Something Lost, Something Gained (2/?)
By Dana Quell

Dana felt the blood drain from her face as she recognized the tall 
figure.  "Mulder?" she whispered.
 
***

She remembered the first time she had met him, in the little L-shaped 
office deep within the bowels of the J. Edgar Hoover Building.  She was 
partly nervous and  partly curious about meeting him.  After all, he 
was Fox "Spooky" Mulder, one of the most brilliant albeit eccentric men 
in the FBI.  

And that fact was proven to her when she knocked on the door.

"Nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted!"

<What a strange thing to say,> Dana thought.  And the ensuing 
conversation was even stranger.  Aliens and bumps that looked like 
mosquito bites but not quite like mosquito bites.  And that strange 
organic compound he had flashed on the projector.  She had smiled 
secretly when their conversation had finished and he had left.  
Already, she could tell there were going to be some interesting times 
with this very interesting man.  

Then there was the case itself.  She didn't know quite what to make of 
it.  There was Mulder, of course, who didn't help to make an odd case 
any less unusual.  And then there was the strange occurences.  The girl 
in the wheelchair, Peggy, suddenly running across the street, only to 
get hit by a truck at 9:03 pm, the same time the agents' car stopped in 
the middle of the road and Mulder claimed they lost nine minutes.  The 
mosquito bites that she had mistaken for the bumps that looked like 
mosquito bites but weren't quite.  And that strange light she had 
glimpsed from her far away position in the woods.  Mulder hadn't helped 
her come to any terms with the case.

He had let her draw her own conclusions on that first case, as she 
would be forced to do on their last with so few muddled facts.

***

Many diferent theories raced through Dana's rational brain in only a 
few seconds.  He could be an hallucination, constructed of the emotions 
the seven year milestone bubbled and brought forth within her.  Of 
course, that would mean that no one else would see him, and clearly her 
mother saw him.  He could be an alien-human hybrid clone, like his 
sister had been when they had first run into the alien bounty hunter.  
He could be the alien bounty huner himself!  After all, they had run 
into him on that fateful last case.  

Or he could be the real Mulder, back for good.  Here, at last.  The 
hope she had kept locked deep inside her heart welled out and it seemed 
her legs moved towards him of their own accord.  Her arms wrapped 
around him and he returned the embrace.  

"Mulder?" she asked tentatively, not allowing any of the emotions that 
pushed to get out through the huge, thick walls she had placed around 
herself when he had disappeared.

"It's me, Scully.  I never thought I'd see you again- be able to hold 
you like this again."

Dana closed her eyes as she let herself fall into the embrace.  Seven 
years.  It was a long time.  And yet he still looked exactly as she 
remembered him.  She pulled away from the hug to study him more 
closely.

His hair was longer than it had been, and there were some strands of 
gray hidden within his still-thick hair.  His face had more crinkles 
around the eyes and there was something hidden within his deep pools of 
warm brown irises that hadn't been there seven years ago- pain?  
Immediately she wondered what had happened to him during all this time.

"We need to talk, Mulder.  Can I get you anything?" she asked, leading 
him into the living room.  He took a seat on the couch and shook his 
head.  She sat on the chair across from him and realized that Maggie 
Scully was still watching them.

"Mom, do you think you could check on Libby for me?"  Maggie nodded, 
understanding that her daughter and this man needed time.  She left the 
room after grabbing one of Libby's favourite action figures.

Dana and Mulder sat in uncomfortable silence for a few moments, then 
they both tried to speak.
 
"You go ahead," Dana said.

"No, I have always valued your input.  You first."

She raised her eyebrow.  "Where have you been all these years, Mulder? 
 What happened in Oregon seven years ago?  Skinner was never very clear 
on the details."

Mulder hesitated.  "I'm not sure myself- there's not a lot that I 
remember.  I remember everything about my life from the past three 
years, but anything before that..." He shook his head.  "I don't 
remember much.  I didn't remember anything from before at first..."

***

There had been darkness, and then suddenly a soothing female voice.  
Not the soothing female voice he would have prefered to hear, but it 
still had a calming effect on him.  Not that he was panicking.  No, he 
didn't seem like the kind of person who would panic.  Of course, he 
didn't think he knew what kind of person he was.  The knowledge was 
buried deep within his mind, locked away and hidden for a later date.  
It bothered him.  There were things there he was supposed to know.  
Like what kind of person he was and whose female voice he would have 
prefered to hear.  And what it sounded like.

