#xffanfic

“Uh huh,” Will nodded, sipping his soda. “I go to school here to, which I am currently skipping.”

“You really should be in school,” Scully admonished.

“And miss this? Hell no. I mean...heck no.” He smiled, despite himself. “Sorry, uh...what should I call you? Dr. Scully? Agent Scully?”

“Dana,” she said quickly and she glanced at her partner. “And he hates Fox.”

“Mulder is just fine,” he replied, scratching the back of his neck.

Will smiled again awkwardly and was just happy that he could not believe this situation. No one could. The energy between the three were palpable. There was so much they wanted to say but where would they began. Scully could not help but feel like she was caught in some sort of dream. A very good and very unreal dream. She sought Mulder's hand under the table and interwove their fingers and hands tightly. Will shifted side to side and looked down at his food. “Skipping...I don't normally do it, well, I used to not to. God, I am rambling. I'm a good student, at least I could if I applied myself. That's what my teachers say.”

Little über Scully, Mulder thought, chuckling slightly. “Well, you do certainly got the smarts to. You get that from her,” he said, nudging Scully. “This one tried to rewrite Einstein in college.”

“Mulder!” Scully admonished, playfully shoving his arm.

Will smiled sadly. “You all really must love each other, don't you?”

Mulder sombered and looked at Will, noticing the sad look in his blue eyes. Scully was quiet and looked into her son's eyes, reading him and answering his unasked questions. “I didn't want to, William. I did it to keep you safe.”

The pink elephant in the room. Will felt himself trying to breathe as the approached the sore subject. From the outside, he saw his birth parents as a dedicated, loving couple to each other. How did he fit into this picture? He felt like an outsider.

Mulder spoke softly. “You were our miracle, Will. Never doubt that.”

“How?” he asked, straightening. “You gave me up. Why did you give me up?”

Scully was quiet and lowered her eyes, focusing on her and Mulder's joined hands. “I couldn't conceive,” she began, ignoring the part about abductions, aliens, and government conspiracies. “We tried IVF...”

“Intro Vitro Fertlization,” Will said. “I know what that is. Science is my best subject. I really want to take anatomy when I'm a senior.”

Scully smiled slightly. “Nothing took and then one day...” She had tears in her eyes. The memories were flooding back and she felt the pains, again and again...losing Mulder, facing her pregnancy alone, finding him dead. She closed her eyes. He came back though. Mulder came back. He always did. “Things were complicated.”

“Complicated,” Will repeated, leaning back. He arched his eyebrow and Mulder inwardly groaned; so Scully-like. “There's more to the story, isn't there.”

Mulder was quiet. How would he explain to this fifteen year old his family history...aliens, government conspiracies, abductions? And then what Scully had confided in him when they were on the run...William wasn't normal. He could do things. Extraordinary things. “There is,” Mulder said tightly, sensing Scully compose herself. “But today is not the day to discuss it. We never stopped thinking about you, Will. We want to know about you. Do you like baseball at least? You're already too much like your mother...” Mulder stopped himself but Will smiled slightly. “I'm sorry.”

“No. It's okay. I always thought I was a little weird,” he began.

Scully looked sharply at him. Her breath caught when she remembered seeing the the play mobile move by itself above his crab. Jeffery Spender's warnings. She was almost afraid to ask. “How so?”

He shrugged and smiled goofily. “I like science and books and science fiction. I'm a nerd. In Wyoming, I was always bookish. Mom used to tell me to get my nose out of books and get to work. When I was four, I saw Star Trek: The Next Generation. Picard is the best.”

Mulder felt himself smile slightly. “No, Kirk was.”

“You're so old,” Will chuckled.

Mulder frowned and looked to Scully for defense but saw her smiling easily, the tension and emotions almost completely gone. He let it slide. “Whatever. Kirk was better.”

“Anyways,” Will continued with a smile. “I am a good student. Well, I used to be. Since coming here...my grades dropped. Mrs. Styron stays I just need to apply myself but I just don't care. With everything that's happened, I just stopped caring. When I got here, I started hanging out with those kids.”

“The ones I saw you at with at the hospital,” Scully wondered.

Will smiled and nodded towards his skateboard. “I'm not bad. I started to skateboard because they all did it. It became a good outlet with me...with everything. But I'm really sorry, Dana. About that night. I really wasn't expecting you to be able to run in heels.”

Scully chuckled. “Will, don't worry about it. Look what came from it.” She gestured between the three of them.”

Mulder looked towards Scully and back towards Will. “So, you like baseball?”

Will grinned slightly. “I actually wanted to tryout when I got to high school. I played pick up games, you know. I saw the Colorado Rockies play on TV, once at the stadium as a part of a field trip. It was so cool. But since coming to Washington, I haven't been the best student and trying to fit in...” He shrugged. “I like it. It would be cool to go to real game with the Yankees or something, even though they are overrated.”

“Overrated,” exclaimed Mulder. “How can they be overrated?”

“They just are!” Will defended, finding himself smiling.

Will loved science, books, science fiction, and baseball. He was smart and a loner. He had Scully's blue eyes and that damn eyebrow arch and Mulder's grin and lankiness. He was their son. There was no doubt about that. The three felt the air change. Something was different. There was a happiness and just...no one could describe it. Scully hated to pull herself from this moment, as did Mulder. Will checked his cell phone and grimaced. “Shit.”

“What?” Mulder asked.

He held up his phone, revealing a text from his case worker. “What's wrong,” Scully asked.

Will sighed and turned off his phone. “She found out I skipped school today. I'm in so much trouble, especially if she finds out I saw you all. I remember her saying something that I'm not supposed to have contact or something until the court deems it. But I wanted to...I wanted to meet my real parents. I had to know.”

Mulder looked at Scully, a silent conversation emerging between them. “We'll bring you home,” Scully said. “It's the least we can do.”

Mulder drew out one of is FBI business cards from his suit pocket. He scribbled something on the back of it. Scully glanced at what Mulder had wrote and wrote something else on the business card. Mulder gave Will both cards. “We've always been something of outcasts,” Mulder chuckled, “and for breaking the rules, it's a family trait. Here are our personal numbers, Will, if you ever wanna talk.”

“So, anything? Were you serious about what you said in the courtroom, Dana? About wanting to adopt me back?”

Scully nodded slightly, unable to find her voice again. “More than anything. I never forgave myself for what I did.”

Will gazed at her and he nodded after a moment. “I'm not mad.” He shrugged and looked down at his food. He pushed it around. “I lost my parents Christmas eve when I was thirteen. I move out here, away from everything I know to some great aunt that I have never met before. She dies within six months. I get thrown into foster care because there is no one else.” He was silent for a moment and Scully shifted uncomfortably, wondering where this was going. “But Christmas eve, I decided to try and take a doctor's purse on a dare. Not my brightest move and good knows how much trouble I am in. But you know what? I find my birth parents. Things happen for a reason, even if they don't seem clear, is how I figure it.” He shrugged. “As much as I miss mom and dad, maybe if it wasn't for their deaths, we would've have never found each other.”

Scully smiled sadly and Mulder smiled as well. She said, “You are too smart, you know that, Will.”

He smiled and shrugged. “Maybe we can go to a baseball game or something.”

“We'd like that, Will.” Mulder looked at his watch. “Let's get going. We can get you home at a decent time. And Will, this is between us right?”

“Yeah. Let me shoot you a text before we go, so you have my number as well.”

Scully drew out her business card and a pen and  pushed it towards him. Will looked at the business card thoughtfully and then Mulder's. “Can I keep these?”

All the victims had come from this rented room. In the middle of was a circular stage the props interchanged as needed for each fantasy. It was simple this time a bed, a chaise lounge, dresser, an antique looking vanity, with an oval mirror and stool, nightstand - a typical bedroom. 

