This chapter is rated PG


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Chapter Six
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March 2, 1993
12:02 p.m.

"Is that him?" Missy asked.

I looked up from the magazine I was pretending to read, and 
squinted across the street in the direction of my sister's gaze.  
There was a man there, a man with dark, unruly hair, striding 
through the lunchtime crowd, his trenchcoat flapping in the chill 
March breeze ... I shook my head.

"No," I said.  "That's Agent ... Roberts.  From SciCrime."  It 
was surprising how quickly everything was coming back to me.  I 
hadn't seen Carl Roberts since he left the Bureau to go to work 
for Dow, in early '94, and we had never been close.  But I had no 
trouble recognizing him.

"Damn."

While I remained on the bench, Melissa stood and paced nervously 
along the curb, oblivious to the traffic whizzing by a foot or so 
beyond.  She was wearing a peasant blouse and an ankle-length 
skirt that vaguely suggested 'gypsy'.  A strand of painted wooden 
beads dangled from her neck, and her hair flowed loose around her 
shoulders, glinting coppery in the noontime sunlight.  In other 
words, she was Melissa.

I, on the other hand, was wearing the same clothes that I'd had 
on when I got here, only cleaner.  Yesterday we'd searched my 
mother's house for some of my old clothes, but she must have 
given them all to Good Will.  Mom's clothes were too ... Mom-ish, 
so I ended up trying to mix and match some of Melissa's.  But 
though we were sisters, we were of decidedly different sizes, and 
what I ended up wearing made me feel that I belonged on a street 
pushing a shopping cart.  Mom-ish might have been preferable.  In 
any case, I decided then and there that I'd just wash and wear my 
own clothes until we could buy me some new ones.  Of course, I 
was hoping I wouldn't be around long enough to make that 
necessary.

Almost two days after my return to D.C., I still wasn't used to 
this.  Missy had taken me that first night to our parents' home 
in suburban Maryland and tucked me into bed, and I slept the 
clock around, not waking up until almost noon the following day.  
When I did finally awaken, she'd had breakfast ready and had 
insisted that I eat it before she would allow me to talk or even 
think about my problems.

We spent that afternoon and evening at the University of Maryland 
College Park library doing research.  What we were looking for we 
weren't sure, but that had always been the starting place for me.  
I dove into the physics section, looking for anything I could 
find on the nature of time, trying to dredge what I could from my 
memory of the Nichols case, as well as the research I'd done for 
my thesis on Einstein.  I was sure that if I could just figure 
out what had happened, I could find a way to reverse it.

It occurred to me that I could try contacting the Gunmen.  I'd 
thought about calling them that first morning in Vegas and 
rejected the idea for reasons that had seemed sound at the time.  
Now I didn't want to try it for different reasons -- because they 
wouldn't know me, just as the Mulder of 1993 had not known me.  
Worse, those three were even more paranoid than Mulder was, and 
any attempt to talk to them had a high likelihood of triggering 
their suspicions.  And God alone knew what they would do then.

Nevertheless, it was a risk that started to look more and more 
attractive as the day wore on and I failed to make any 
significant progress.  Not only would the Gunmen be better 
equipped for the sort of research I was doing, they were also one 
of the more plausible points of contact for Mulder, who even now 
(I hoped) was somewhere out there, looking for me.

Assuming, of course, he wasn't completely caught up in the thrill 
of time travel.  With my luck, even if I =did= find him, he'd 
probably want to extend his stay.

Of course, that all assumed that Mulder =was= in 1993, and that 
was as yet unproven.  While I was digging through physics books, 
Missy spent the day going through the personals section of back 
issues of The Washington Post, looking for clues.

It'd been her own idea.  "It worked for Madonna," she'd said, 
giving a matter-of-fact nod as she turned towards that section of 
the library.

"What?" I objected.  "You think you're going to find an ad that 
says 'Desperately Seeking Scully'?"

"You never know," she replied.

Unfortunately, Missy had come up empty, just as I had.  Oh, they 
weren't actually dry holes -- on the contrary, the problem in 
both cases was that there was just too much information to 
process.  I could spend the rest of my life in those stacks 
looking through textbooks and professional journals, and of 
course there were thousands of personal ads to review.  I must 
still have been a little addled from everything that had happened 
to believe that I could dig my way out of this so easily.