"He's coming out of it, Lou," the female voice said.

His eyelids fluttered open, millimeter by excruciating milllimeter.  
His eyes felt like they were swollen shut, and once he had painfully 
opened them fully, he looked around.  Everything was blurry, unfocused. 
 And very, very bright.  He closed his eyes for another moment and then 
opened them again.

He could barely make out the two shapes that hovered over him.  One 
bent, doing something he couldn't see.  <Something you probably don't 
want to see,> the deep dark pit of locked away knowledge told him.

"His vitals are looking good.  Much better than yesterday."

"Hmm...."

"Do you think there might still be a chance for him?"  The female voice 
again.

"I don't know."  This one was deeper, more masculine.  It sent shivers 
down his spine and gave him the willies.  "There's never much of a 
chance for people like him, Lilly.  All we can do is pray."

His eyes began to focus, and he saw a man and a woman hovering above 
him.  The woman was dressed all in white; the man wore clothing in only 
the pitchest black, the only exception to his motif a thin white band 
at his collar.

"Look, Lou.  His eyes are open.  Do you think he sees us?  Understand 
who and what we are?"

"It's doubtful that if he sees us, he understands.  Most of them never 
do."

He licked his lips and opened them, mimicking what he saw the people do 
and finding that this was a way he could communicate.

"Who... who are you?  Where am I?"  His voice was raw, cracked, and he 
was surprised to find that he didn't recognize it.  He thought maybe he 
should.

"Relax.  We're friends and you don't need to know exactly where you are 
right now.  The only important thing is that you rest and get better, 
so you can get out of here."

"Anybody's... " He stopped and coughed.  "Anybody's friend in 
particular?"  He hadn't come up with that off the top of his head, had 
he?  He must have heard it somewhere.  But where?

"Yours," the woman said, handing him a tiny cup of water.  "Now, the 
father and I have to ask you some questions, and we need you to answer 
them to the best of your ability.  Do you think you can do that?"  He 
nodded.  "It's all right if you can't answer them just yet.  Eventually 
you'll be able to."

The father sat down at the edge of the bed.  "Do you know who you are?"

He licked his lips again- how dry they seemed!  "I'm me."  That was a 
good answer, wasn't it?

The woman smiled.  "I think the father meant do you know your name?"

"Oh."  He thought for a moment and it suddenly occured to him that he 
didn't have the slightest clue.  Another thing he should probably know. 
 "I don't know.  What is it?"

"Oh, honey, we don't know.  That's what we're trying to figure out," 
the woman said.

"Do you have any family members who might be concerned about you?  A 
mother, father, sibling, wife, child?"

He didn't remember.  There was something within him calling to him, 
teasing him with the knowledge he couldn't access, throwing out little 
bits of some truth or half-truth that he couldn't verify.  "I don't 
think so.  They're all dead."

The woman raised her eyebrow- why did such a simple action seem so 
familiar?- and turned to the man, who held her stare for a moment 
before turning back to him.

"What's the last thing you remember before meeting us?"

"Um..."  Why were they asking him all the questions he couldn't answer? 
 Couldn't they ever ask him one that he knew?  "There was a light, and 
all these people were standing in it.  I knew a few of them- a woman 
and two of the men.  And then another man joined us.  I knew him, too. 
 He was the man with many faces."

The father grew pale and turned to the woman.  "We need to talk.  I'll 
be outside."  He walked out of the room and waited just outside of the 
door.

The woman smiled wanly and leaned over him, adjusting some of the 
tubing that ran out of and into his body- funny, he hadn't noticed 
those before.  Nor had he noticed how brightly green her eyes were.  
<They're the same colour,> he thought.  <But her hair is brown.  It 
should be red like-  Like whose?>  It bothered him, not being able to 
remember a name or face.

"There," the woman said in that soothing voice of hers.  "Now you 
should be able to sleep a little better."  She turned to leave.

"Wait," he said, stopping her.  "What's your name?"

She bit her lip.  "Lilly.  Like the flower."  She smiled faintly again, 
then turned to meet the father outside the door.

His eyelids grew heavier with each moment that passed, but before he 
drifted off, he overheard the father say, "The memory purge didn't 
work.  He's retained some of his memories despite.  We'll have to kill 
him."  

***