Some type of glass door system and a curtain on a track would allow for the Shadows of those within to be seen by the voyeur or voyeurs watching without. Chairs, lounges, sofas, tables were spread throughout the rest of the room. All with padded wrist restraints. This room was for instructing the Shadowplayer and then watching, listening to the performance without being able to touch.

Mulder could relate he’d held the object of his affection in his arms many times. Kissed her forehead, her cheek - he tried to kiss her once in his hallway - fate in the form of a Bee. What are the odds of that? Some would call it fate. Even he thought that for a while.

He rescued the girl and himself if he was honest, without her… could he have went on? Attempts to push her away after that were unsuccessful. She’d taken his hand that day and told him ‘if I quit now they win.’

Really not fair to repeat his own words back at him. But that was Scully. Diana had strolled back in and if he was honest - it hurt that Scully even thought he wanted to rekindle anything with her. Especially after kissing her doppelganger and telling her the words he had been so good at keeping locked away in his heart. 

I love you and oh brother as a response was not what he expected. Whey were all these thoughts rolling in his head now before this important stakeout? Maybe it’s because they were all just informed they would have to act out whatever the customer wants - no matter what.

Or maybe it’s because Scully and the other 2 female FBI agents just walked out in their ‘costumes.’ Scully locked eyes with him almost daring him to look anywhere else. It was too late he’d been tracking her movements the moment she stepped into the room.

While he and the other male agents were all dressed similarly in t-shirts and jeans the female agents were dressed for their part - the bored housewife who calls for a repair man. Dressed for seduction and Scully was in black lace.

How was he going to survive this assignment? Mulder could feel the moisture rise to the surface of his skin. He barely resisted the urge to wipe his brow. Was the room suddenly too hot? Was his blood boiling? No it was Scully fantasy #5 and it was live in front of his eyes. To be honest black lace wasn’t a requirement Scully in any color lace would be a turn on. 

Correction … Is a turn on - there’s an undeniable thickening beneath his denim. Shit.

Mulder glanced at the other agents he noticed he wasn’t the only one fidgeting. Scully finally arrived at his side and he resisted the urge to offer her his coat when he saw her shiver. That fact he wasn’t wearing a coat was beside the point.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly.

She stared straight ahead and responded, “I’m fine. Let’s just get this over with. Hopefully one of the other pairs of agents will be chosen.”

No such luck. The universe was dead set on wrecking havoc on Mulder and Scully’s lives.

The client’s came in a couple, they sat down and an attendant locked their restraints. It was like a private production.

“Welcome to Shadow Play. You know the rules choose your couple and once they enter the Shadow Stage they will follow your instructions. They are your puppets and you are the puppet masters.” The attendant paced before the couples and with a flourish of his hand he spoke.

“Choose the lady of play.”

The man was tall with closely cropped blonde hair and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. His voice was a deep bass with a slight English or Australian accent when he spoke, “The little one - the redhead. Darling do you like her?”

His feminine counterpart nodded, “Oh yes she’ll be perfect.” With her husky alto it sounded more like purr-fect.

The attendant nodded to Scully, “Please enter the chamber and the other ladies may exit.”

Mulder saw the deep breath Scully took and his hand automatically went to her back as she walked around him and they started into the chamber. He was brought to a halt with the attendants next words.

“Now who do you chose for lord of the play?”

Wait. What? 

Scully paused and then continued on her way - her shoulders had slumped for a moment and then firmed with resignation. This wasn’t the prearranged plan and his eyes narrowed. There was no way anyone, but him was going in there with Scully. Plan or not.

The three men stood still. Mulder felt like chatel - did the other agents feel the same he wondered.

“Darling? Don’t you want the one in the middle? His hair is the same color as mine?”

“He is quite striking, but he doesn’t hold a candle to you. I won’t be able to see their hair color behind the curtain anyway…. I don’t know how can I decide when they are clothed. I need to see their cocks.”

The attendant cleared his throat, “That is not part of the rules, everything happens in shadow.”

“Fuck the rules MAN, my wife wants to see their cocks and I’ve paid for our time. In fact bring Red back out give them some inspiration… I know I’m inspired.” His erection was clearing outlined by the navy trousers he wore and his wife licked her lips feeling her own body responding.

The attendant was clearly ruffled, Mulder noted the fact and filed it away. Scully stepped back out every eye was one her. Creamy skin dusted with the faintest of freckles she stood unafraid and comfortable in her own skin.

“Drop the straps luv, give the gents something to wonder about. I see firm high breasts a perfect handful - are those nips pink like a kitten's tongue, peachy like a succulent apricot? Or dark rose like the juicy flesh of a woman’s cunt?”

Scully reached up and slid first one strap and then the other, until they draped like a piece of black licorice he wanted to gnaw through. And he didn’t even like black licorice, red - cherry flavor yes. That didn’t help his growing problem thinking about Scully in red.

“Okay c’mon gents don’t be shy we all know why we’re here. Whip out your equipment my wife wants to see your packages. We’ve all got ‘em. If my hands were free I’d whip mine out right now. Wouldn't I darling? You'd suck me off right here on your knees. Yes my pet sucks like a Dyson.”

"Do you like bush, men? My pet has a nice little bush just enough that it tickles my lips when I'm eating my fill of pussy."

Both agents Barber and Kinney unzipped their flys and exposed themselves. Scully didn’t react. She was aloof, waiting for the partner the clients would choose. Could she do it - if it wasn’t Mulder? If it was Agent Barber or Kinney? 

“Ooo those are some lovely cocks. Are those boxers or tighty whities I see … it's sort of like they’re popping out of a little fabric nest, like a bird. Not very lively though… Are you two cold?” The woman laughed and her husband chuckled along and then her gaze fixated on Mulder. “How about you? Are you cold too? You can’t be shy or you wouldn’t be here. Honey if he won’t show me his cock tell him to leave. I’ll just choose one of the others.”

“You heard my wife. If you don’t show us your cock get the fuck out. Do you have a teeny weenie, perhaps?” He picked up on the quick eye contact between Mulder and Scully and a wide smile formed. “Or do you just need a little help? Hey Red, why don’t you help him out.”

Scully took a step toward Mulder. “No!” then quieter, “No, I’ll do it.”

Mulder closed his eyes. How could he forget today of all days? He’d bought these button fly jeans on a whim and his hands were working the buttons through the tightly stitched holes until  …

“Holy Mother of God! Get out! The rest of you get out! He’s the one…. Honey? Tell them to leave!”

“You cretins heard my wife. Get out.” The room cleared of all but the main players. “Good God Man! I consider myself well-endowed, but Holy Shite! How do you keep that monster under control? And commando to boot.”

“I think my wifes glazed over eyes means you two meet with her complete approval. Let’s get this show on the road. Into the chamber you two. My first request is for you to suck those titties… I’ll tell you when to stop… use the chaise please.”

Mulder followed Scully into the chamber the door snicked shut, the curtains closed with a swish and the lights dimmed. Scully reclined on the chaise and Mulder gingerly sat beside her. Could they pull this off?

“C’mon man speed it up suck her tits and describe them… we want to hear about those ripe tips… make her moan … make her wet for you.”

Mulder dropped his head, nose and lips nuzzled her neck. Traveled down. Skimmed across the slope of each breast. God, Scully you smell so good. There was a hitch in her breath. Did he say that out loud? 

“Hey, Supercock! This isn’t love’s unfolding flower or some teenage romance. I don’t hear any sucking or slurping and we damn well aren’t hearing any moaning Reds or yours. Get on with it.”

Mulder wished the guy would just shut the hell up. He was trying to make this look real, but not be real. But she was so soft and smelled so delicious… He was only human dammit.