Who I needed were the Gunmen.  There were no two ways about it.  
I needed computer support that wasn't available to the general 
public in 1993, and they were the only place I was likely to get 
it.  I also needed more minds than mine and my sister's working 
on the problem -- and again, I could think of no one other than 
those three who would both believe me, and actually be able to 
help.

But when I finally tried to call them late that evening, I got 
their voice mail.  I tried several times, but each time the 
recording came on.  I hesitated over it the last time and almost 
left a message -- but what could I possibly say?  'Hi, you don't 
know me, but I'm from the future, and in a few days my younger 
self will be assigned to work with your friend Fox Mulder -- and 
by the way, have you heard from him lately?  Not the 1993 model, 
but the version from 1998 ...'

I was considering just showing up on their doorstep when Missy 
sprung another idea on me.

"I think we should talk to him."

"What?  Who?"

"Mulder," she'd replied.  "Your partner.  I think we should talk 
to him."

I shook my head.  "Missy, that'd be great.  But first we have to 
find him."

"No," she said.  "Not the one from the future.  The one who lives 
here now."

My incredulity must have shown on my face, because she hastened 
to explain why we should do it.  I wouldn't hear of it at first, 
but our fruitless research and my inability to connect with the 
Gunmen made me vulnerable.  Plus, it wasn't the wildest 
suggestion I'd ever heard.  It still took some persuading, but 
she finally talked me into it.  Considering the desperate 
situation I was in, it made sense, I told myself.  After all, 
other than the Gunmen and my mystical sister, who did I know who 
was likely to believe such an outlandish story?  And if I managed 
to convince him, he in turn would give me what I needed: an 
entree to the Gunmen.  Not to mention, he might even be of some 
help in tracking down his future self.

So here we were at noon on the following day, just down the block 
from the Hoover, waiting for the younger Mulder to make his 
appearance.  I seemed to recall from our first year together that 
he usually went out sometime between noon and one o'clock.  And 
he'd never liked the Bureau's cafeteria; not only was the food 
lousy (a sentiment that I heartily shared), but he always said he 
felt like an exotic animal that had been put out on display when 
he ventured there --

And there he was!  My heart almost stopped when I saw him.  God 
... he looked so young.  I couldn't believe I'd forgotten.  His 
face was thinner than I remembered, with fewer lines.  His hair 
was a little longer than my Mulder's.  There was an actual bounce 
in his step, an energy that I hadn't seen in years.  He looked 
like a man who was about to fight lions -- and was confident that 
he would win.  He was beautiful.

"I take it that's him," Melissa commented, her tone dry and edged 
with humor.  I turned to look at her, just in time to see her 
eyebrow quirk.  I opened my mouth to say something, I don't know 
what, but there was no time, no time -- Mulder was already 
halfway down the block.

"It's him," I confirmed.  I wanted to say more, but every second 
was taking him farther away.

"Off I go," Missy said.  She set off down the sidewalk at a rapid 
clip.  I counted to thirty, then went after her.

Our plan called for Missy to be the one to approach Mulder.  The 
reason for that was that he and I were due to meet for the first 
time in just a few days.  When I'd called him from Vegas two days 
earlier, he'd apparently not known who I was, but I knew that 
he'd had some advance notice -- maybe he'd even gotten the news 
later that same day.  Because by the time I walked into his 
office that first time, he'd had time to read my undergraduate 
honors thesis.  So it was possible that by now he would know who 
Dana Scully was, would recognize me, and would interpret any 
contact by me as an attempt to spy on him.  Or whatever 
Mulderlogic he would apply to the situation.

For that reason, my sister would talk to him first, on the 
presumption that he wouldn't have checked up on all of my family 
members.  I didn't think even Mulder was that paranoid.  Missy 
would approach Mulder, appealing to one of his biggest weak 
points: a woman in trouble.  The story she was going to tell was 
essentially the truth, but with an unnamed "friend" in the 
starring role.  Meanwhile, I would be nearby, wearing a baggy 
greatcoat that used to belong to Charlie when he was in junior 
high, plus a sunhat of Mom's that had a wide, floppy brim to 
conceal my most obvious characteristic: my hair.

