name.  Fox Mulder."  His eyes were shining.  
"Don't you see? It's real.  He's home."

She blinked back tears.  "Then let's go get 
him."

----------------------

She ran the length of the corridor to ICU, 
leaving Byers to fend for himself amid the food 
carts and laundry bags.  The nurse at the front 
station looked up at her breathless approach.  
She flashed her ID.  "I'd like to see a man who 
was brought in here last night," she said.  "His 
name is Fox Mulder."

"I'm sorry, but we only allow family to visit in 
the ICU," the nurse replied.  

Oh, God.  So it was real at last.  "I...I am his 
family," she said around the swelling in her 
throat.  "I'm his daughter."


--------------------

He looked so different from his picture.  
Thinner, older.  There were cuts on his arms and 
legs.  At his side, the heart monitor beeped the 
truth she could hardly believe.  She slipped her 
hand into his warm one and squeezed.  Unable
to let go, she fumbled her phone with her free 
hand.

"Mom," she said a moment later, laughing, crying 
and whispering all at once. "It's me."

--------------------

End