And then Scully let out a throaty moan. Uh-oh. His mouth released the nipple he had been sucking, the lace and silk damp. Her nipples were clearly delineated, hard, he wasn’t sure how long he’d been sucking but his mouth and lips felt the loss.

“More…Mu…” Before she could say his name his hands cupped her breasts and his lips went back to feasting.

“Turned on are you Darling? Is your snatch getting wet? How about Red, Supercock? Take a sniff, do you smell any of that pussy ambrosia yet? I think it’s time to find out. Head south like a good chap. Make her scream for you.”

How was he going to manage this? Especially when it sounded like a good idea to him. “Trust me,” Mulder mumbled against her skin, goose flesh rising in the wake of his lips, hands following, as they traveled in a meandering path down to her hip. Her upper thigh. 

Scully’s breathing was labored and despite her attempts more sighs and moans escaped her. She tried biting her lip, but it turned into nibbling. She tried covering her eyes with the back of her hand, but the effects of Mulder’s lips on her skin just made her hyper-sensitive.

Did she look like she was swooning? 

Her small giggle turned into a moan when a vision of her in an antebellum ball gown invaded her consciousness. Mulder a snowy white cravatt at his neck. Kissing her, walking her backwards. One of her hands steadying her suddenly wobbly body on the chaise arm.

Mulder kneeling, reaching under her voluminous skirt, his fingertips walking up her legs until the crinoline she had on dropped to the floor. His eyes held hers the entire time and she could feel those hands now cupping her buttocks, squeezing. He stood grabbed her leg in one fluid motion and hooked it over his hip. Grinding into her, tipping her back. 

Back… Back onto that chaise.

It was indecent, wanton, and she reveled in it... More… more…

Body sprawled across the chaise, legs apart, the skirt quickly tossed up and over her head. She felt everything. Saw nothing - but diffuse light penetrating the fabric of her dress. Only felt his head as it moved down, travelling over her stomach and further. Her hyper-sensitive skin reading every feature on his face like braille.

Mulder reaches his tongue inside her to taste the unholiest of holy’s, his nose lines up perfectly with her clit. The anticipated touch and then the reality force her to lift her hips and grip the cushions. Her neck elongates as she gasps for breath, her nose incapable of handling her necessity for oxygen. Skin too hot not to wriggle as the flames scorch up inside her.

“Mulder,” she begged as pleasure coiled and her insides flexed around his tongue. It was a plea, one of fear to withstand, and another of need for release. 

“Mulder,” she cried before plunging into the abyss. The pleasure so severe her nerve endings reverberated in unison with waves of tension and sparks swarming her body - behind her eyelids basking in his light.

“Hey Red! Don’t keep the man waiting spread your legs ... let him get to that pussy!”

And just like that the fantasy faded… but not the tingles running through Scully’s body.

Mulder straddled the end of the chaise. Pulled her quivering legs apart - bent one and nipped the inside of her knee. His cock was hard and pressed painfully against the denim of his jeans. He envisioned the permanent button marks he’d find imprinted there later today.

“Oooohhhh Huu-nnnyyy this is the best birthday gift you have ever given me… I wish I had your cock in me right now.”

“I do too Sara, darling… I feel I’m ‘bout to spurt in my pants like the randy lad I once was…”

The couple’s conversation faded. 

Unable to stop herself, Scully’s hands landed on Mulder’s head, her fingers combed through his hair - fingernails teasingly scratching against his scalp. Mulder groaned, his breath invisible, but hot and humid against her inner thighs. His hands - slightly rough - roved from outer leg to inner, thumbs grazed the tender skin in the crease so close to the fleshy lips of her labia.

She was so aroused - had this ever happened before? Without, kissing, mutual caressing - being naked - skin to skin? She was on assignment. This was work. How in the hell could she be enjoying this? Where had that fantasy come from?

Oh my God! …  He wouldn’t, would he? … Was he ‘sniffing’ her? 

Scully felt a wet hot pressure in a slow upward pass over the crotch of her panties, before Mulder turned his face and nipped her inner thigh, mumbled, “Scully...” All her focus centered on her throbbing clit.

“Okay Supercock enough pussy pie. Fuck her. We want to hear her moan.”

“Oooh hunny tell him to take those jeans off. I want to see the outline of that cock.”

“You heard my wife Supercock. Take out that dick and fuck her. Your balls have got to be about ready to bust! We could see you grinding away.”

Scully could see Mulder was struggling. “It’s okay,” she whispered. A nod of acknowledgement in Scully's  direction and he got onto his knees. Perfect silhouette position accomplished he unbuttoned and pushed his jeans over his hips. Scully gasped his erection long and thick rising unhindered by confining denim and buttons.

“He does have an enormous cock doesn’t he hunny.”

“He does at that my pet. Just yank the crotch of those panties to the side or rip them off. Get moving Supercock and fuck her till she can’t walk tommorrow.”

“I can’t do this,” Mulder hissed faintly, then, “Bend your leg, Scully.” Bending both her legs, she watched as a drop of precum appeared on the tip of his penis. He groaned when Scully unconsciously licked her lips. In an almost magical move he’d tucked his erection back in his jeans and his hips now rested in the cradle formed by her bent knees. The grunt Scully emitted wasn’t an act - her arms clutched at Mulder’s back when he set up a slow grind.

Hooking her ankles around his waist she reciprocated raising her own hips, greedily meeting Mulder’s angle and downward thrust. The non-direct friction against her clit was sublime. Mulder dropped his head beside hers. One hand grabbed above her ass on an upstroke and picked up the pace.

She was so close. Mulder stiffened and groaned it was deep and gutterel. His hot breath stirred her own sweat soaked hair behind her ear and she felt the pulse of the climax he’d just had. Her own body was still thrumming, though - unfulfilled - she gently massaged the tension from his neck.

Was he embarrassed?

“Agents Mulder? Scully?”

They both froze. Complete awareness flooded both of them. They had been so focused on one another - everything else had faded away. Now they could hear the couple talking. The woman was sniffing and the husband soothed her. They sounded normal not at all like the brash couple giving sexual orders moments ago.

Agent Barber stuck his head in the chamber. “Agents? We caught the perp followed him right from here, it was the attendant. We knew it was an inside job.” Mulder sat hunched over with elbows on his knees and Scully was beside him.  “We appreciate your assistance with this case. We’ll need your notes as soon as possible.”

Mulder and Scully both nodded and Agent Barber left the room. The shadow play lights went out and they both blinked, their eyes adjusting to the sudden change.

They were alone. One thought in both of their heads. Lips met in a clash of wills, give and take. Mulder pulled away first, Scully’s lips still pursed and searching for his. Her head spun as she found herself flat on her back, legs spread, panties torn off and Mulder’s tongue circling her clit furiously.

“Mul… de …” The things coming out of her mouth weren’t making any sense. Especially when he got on his knees and gripped her ass - she was almost vertical most of her weight on her upper back - and he pulled her firmly against his face. His lips fastened on her swollen clit and with a few tugs and tiny graze of his teeth she was gone. She felt the flat of his tongue not moving just resting against her pink flesh as the spasms continued. A few seconds he gently licked her, humming his enjoyment before he lowered her body to the chaise and crawled up to share the taste of her on his lips.

“I couldn’t take it anymore, Scully… the teasing. I couldn’t take it anymore and I don’t think you could either.”

“No… I couldn’t… We have to go.”

“Yes, but not before … another kiss.” 

“Okay,” Scully smiles softly as their lips meet again in a searching kiss.

The End ... 

....Or read on for the Epilogue I wrote - pick your ending....

Mulder’s Apartment

Ugh, the thought of peeling his still damp jeans off, was the first thought in his mind after entering his apartment. It felt like a gallon of fluid had pumped out of his cock, he'd been so primed. And then Scully. Just the thought had him hard in seconds. He sat on his couch, his cock was in his hand moments later.