I watched from across the street as Melissa finally caught up 
with Mulder.  For a split second I couldn't keep myself from 
envying her; I wanted to talk to him, to remember.  His long, 
easy stride faltered as she spoke, then the two of them talked 
for a minute or two.  At last he shrugged and glanced at his 
watch, then took her by the elbow and led her on down the street.

As I'd guessed would happen, Mulder took her to Alvin's, a dingy 
little lunch grill that he and I used to frequent during our 
first year or so as partners.  Mulder liked it because no one 
else from the Bureau seemed to know it was there, and the food 
was surprisingly good.  We'd stopped going there because -- hell, 
I realized I didn't actually know why we'd stopped going.  It had 
been after my abduction -- my first abduction, at the hands of 
Duane Barry.  When I got back, Mulder had seemed grimmer and even 
more driven than before, and I was so wrapped up in what had 
happened to me, trying to absorb it all and adjust, that a lot of 
small pleasures had dropped by the wayside.

I waited outside for a couple of minutes, giving Mulder and 
Melissa time to take their seats.  I knew Mulder would choose the 
booth all the way in back; he always did.  Once I was sure they'd 
had time to get settled, I went inside.

Immediately, I encountered an obstacle.  I'd expected to take a 
booth close to Mulder's and Melissa's, so as to keep tabs on what 
they were doing.  With luck, maybe I'd get the very next booth, 
so that I'd be able to overhear their conversation.  Alvin's was 
seldom crowded, even at lunchtime, and I'd hoped -- well, it 
didn't matter what I'd hoped, because on that particular day 
every single booth in the place was taken, as were most the 
tables. Mulder had apparently lucked out in finding his usual 
spot available, as I saw a flash of Missy's hair as she leaned 
forward to emphasize whatever point she was making.

I, on the other hand, was left with Hobson's choice.  I could 
either sit at the counter, right next to the cash register 
where'd I'd draw attention because the waitresses were constantly 
coming and going ... or I could take a table about two thirds of 
the way back, that looked as if it wasn't =quite= in Mulder's 
direct line of sight, but where I might possibly be able to hear 
them.  I chose the latter.

"-- know it's hard to believe," Melissa was saying as I settled 
into my seat.  "God, I could hardly believe it myself when I 
first saw her.  But it really is true, Agent Mulder.  There's no 
doubt at all."

"Oh, it's not that unbelievable," I heard my once and future 
partner say. He spoke rapidly, with the old, familiar enthusiasm.  
"Charles Fort recorded a number of such occurrences.  There was 
the case of Benjamin Bathurst, for example, back in 1809 ..."

Mulder rambled on, and I found myself relaxing a bit as the 
comforting, vibrant sound of his voice wrapped itself around me.  
I lowered my gaze to the grease-stained table, and it was almost 
as if he were speaking to me. This was Mulder at his best, 
expounding on theories, jumping from hypothesis to hypothesis 
with little or no regard for logic, and yet somehow always able 
to land on his feet.  I remembered how frustrating that had been 
-- how frustrating it still was, sometimes.

But I wouldn't have it any other way.  I'd finally settled that 
in my own mind on the long trip back from Antarctica.  When we 
were in D.C. again I'd thought -- I'd expected -- things to 
change between us.  I was finally ready, or so I thought, and 
Mulder obviously was, too ... and then Diana Fowley had entered 
our lives.

I frowned.  Now wasn't the time to be thinking about all this.  
There were more important things to --

My reverie ended abruptly as my hat was snatched from my head.  I 
looked up, startled, to see Mulder standing over me, his  
expression one of curiosity -- and mostly, suspicion.  I was 
distantly aware of Missy standing a few feet behind him, her 
mouth hanging open, but all I could really see was Mulder. And 
then he spoke.

"Now, why don't you tell me what's =really= going on?"  His eyes 
widened slightly as he took in my features.  He took a step back 
as he added, "Dana Scully?"

***

7:43 p.m.

It took most of the afternoon to persuade Mulder that I really 
was who I said I was and to fill him in on the situation.  He 
took the rest of the day off and suggested that we accompany him 
back to his apartment.  Convincing him of my identity wasn't 
difficult -- he had apparently already had access to my dossier, 
from official channels or otherwise (I didn't ask).  The hard 
part was making him believe that I really was from the future.

I probably wasn't doing the best possible job of selling the 
idea.  My mind was in a whirl over having been discovered, with 
the plot of every bad science fiction novel ever written churning 
through my mind.  Mulder had now met Dana Scully three days 
before he was "supposed" to.  Wouldn't that alter history?  Were 
events going to change, leaving us with no memory of how things 
had been before?  Or were we -- me, Mulder, Missy, maybe the 
whole damned universe -- simply going to vanish like a popped 
soap bubble?

I didn't have the answers to those questions, and right now there 
wasn't any way to find out.  I was still here, which meant that 
all the events that had led up to my being here had still 
occurred.  Now that the situation had presented itself, it seemed 
supremely important that I persuade this Mulder that I was 
telling the truth, so that I could find =my= Mulder and return to 
1998.  Fast.

Here I had to give credit and thanks to Mulder's willingness to 
accept extreme possibilities.  I'm sure that if our situations 
were reversed -- if it were my younger self who found herself 
face to face with a Mulder from the future -- the interview would 
have been much tougher, and the burden of proof would have been 
much heavier.

In the end, it was my keychain, of all things, that convinced 
him.  We'd been going back and forth for hours, with Mulder 
obviously on edge, and my own frustration rising each time he 
shot down yet another offering of proof that I had thought was 
ironclad.  Everything I knew about his childhood and personal 
history could have been discovered by a determined investigator, 
and none of the private memories that only he and I shared had 
yet occurred.

Another reason he wasn't predisposed to give me the benefit of 
the doubt was that he remembered the phone calls I'd made early 
Sunday morning.  At the time, he hadn't known who his new partner 
was to be, but it seemed likely that when he was notified later, 
he would have recalled the woman who had phoned him in the middle 
of the night.  Mulder didn't miss much.  He would have already 
written her off as a cruel prankster, another in a long line of 
people who ridiculed him and didn't respect his work.  Me.  He 
had probably thought those things about me.  I felt a terrible 
tightness in my chest as I considered it.

Missy was no help.  I'd forgotten that, for reasons I'd never 
understood, my sister's New Age beliefs set Mulder off rather 
than intriguing him. Which seemed counterintuitive, given how 
readily he jumped on just about every other bandwagon that came 
along, but there it was.  So when Missy started trying to 
persuade him to open himself to my aura, he rolled his eyes and 
stalked to the other side of the room.

"You're either nuts or determined to play out this charade to the 
end," Mulder declared, glaring at Missy and me.  "Yeah, let's 
have a little joke at the expense of your new partner, Spooky 
Mulder ..."

I opened my mouth to object, the pain in his eyes cutting me to 
the quick, but his voice trailed off, and his gaze seemed to 
focus on my coat, which had slid off the back of his couch onto 
the floor.  He took two quick steps forward, kneeling down -- and 
I realized that he was sifting through some objects that had 
fallen out of one of my pockets.

"Where did you get this?" he asked, looking up at me.  I took a 
half step towards him and saw that he was holding the Apollo 11 
keychain that he'd given me -- or would give me -- shortly after 
I was diagnosed with cancer.

I tried to read his expression, hoping that his interest meant 
something. "It was a gift from a good friend," I replied softly.
"You."

He straightened up, still holding the keychain, a thoughtful look 
on his face.  Without another word, he spun on his heel and 
strode out of the room and down the hall towards his bedroom.  
Well, towards the room most people would use for a bedroom, I 
amended in my mind.  I'd stuck my head in there a few times -- 
mostly when Mulder had ditched me, and I was trying to find some 
clue as to where he might have gone -- and if there was a bed in 
there, it was buried under God alone knew how many boxes of 
Mulderphernalia.

His entire apartment was messier than I remembered it.  In my 
experience, Mulder's place was cluttered, but reasonably clean -- 
a typical bachelor's apartment.  But as it was now it was really 
a bit of a sty.  There were a couple of pizza boxes sitting on 
the coffee table, dirty clothes had been thrown in the corner, 
and there was a musty, unpleasant odor in the air.  It made me 
wonder when Mulder had changed his housekeeping habits.