Replaying everything in his mind he pumped slowly. There was a knock on his door and then the sound of a key he didn’t notice too entranced with the images looping repeatedly within his memory. His eyes were closed and he heard.

“Move your hands Mulder.” Obeying the command he released the grip on his cock. “Open your eyes Mulder.”

Is he dreaming? Scully raised her skirt and placed first one knee and then the other, kneeling on his couch she straddled his legs. Her hands were soft and cool touching him, making him harder. She held him in position and sank down… down.. all the way…

His hands went to her hips, guiding her as she rode him. “Scully…don’t tease. I can’t take it.”

“I don’t know...oh, Mulder… your cock - your - Supercock … feels soooo good.” Scully laughed at Mulder’s expression, before he returned the smile. “I’ll show you Supercock - Red - he has some tricks.”

Mulder grabbed Scully’s ass and stood, she gave a squeal that turned into multiple and mutual groans as he carried her into his bedroom. “Are you taking me to your bed?" Scully gasped when Mulder stopped and braced her against the wall, thrusting several times. "Y, y yeeesss," he moaned out. Finally they were on the bed, Mulder braced above her, she unwound her arms and raised them high over her head in a sultry stretch.

February 5, 2002  - "Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs" -Pearl Strachan Hurd

Silver. A quarter.

The delicious smell of something baking in the oven. A smile came into focus that was highlighted by lines and age. Security and warmth when he was cradled within her arms. She was an older woman, holding him tenderly with dark hair and a glimmer in her hazel eyes that matched the shiny quarter she had retrieved from her purse. After setting him down in his bassinet, she displayed it in front of his eyes. The woman flipped the quarter over like it held pure magic. As if she had never seen one before. Her features cracked into a familiar grin.

“This is luck, William. A coin in a baby's hand means they will never want for money. It’s an old Irish tradition. I put one under your Uncle Bill’s pillow when he was a baby. Same with your Uncle Charlie and your mother.”

Baby William grabbed hold of the coin. Jackson recalled the feel of it in his hand. Cold metal, yet warm in places where she had touched. With both small hands he tugged the solid object from her grasp.

A worried look clouded over the woman’s brow as she stroked his fluffy hair.

“William, I know you are special, but you will always be my grandson. You will grow to do many great things. Change the world in ways only you can dream. Always remember my dear, sweet grandchild, you can survive the unexplained—survive anything if you feel loved… and I do love you.”

The older woman with the hearts in her eyes took one last heavy breath before reasserting her smile. Even at his young age, her eyes and mind communicated to him and the words resonated making him bubble with laughter and kick with joy. The woman let out a laugh, loud and beautiful. Her face was aglow with new beginnings of a world he was ripped from and would never get to see. Their moment was interrupted by the front door and a familiar voice: Mother .

Her face bright and cheery as she finally came into view. “Mom, watch so that he doesn’t put that in his mouth.”

Mother knelt down as she took the quarter from his fisted baby hands and it angered him. He began to fuss and kick, desperate to feel the coin’s texture against his skin again.

“Shh, look,” she soothed while she held the quarter near his face. He let out a laugh as he reached for it, only to make it disappear. Jackson felt himself frown as baby William. Then his mother squeezed his button nose and out popped the quarter. She then held it out in the center of her palm for him once again, and a squeaking giggle rumbled out of his little chest as she laughed along too."Your daddy showed me that trick," she said and smiled so bright it warmed his body from his tiny rounded toes, to his now drooling, smiling mouth.  

“I was going to place it under his pillow. Give him some Irish luck,” the woman answered softly while coming back into his vision, drinking from a steaming cup.

“You know I don’t believe in superstitions, Mom, but I guess it would be alright.”

His mother’s hand gently stroked the swell of his cheek with her thumb and her bright blue eyes danced between his, connecting. A quick electric-like spark ran through him as if he were shocked. Her eyes narrowed onto his at the realization of the connection made while her hand jerked away from the softness of his face.

Jackson’s head snapped back and he found himself staring at the attic’s wooden ceiling, inhaling the musty oak while the past scent of his mother mingled with the present. He gripped his thighs and forced his breathing to slow.

“What the fuck?”

The length of the memory freaked him out. He had experienced snippets or clips of what he knew to be memories of his life as a young boy, but never to this amount of detail, and not even close to lasting that long before. His mind had never worked in a manner that society had deemed normal and this was just another example shoved in his face of how screwed up his head really was.

He scoffed and kicked the box next to his foot, angry as he glared at the letter that had floated to the floor.

“Why am I even doing this? I’ve lived my past and it certainly wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine.” Jackson shook his head and stood to pace the floor, tucking his chin to his chest as the low beams brushed along his wild chestnut hair.

Questions overwhelmed him.

“Who am I really?” he huffed, biting his lip and running a hand down his face. “Jackson or William? Some kind of freak with alien DNA? A Changeling? A Chimera? And do I even wanna find out?” Truth was he did. He wanted to know who he was and get his life back, take control of what could happen in the future. But in order to do that, he knew he had to look to the past no matter how painful it may end up being.

Overall his life was a happy one, for a kid who felt like an alien in his own skin a little more as each year past with no idea as to why. He’d laughed, played practical jokes, had friends, took family vacations, and learned life lessons. But, the bad soon followed the good.

At times, it certainly wasn’t the happiest of childhoods and sure as hell wasn’t normal; the unexplainable powers he’d just happen to acquire growing up put a wrench in the standards of normalcy. Beyond that aspect, his parents loved him and they showed it. Sometimes embarrassingly so. Perks and downfalls of adoption, he supposed. But after shit hit the fan as his powers grew and was forced to switch schools, he utilized his above average intelligence to hack into the State of Wyoming’s county birth records. That had only spurred his curious mind into overdrive. Searching high and low for clues within the confines of his bedroom, where is parents hovered less often, was his only real way to find his own answers. The answers that his parents nor doctors could ever truly give him.

The only way to find the truth was to seek it. And seeking it through unauthorized channels, after finding out his genetic material was not shared with his parents whom were raising him, was his only choice to answer the questions firing through his mind every hour of every day and throughout each night laced with dreams he couldn’t explain.

“Follow the breadcrumbs, Jackson,” Mrs. Wilson told him as she leaned over his desk, thumbing through his advanced science book. “There are always clues left behind to help guide you when you lose your way. No matter how small they may seem or how cloaked in misdirection they are, the truth is out there.”

And that is exactly what he was doing now: searching for his truth.

An average day in his grade school science class had turned into a room full of shocked classmates and a seriously freaked out teacher calling his parents to pick him up when he had hatched an egg out of thin air. Jackson cringed at the memory of being picked up from school that day and seeing the look of what he now knows to be apprehension plastered across his mom’s face. That incident only spurred his parents into action, calling the genetics specialist at the Children’s Hospital of Wyoming to make yet another appointment.

Jackson stopped pacing and slammed his eyes shut, recalling the very occurrence that flipped his childhood world upside down and had finally given him his very first breadcrumb he was unknowingly searching for already.

“Come on, come on, Jackson! Get your long legs moving!” his dad teased as he ran ahead through the reeds of the waving grass.

“You cheated!” he hollered, his golden brown hair that frizzes in humidity flopped into his eyes with each pound of his foot into the ground.

He was taller than most kids at age eight but still hadn’t honed his ability to use the length of his legs the way he wanted. The new spring sun shone brightly into Jackson’s eyes as he ran through the rolling hills of their farmland behind the house.