But apparently he kept some kind of order, because in less than 
five minutes he emerged triumphant, a look of awe on his face.  I 
watched him warily as he crossed the room to stand in front of 
me, then flinched when he grabbed my wrist and pressed something 
into my hand.

Two somethings.  I turned the objects over, staring at them --
staring at my keychain, and what appeared to be another one just 
like it.

"They're the same," Mulder said, very softly.  "=Exactly= the 
same.  Look." He took them from my hands and lined them up next 
to each other, resting in his palm.  He pointed to the left edge 
of first one, then the other.  "See that nick?" he said.  His 
voice was quiet.  "So small you can hardly see it.  You have to 
know it's there."  He looked up at me, and I nodded.  I knew that 
nick well -- and now he seemed to be waiting.  Waiting for me to 
say something.

"Samantha made it," I responded, touching the scar, first on one
keychain, and then on the other.  "With her teeth.  You told me 
the story years ago.  One night in Biloxi, when I  ... wasn't 
feeling well."  I hadn't told him about the cancer.  "You told me 
that story, and we ate soda crackers and drank ginger ale 
together until I finally fell asleep."  I didn't add that I was 
pretty sure he'd continued to sit by my bedside until dawn.  No 
need to complicate matters any more than they already were.

He nodded, then glanced at Melissa.  "What about you?" he asked.

"What about me?" she asked, shrugging.  "I never saw it before in 
my life."

As quickly as that, I saw the change.  I saw Mulder's eyes 
lighten as he decided to believe me.  It was a phenomenon I'd 
seen many times in the past, but never directed at me.  It was 
the look he got when he thought something marvelous had happened.  
Something wonderful.  I felt a rush of warmth in my chest, but 
quickly suppressed it.

"Okay, then," he said, almost breathing the words.  "Okay."  He 
jingled the two keychains in his hand for a second or two, then 
smiled and dropped one of them back into my hand.  He held onto 
the other one for a moment before slipping it into his pocket.  
"Let's get going," he said.  He moved quickly past me, grabbing 
his coat from where he'd carelessly flung it over a chair when we 
first arrived, and lifted his old-fashioned, bulky cell phone 
from the coffee table.

"Where are we going?" I asked.  Mulder was already standing in 
the open front door tapping his foot impatiently.  This felt very 
familiar.  I almost expected him to produce a slide projector and 
one of those ubiquitous red-striped folders.  Melissa and I 
hurriedly pulled on our own coats and followed him down the hall 
to the elevator.

"To see the Gunmen," he replied, stabbing the down button.  "I 
can't do this on my own -- it's too big."  He gave a crooked 
smile.  "Besides, the boys would kill me if I held out on 
something like this."  Then he took out his cell phone, and a few 
seconds later was talking with the Gunmen -- Langly, I think it 
was -- telling them in short, staccato sentences what had just 
happened and what we were going to need.

Soon we were in Mulder's car heading for the George Washington 
Parkway.  Things were finally starting to look up.  Melissa's 
plan was actually working; within the hour, we'd be in the 
Gunmen's familiar, cluttered office in College Park.  And then 
maybe, just maybe, we'd be able to make some real progress on the 
twin problems of locating Mulder -- =my= Mulder, from 1998 -- and 
finding a way to return both of us to our proper time.

We were just heading into the 395/295 interchange when the black 
sedan slammed into our rear bumper, seeming to come out of 
nowhere, jolting us and rending the air with the shriek of metal 
grinding on metal.

I braced myself as Mulder maneuvered frantically, trying to fight 
back as best he could, and perhaps the man he would later become 
would have been able to pull it off, or at least elude our 
attackers, but now, in 1993, he was young and inexperienced.  The 
heavier vehicle smashed into us again and again, each time making 
our car shudder and skid.  Suddenly, the sedan dropped back a 
short distance before coming at us one more time with a mighty 
roar of its engine.  There was a powerful blow to the left rear 
fender, and Mulder's car went spinning out of control.

==========END CHAPTER SIX==========