The competitive side of him ached to catch his dad laughing at him from the bottom of the hill and a sudden surge of anger rushed in as he picked up the pace. He was known for his swift shift in temperament recently and had even unintentionally shattered the sliding glass door after his mom had scolded him. That same anger resurfaced and Jackson stretched out his limbs as he raced down the steep hill, leaping over a branch only to fly awkwardly through the air and land crushingly hard on his arm.

“Jackson!” He heard his dad yell and run towards him. The pain shooting through his forearm was overwhelming and when he looked down, he saw the bone had broken and was protruding out jaggedly beneath his skin. “Oh, my God! It’s broken, Son.” His dad gently touched his wrist and told him he was going to get help.

No tears came while his dad disappeared into the house. He only stared hard at the bone and endured the pain as he narrowed his eyes, focusing on just making it go away. “Please go away, go away, go away…” As soon as he chanted that, a searing sharp pain lanced through his head and down to his arm, heating and mending the break right before his widened eyes.

Jackson sat in the grass, covered in damp smelling dirt while he watched the bones in his arm straighten back out in utter shock. It was like nothing ever happened. He had done it. He had just healed himself; and he felt completely alone.

Even as his parents arrived and hovered over him, shocked and confused, Jackson had never felt more different, alien—knew in his intelligent mind that his life would never be the same again.

And it hadn’t. Not one day since then. That was the day he had overheard his parents speaking in hushed tones through the doctor’s door at the Children’s Hospital, telling them that more testing should be done since his birth parents might hold the detailed answers to their son’s medical history and the key to his future health.

The rest of his life had been spent rebelling and testing his powers in some sort of weird competition with himself. Jackson had been trying to fill in the gaps on his own and it just wasn’t cutting it anymore. He had a thousand questions he wanted to ask his mother, questions to which they needed to find the answers. There was only one way to get them now.

The question still remained: was he ready to receive them? And was she?

A loud bang and muffled noises caught Jackson’s attention and he moved to the attic’s window.

“Shit!” He jerked away from the glass and gasped as he saw two men in suits walking up the driveway.

Closing his eyes as he listened to the sounds and movement of the men outside, he heard the “For Sale” sign creaking in the wind again. An idea struck. He fisted his hands and scrunched up his face in concentration. In a matter of seconds and an exhale a breath, he was now the man shown on the sign sporting a fake smile and a bad haircut.

The front door rattled and Jackson knew that the men in black weren’t going to give up until they did a full sweep of the home. He moved to the doorway of the attic but just before he exited, he looked longingly at the letter written only for him. The decision to take the letter with all the beautiful words of nearly two decades ago etched into it with him, or let it collect dust and age without knowing every single word his mother had meant for him to read ended up being an easy one for him to make.

He lunged down and snagged the letter, folding it up in his pocket just as the back door flung open and smashed into the wall.

Using his illusion, Jackson stood before the surprised men and asked, “what can I help you with? If you’re here to see the house, another walk through is happening in a couple hours.” His voice was deceptively calm since his heart was pounding in his ears. The fact that he could easily kill them where they stood didn’t mean he wanted to do so. He felt like a monster enough already.

“You’re the realtor?” The man with thinning hair and glasses asked as he palmed what Jackson assumed was a gun at the spine of his back. “No one else has been here?”

“No, but who are you?” Jackson made his way casually to the front door and narrowed his eyes at the man’s hand. When he got no answer he unlocked the door and flung it open. “You should leave before the authorities notice that piece behind your back. And since you’ve basically broken into a home up for sale, I think they’d have probable cause to search you.”

The men shared a look and stiffened at his icy tone. Silence hung in the air until the decision of whether to explain anything to him finally came.

“We’ve been monitoring this place since the event of last year for classified reasons. No need to waste your time on a worthless phone call.” Spinning around in place, they stared up toward the landing on the second floor, as if they expected him to just pop out of his room and wave. “Seems hard to believe a house like this is still on the market,” he chuckled and nudged his partner with a smug expression. “I guess the multiple homicides might turn people off.”

It took all of his strength to not beat the hell out of these assholes standing in the exact spot where his parents’ killers stood, aiming their murder weapon at his own head from the stairway.

“Then go,” he sneered. “Unless you plan on buying?”

Attitude and rage oozed from his teenage mouth and he didn’t give one shit. His control was waning at a faster rate than he had anticipated and if they didn’t leave soon, he could only imagine how the entryway walls would look with a fresh layer of red blood painted across its pristine eggshell white.

The taller man took the hint and made one final glance around and nodded for his partner to follow him out the door and down through the front lawn. They slowly got into their car and drove off, but not before tossing out a look that could kill. And Jackson had no doubt that the men had done just that multiple times before.

He slammed the front door and locked it. His head banged against the heavy wood.

The cabbie shrugged, probably figuring he’d tried if a sullen news report streamed across his T.V. in the morning about a teenage boy found dead behind some bush near Constitution Ave.

The cab’s tail lights shone in the dark as it drove off down the street. Jackson was left alone to wander and think about what the hell he was going to do next. Running was getting old, fast. Yet, running was all he knew how to do anymore.

After bouncing round from place to place, traveling and sightseeing for months now, he figured he’d stick around more familiar places for a while. And after his little run-in at the house, he decided a larger populated city would be a better area to blend in at. He was fairly certain no one of importance was searching for him after taking a bullet through the skull and had been presumed dead by everyone but his mother, yet he couldn’t be too careful if he wanted to keep what was left of his family safe. So, the busy tourist attraction around the Washington Monument seemed like the perfect place to clear his head before finding a cheap motel to crash at for the night.

The springtime weather was unusually warm for nightfall and the soft quacking of ducklings bathing in the lake in front of the monument caught his attention. He smiled and found an old bench to sit on and stretch out his long legs as he watched how the mother duck encouraged her babies to follow her into the glassy water.

As a little boy, he would run out back behind his farmhouse and sit on a log with his dad to watch the birds and geese swoop down onto the lake during migration. The sky would darken with the mass amount of them hovering and playfully cutting through the air above him. Now when the sky darkened around Jackson, it was not due to nature and its natural way of life, but an unnatural force of darkness that has managed to follow him wherever he went.

“What do I do now?” he wondered to the empty seat beside him, strumming his fingers along the back of the bench. “Alone in the dark…”

As he steadily chipped away at the fragments of the multilayered paint, Jackson noticed letters engraved deep into the weathered bench. With his curiosity peaked, he leaned down to tear away a larger chunk of blue paint and saw exactly what was written.

DKS & FWM

WERE HERE

1994

His eyes widened just before his mouth fell open. “No way! It can’t be,” he shook his head in disbelief. But there it was, etched in precise, even lines that defied all logic.

He could feel her —feel her as if she were sitting right beside him in that very moment. Even with so few letters to go on, there was no mistake to be made. His birth mother had marked her presence for her future son to unknowingly stumble across 25 years later.

“Un-fucking-believable. I guess the past really does screw with the future.”

His fingers traced along the letters, feeling each groove as if he were her sitting in this very spot so many years ago. Was she acting as a lovestruck young woman daydreaming of the man she loved? Was she poking fun at the probable 30 other initialed couple’s forever time stamped into the bench’s frame? Could she have been contemplating her future, her whole life as she scratched each line with purpose?

So many never-ending questions with never enough answers. He did carry one way to find resolution to some of his larger ones that have remained unanswered for far too long.

Jackson reached into his pocket and opened up the letter once again. He inhaled deeply and picked up where he had left off.

And if I falter or fail on this day, know there is an answer my child. A sacred imperishable truth but one you my never hope to find alone.

The last words barely registering in his head when his mind started up like a projector, snapping his head back with the force of the memory.

December 10, 2008

It was a cold day and his mom had him all bundled up in a puffy blue and white jacket. He could hardly move, restricted by the coat and his sweater that hugged him. It chaffed at his pale sensitive skin underneath.

This hospital felt more like a church with pictures of saints covering the walls, crosses with the carved out figure of Jesus bleeding from his hands and feet hanging ominously.

The hallways to the children’s section had windows with tiny squares, reminding him of a jail cell from a show on T.V.. The nun brought them down another hallway with big blue bears and bright yellow giraffes painted on the walls, stuffed animals and toys inside the rooms on shelves and beds. All of it couldn’t hide the cold hospital walls, hard industrial floors, or the thick flat wood of hospital railings holding the stench of sickness and antiseptic.

It all made his stomach turn and chest feel tight with worry. The sound of machines beeping played in the background as his anxiety grew.

Another room now.

This one was baby blue in color with animal prints dressing the windows and children’s drawings mounted for all to see. It was meant to be friendly, but it only had the hair at the back of his neck standing on end. He wanted to run. He wanted to cry. No more tests.

Everyone passed with purpose; expressions dark with evil, lingering stares for such a holy place. Jackson made up his mind. There was no way he’d ever return to this place again.

They turned the corner quickly and he swung himself wide, stretching out his arm, tugging at his mother’s hand and was suddenly hit by a moving object in a white coat.

Stumbling back, his gaze scanned up towards the woman in front of him. Her face was blurred by a file, but her feelings of defeat, of a battle lost, of helplessness, of the world closing in was in full high-definition. Her kind blue eyes framed by vivid tendrils of hair never quite met his, but they were the softest blue he had ever seen. Like water in the pool at his friend Mikey’s house, floating peacefully in chaos.

“Oh, excuse me. I’m sorry,” she murmured, reflexively placing a soft hand to the top of his head and leaving a spattering of goose flesh along his skin.

He heard the stress in her voice, saw the tightness in her neck, her hair reminding him of a blood moon casting it’s red shadow among the wheat grass swaying in the fields by his house. She was beautiful.

“Mother,” the word rising unbidden from his throat in a mere hoarse whisper for no perceptible reason. His eyes followed her as she swiftly rounded the corner to disappear from which they just came.

“You’re not hurt are you, Jackson?” his mom asked as she leaned down to give him a once over.

“No, Mom. I’m fine,” he mumbled back sharply as they continued down the corridor.

The nun conducting their tour had his father’s ear, relaying information in cautious tones “...once he begins to show promise in his progression he will visit Dr. Goldman for additional testing...”

That last word, “testing,” burrowed into his ear and burned at his throat as if he had swallowed shards of glass, lighting his stomach on fire.

The word hit him so hard that it pushed him back into the present. His brain rattled fiercely inside his skull. The heel of his palm massaged his brow at the ache firing in his brain until his anxiety settled.

It wasn’t going to stop him this time. He would push the physical and emotional pain away to continue on. Determined, he read the next line:

Chance meeting your perfect other, your perfect opposite, your protector and endangerer.

“Ah!” His small index finger screamed in pain. Something sharp was in his coat pocket, stabbing at it, pricking the skin. He dug it out in the privacy of his bedroom. It was one of those guardian angel pins like the one his mom used to wear and place inside Christmas cards when she sent them to people that were special to her. It must have slipped into his pocket from the woman who had bumped into him in the hallway earlier. Mother . Jackson recognized the birthstone as his own. The angel pin flipped around his naive tiny fingers and he realized he was, once again, trapped inside another flashback. Back into the abyss he plunged, opening into the eyes of another .

A ceiling came into view. A foreign bed, the softest of pillows, and a warm comforter surrounded him as a strong consoling arm wrapped around his waist. Deep, complex resonating emotions filled him—pain of loss, regret, and a heavy emptiness that hovered over him so thickly that it nearly suffocated.

“Do you think God is losing any sleep?”

His perspective shifted and a man’s face came into view. He had a beard worn almost as a mask, drawing attention away from the honest truth he held in his eyes.

Harrowing truths he carried on the cross he bore for ‘her’ and for… a sister. His eyes reminding him of the first of spring, when the grass just started to grow, but the death of winter remained underneath.  

“Why bring a kid into the world just to make him suffer? I don’t know, Mulder, I’ve got such a connection to this boy,” Jackson said in a tender voice that was not his own.

“How old is he?” the man asked and his eyes softened further, concern flooding through his vocal cords.  

“You think it’s because of William?” she wondered as if she were afraid of his answer.

“I don’t know... I… I think our son left us both with an emptiness that can’t be filled.” As he spoke his eyes revealed an intricate mosaic of an endless devotion—caring and love built up inside a never ending staircase like the one in the MC Escher art book that had caught his eye in the library.

“Just go to sleep,” the man said and tightened his comforting embrace. His lips rested at her temple for reassurance. “Let me curse God for a while.”

Unfamiliar long lashes fluttered shut and a sharp pain sang through the center of his brain.

The vision rapidly zoomed out, blurred and tunneled, focusing in on the toy box in his old room and the angel pin in his hand. He heard his parents talking in hushed tones just outside his bedroom door. He was there for a brief moment, only for him to be forcefully sucked out again.

His consciousness jolted back from his own eight year old body and violently threw him forward into the present.

His birth mother's angel pin vanished, the letter now in its place, clutched firmly within his shaking hand. He had just watched a moment in time through Dana Scully’s eyes, and that man was Fox Mulder.

He swiped away his tears of relief and realized that weight of resentment and anger had lifted. He’d been dealt a complicated hand in life, yes, but he had recently come to understand that his birth mother and adoptive parents had stacked the deck for him; not against. All he had to do was lay down his cards and play his final hand—to finish the journey he’d started when he ran away from the last two people who cared about him.

He stripped the rest of his clothes and stepped into the shower, letting the hot water pour down his face in rivulets as he finally broke down and mourned the life he left behind.

After the water ran cold, Jackson draped his soiled clothing over the shower to dry and donned a clean pair of pants. It was then that he remembered the letter tucked away in his jeans.

Frantic at the thought of losing the last tangible piece of his past, he rushed to carefully unfold the fragile paper. It was damp along the edges and a few of the more exaggerated letters at the end were bleeding into one another. Otherwise, the rest of the words written by Dana Katherine Scully were still perfectly legible and staring him in the face.

“I’m tired of not knowing,” he admitted, ready to accept what the past showed him. “I need to know more.”

Jackson sat on the edge of the bed with his elbows resting on his thighs as he stared intently at the next sentence written for him. He ran his tongue along his top lip while the letter shook between his fingers as one knee vigorously bounced up and down. “A nervous habit,” his mom would have to explain during every parent teacher conference at each new school as his teacher’s studied him from across the table.

He readied himself for another vision that he now expected to receive, embracing it. This time he read aloud…

“Chance embarking with this other on the greatest of journeys—a search for truths fugitive and imponderable.”

He felt it instantly: the burn and sting of his mind connecting to the past, delving into the memories of his birth mother as he was once again sucked into a world lived without him.

December 1st, 2012

Jackson paced the wooden floor within his mother’s body. She stared at herself clad in powder blue scrubs within the floor length mirror of a bedroom, playing with her Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital ID card that dangled from her lanyard. One slim finger traced along the address of 227700 Wallis Road, Farrs Corner, VA as Mulder’s shirtless figure loomed behind in the background.

“The timetable on something as radical as this, Mulder, is imponderable. Not only that, it’s improbable,” she spoke to the mirror in a tiresome tone resembling one she might use if she were debating on whether or not it would storm that night, or what to have for dinner.

She was resigned at the notion that Mulder would never hear her out and accept the fact that the pending alien invasion would in all likelihood, not happen at all. They were in a good place together—happily “married” while living life without darkness. Jackson felt a pang in her chest grow as she thought about the possibility of the man she loved so desperately falling off the edge if the invasion actually occurred and he could do nothing to stop it.

She watched in the reflection as Mulder ran a frustrated hand through his hair and scoffed. He took two purposeful steps forward and locked his driven gaze onto hers through the glass.

“Scully, It’s happening. It WILL happen. Why can’t you just believe it?”

Her patience fled instantly and Jackson felt her defensive walls fly up. He recognized the reaction and realized it was to protect herself from what she’s been hiding deep within her heart: guilt. Guilt surrounding his adoption flashed like fireworks in her mind and he could feel it eating her alive from the inside out.

She spun around and shook her head up at him. Her little body trembled with caged emotion.

“I don’t WANT to believe it, Mulder!” she cried and wrapped her arms around herself, as if that could soothe the shared pain they equally felt. “I… We sacrificed our son for a better, safer life and now you still want to believe in this?” She pointed to a calendar hanging on the wall with a red X through the number twelve. “Don’t you see goddammit? I can’t believe it!”

“Christ, Scully! I don’t want to believe this shit either,” he growled and grasped her hand gently. “Don’t you remember me not wanting to speak the words aloud to you in that hellhole of a jail cell? Fuck! My son—our little boy, Scully…” he choked.

“Don’t!” She jerked her hand out of his and sidestepped around him. Jackson could barely hold onto the vision with the powerful waves of anger, grief, and guilt that washed over her. “I fell in love with you because you never give up, Mulder, but please don’t say things we can’t change.”

His chin quivered as he shook his head. “We never talk about him… My son is living his life with another father, another family,” he rasped and followed her movements around the bed as she kicked off her shoes. “But he’s safe and loved and unharmed by the men who have harmed us!”

Tears burned down her cheeks and the lump in her throat threatened to choke her. “Mulder…”

Suddenly he was there, standing in front of her with his arms embracing her tightly as silent sobs wracked through her body. She melted into him and nuzzled her face into his warm chest. The love she felt for him was as fierce as the ache in her heart.

“You did the right thing, Dana,” he whispered into her hair and she whimpered, squeezing him closer. “But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

The intense moment overwhelmed Jackson too much, jarring him out of his mother’s mind and sending his back bouncing off the mattress.

“Jesus Christ!” he groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.

He didn’t understand this feeling—the same feeling his mother had felt so fiercely. The same one that had slowly been rebuilding in his heart over the last year.

But asking the age old question to which he was sure no one held the answer to, was the only thing that he could think to say in response to witnessing something so powerful.

“Why does love hurt so much?”

Hours flew by in a blur for Jackson. The images from Dana Scully and the memories from his childhood that he’d witnessed tumbled through his mind on an endless loop. Seeing something once usually left a permanent imprint on his brain, like a fingerprint pressed into glass. The image may fade but it still left its mark on him forever. He recalled reading that same fact about Mulder in his dossier when he hacked into the FBI’s personnel records after seeing he was partnered with the woman who birthed, and raised him for almost a year. An eidetic memory and an IQ worthy of much more than a man labeled as a spooky ex-fugitive. Maybe he and Mulder had much more in common than he thought.

He held the letter in front of him. The things he’d seen and felt from just reading simple words scrawled onto a piece of paper would brand Jackson for life. Yet, his mother’s words weren’t simple at all. They held great meaning—possibly even a power to set in motion what fate had preordained for them all before he was even born.

With a shake of his head at his aptitude for physics, he couldn’t help but think of how Isaac Newton’s universal law of gravitation pertained to his life. The law states: every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force that is directed along a line joining them. What if the force directing him was the letter and the objects being slowly pulled together by the powerful connection they shared were he and his birth mother?

He tossed a pillow across the room in frustration as new questions arose. Was it all fate? Was his existence created through the laws of science, the experiments through Project Crossroads meant to be? Was he a miracle child born of a love so strong it withstood life’s ultimate tests like his mother had written? Were these people that he’s come to understand so deeply meant to suffer while living a life without him?

“How fucked up is that?” Jackson sighed and sat up to grab the bag of peanuts he had stored in his bag. The salt cravings that always seemed to strike during times of stress required him to carry a bag of peanuts or salt-laced seeds with him on his travels. As he popped a couple into his mouth, he continued his philosophical reflection.

Everything he had witnessed through his visions while flexing his pineal gland enlightened him as to the true sacrifice that was made by everyone. It burned and blistered beneath his own skin. Strangers that he knew only by looking within and now he couldn’t bear to live without. If he held the key to destruction and annihilation, perhaps they held the key to his redemption.

He wanted to know them now, in the flesh, as if his own DNA screamed for it. Maybe it wasn’t as much about who he was or why he was, but who he chose to be. After reading the lines of the letter, immersing himself within the emotions, possessing the suffering endured for their cause in his own soul, he now understood so much more.

It was time. Time to take that leap. To fight alongside the one that bore him and loved him in the beginning even knowing the possibilities. There might be a war raging, but it didn’t have to originate from him. He had to step from behind the shadows and free himself from the prison of his own mind.

Jackson thought of the words of his idol, Malcolm X: “ Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.” He needed to take back his heritage, embrace it, and allow it to set him free. It was time to stand for something and stand against the ones that meant to use him to feed the monster. Before, he had been asleep under others control; now it was for himself. There was no more avoiding, no more ignoring of the signs written out for him in ink.

The bus rocked everyone on it from side to side as it traveled down the road not taken. Voices began to bleed together in mindless chatter while others read, listened to music or buried themselves in their phones. Loud, obnoxious children screamed and laughed. Jackson gritted his teeth in annoyance.

One of the older kids, running wildly down the isle tumbled into him and Jackson reflexively shoved him away. “Watch it!” he growled, his temper getting the best of him as he ignored the glares of the other passengers. “Really?” he commented to the parent that finally wrangled their kids. They just ignored him and sat back down as Jackson reined in his frustration.

Children were not something on Jackson’s radar, but the confrontation served as a reminder of the vision of the ultrasound he shared with his birth mother—maybe he could tolerate a little sister. The thought of getting to babysit and teach her how to ride a bike or throw a ball made him even look forward to it. That thought alone shocked the hell out of him. He had very few friends to begin with and always felt more comfortable as a loner, shut up in his room reading, expressing himself through journaling and his online blog, or calming his racing mind with time spent in his girlfriend’s rooms.

With a squeal of the brakes and a lurch forward, the kids scampered off, even sending him a wave as they held their father’s hand and bounced down the street.  He may have missed the father/son relationship with Mulder that he had with his own dad, but there was something different—something innate with him and Mulder. It had taken the visions and, maybe, their small exchanges, but he trusted him without even trying.

Perhaps, diving into his past might be easier for him if he wasn't so afraid of his future. Jackson considered the unexplainable trust he felt from Mulder. He allowed that trust to wash over him, causing him to relax. Shutting his eyes, Jackson attempted to do something he'd never done before—never wanted to do before. He focused his mind and traveled all the way back through his life, back to his first memories…

He heard the whoosh and whirl of the amniotic fluid and even in his transient state it calmed him. The steady beat of his mother’s heart soothed him along with her distant muffled voice and muted baritone of… of Mulder. The presence of his large hand pressing in towards Jackson’s curled up body within the womb left an imprint that lingered. The feeling of absolute love, trust, and open communication radiated from his palm.

Jackson strained to pull the vision forward as if his life were a DVR. And there was Mulder’s voice, his face coming into focus, eyes gazing down at him in awe. “The truth we both know.” Jackson calmed down instantly from the recognition of his father. His father!

Mulder had been correct that night in the motel room, he had held him in his arms.

An early morning shower beaded the windows and drummed out a precarious tune, sending him back to the present and then into a meditative state as the world slid by. “Him,” Jackson whispered, vocalizing what he had just felt. “The truth we all know now.”

The memory of opening the motel door and the image of Mulder’s relieved face rose to the forefront of his mind. It was filled with hurt and love and missed opportunity. He had trusted the man with little to go on beyond some flashes of an uncertain future and an overheard conversation with his birth mother. Jackson recalled the static shock when Mulder had hugged him. At the time, he pushed it away, almost angry at the invasion into his most primal emotions. Now, he just wished that he had more time to learn of the man who cared for him so deeply and longed to protect him, something that seemed humorous at the time.

“I’m here.” Those two words, when they left Mulder’s mouth, sent an ache through his heart; but, at that time, Jackson wasn’t about hearts and sentiment and family reunions. Now, he wondered about conversations on a porch, knowing what their favorite food was, or how they took their coffee. Maybe, they wondered the same about him.

The bus lurched again as it came to a stop. Jackson watched out the window as people got off and more got on. A woman dropped her cigarette and smothered it with her foot, stepping inside, swiping her metrocard. Another grasped tightly to a small child and helped them up the huge steps, while yet another paid no attention to any of the surrounding world, lost in an audiobook chatting away in their ear. That used to be him, he realized: oblivious to the world around him when his depression and anger took over. Hope in changing that, he realized, is what he had now which he didn’t have before.

Eventually the doors closed with a gasp of air and the bus chugged along, engine purring, repeating its pattern of stop and go, turning down corners on its route, bouncing over potholes carved in blacktop. The tires fell into another rain filled hole and as the water lifted and sprayed across the pavement, it struck the memory of his windmill snow globe bouncing and cracking, water spiraling out as it dropped from his birth mother’s hands.

Jackson knew when she held it that she was holding onto a past and praying for a future. One that they might share together. His hands trembled and his eyes welled at the thought that he now shared that same hope. One that had been steadily blossoming inside since that night in the frigid water.

Reaching down into his bag, he pulled out the now well-worn letter and laid it across his lap.

After taking a deep breath and readying himself for yet another vivid trip down memory lane, Jackson found his way down closer to the bottom of the page. The end of the letter was near and that left him feeling both relieved that the mental anguish would stop, and saddened at the thought that the glimpses into his mother’s past were almost over. Jackson may be a typical teenager with a carefree attitude and a history of hurting those around him, but he had a heart—a big one, and it was simultaneously breaking and growing with each new vision that flashed through his mind.

His eyes trailed along each loop and curve of the next sentence and welcomed the instant sting of pain throughout his skull as the words sucked him back into his mother’s memories.

“If one day this chance may befall you, my son, do not fail or falter to seize it. The truths are out there.”

April 4, 2016

A small photo of a baby staring up at him with wide, innocent baby blues through blurred vision was the first thing Jackson saw within Dana Scully’s eyes. Hot tears stung beneath her lashes, welling along her lids and she shuddered, blinking them down in droplets along the wooden desk.

“My son,” she whispered, her voice hoarse as she spoke around the lump growing in her larynx. “My son… the truths are out there. And so are you, somewhere... out there. There are things… so many things I could’ve done different.” Her eyes flicked up to a small framed photo of Mulder and her time-stamped from December, 2013. They were standing hand in hand under the gleam of Christmas lights, gazing at one another as if the world existed of only each other. Jackson felt a surge of intense heartache creep into her chest that trickled down, leaving an acidic-like burn roiling in her gut. “So many things…”

The amount of sheer sadness that enveloped his mother was physically painful for Jackson to experience, knowing it was due to him and somehow about her regrets and sadness regarding Mulder. He felt an overwhelming yearning within her to rekindle her comfortable relationship with his father again, yet a reluctance to take that leap and jump back in. The irony that Jackson himself still struggled with that same fear was not lost to him, even while he endured the flood of emotions churning inside her.

She stifled a sob as the recollection of her alone in her old apartment, writing the letter addressed to her child without Mulder by her side took hold. She remembered it so vividly—tearing the page from her journal, carefully storing it in an envelope for the future as her cries of longing woke William from his slumber. Her memorized words from that night poured from her trembling lips as she stared at the photo of baby William, pulling her back to the night she and Mulder became a family of three...

“And if one day you should behold a miracle as I have in you, you will learn the truth is not found in science or on some unseen plane, but by looking into your own heart.”

May 20, 2001

The power of Fox Mulder’s swirling, green gaze never lessened in intensity for her through the years. Their communication with words unspoken, their connection, and incredible bond was unique only to them. Even though they knew what they felt deep within their hearts, the moment had come for them to speak the words aloud with their son cradled between them.

“From the moment I became pregnant, I feared the truth. About how… and why. And I know that you feared it, too.”

Mulder nodded, unable to tear his eyes away from studying every tiny feature of the baby boy wiggling in his arms. “I think what we feared were the possibilities. The truth we both know.”

His response left her relieved yet a thread of doubt still knotted itself in her belly. It left her searching for more of a concrete answer from the one she trusted most. “Which is what?”

Mulder leaned in and tenderly solidified their shared truth with a long-lasting kiss; a promise from one parent to another. The remarkable feeling of pure joy that Jackson’s mother only seemed to feel with Mulder sent warmth thrumming through her small frame from head to toe.

“I love you, Scully... so much,” he hummed along the corner of her mouth. “I hope that’s one truth that you’ve never needed to search for.”

“Mulder… me too,” she murmured with a smile along his bottom lip as her hand gripped his arm tightly. “So much, and… loving you has been my easiest truth to find.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead and she sighed, easing herself into his embrace as their baby squirmed against her. “The truth—our truth is not found in science or on some unseen plane, but by looking into our own heart’s… and seeing what we both know is real. He’s our’s, Scully. Our son. Our miracle.”

Jackson felt a sharp twinge as her memory faded and her watery eyes stung with fresh tears. Her hands shook with the tight grip along the edges of his baby picture.

The soft glow of lamplight shimmered across the moment of happiness frozen in time, while one slender finger traced along the slope of her baby’s tiny body in the blue and white sleeper. A sigh escaped as she blinked away one last tear that threatened to fall. “A mother never forgets.” Her whispered covenant was punctuated by her sliding open the drawer, returning the photo of she and Mulder’s son, then shutting it and her memory away with a smothered sob.

Jackson gasped, startled as he found himself torn away from his mother and back on the bus with the sun now shining in his own watery eyes. Tamping down his raging emotions, he ran a hand through his hair and thought hard about what he had just seen.

Jesus! He knew his mind worked in ways far beyond the realm of scientific explanation, but having his own recollection of the significant effect of Mulder’s presence inside the womb confirmed by his mother’s memory, only supported the truth spoken aloud in his head. It was all too much, yet not quite enough to fulfill that lingering void he’d felt his whole life.

The truth… well, that had always been a rare commodity in his teenage life. Jackson easily lied to his friends, family, girlfriends, teachers, doctors, therapists… yet he realized he had never once lied to his birth parents. Sure he’d used an illusion, but that was only for their safety as well as his at the time. Everything he did, everything he had said to Dana Scully and Fox Mulder was truthful. He shook his head in disbelief, mumbling, “That’s a first.”

Jackson carefully folded up the nearly finished letter and slid it in his back pocket. He noticed there was only one final sentence to read, one final immersion into the past he needed to see and feel in order to witness as much as he could through his mother’s eyes. There was no way in hell he wanted to experience that on a bus full of strangers gawking at him as he tried to pull himself together. The visions, flashbacks, whatever they were had been easier to control once he had given into them. But he could feel the intensity growing as he crept closer to those last words, and enduring anything more now would surely affect him on level of public embarrassment he’d rather live without.

The PA system clicked on. “Next stop, Farrs Corner. Please gather your belongings and prepare to exit if this is your final destination.”