From: VondaRain Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 00:03:51 EST Subject: "Never Let Go" by Yorgi 1/2 MSR Title: Never Let Go Author: Yorgi E-mail: VondaRain@aol.com (plot suggestion by Doxa Mully) Category: TRA Archive Anywhere! Keywords: Mulder/Scully romance Summary: On March 19, 1998, Dana Scully dies of cancer and Mulder must face the rest of his life alone. 20 years later, he is given the chance to go back in time with a cure. Intro: Well, it's 11:30 at night. I've been writing since 7:30, and I think I gained 10 pounds while writing this story. The dishes are piled up beside my computer. I'm also sick and my back is killing me. I have a rash all over my arms and legs because I was taking a walk, and I had a sudden urge to roll down a grassy hill like I used to when I was younger. Well, they had just fertilized, and now I'm covered in red splotches. So much for that. I got this plot from the plotlines page (http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/5667/list2.html). It was suggested by Doxa Mully. Part of the challenge was to have Mulder choose between Samantha and Scully, but I couldn't work that into my plot, so. . . sorry about that. Does anybody know the official rules about partners in the FBI becoming romantically involved? I've read several guesses, and I was just wondering what the actual policy is. I would really love feedback on this, because this is a different type of story for me, and I'm not so sure how it worked out. Oh, and PLEASE don't bail out at the Character Death. It ends happy, I promise. Never Let Go by Yorgi March 19, 1998 "Omigod-not-again!" Mulder squeezed Dana's hand reassuringly as he waited for her dizziness to pass. "My head hurts so much." "I know, Scully," he sighed. "It will be alright. Everything's going to be alright." But even she knew that it was a lie. Dana's cancer had gotten worse, to the point where she wasn't able to get out of bed. The doctors were surprised that she had made it as long as she had, and the tests showed that it was only a matter of time. Mulder had stopped everything to search for the cure. When the X-Files had been shut down, he didn't even put up a fight. Dana was all that mattered to him. But no cure had been found, and the only thing he could do for her now was stay by her side until the end. "I think. . . sleep." she murmured. "I'll be right here," he told her, lightly stroking the back of her hand. Dana closed her eyes. Mulder could tell by her breathing that she had fallen asleep. Tears filled his eyes as he reached out to touch her pale face. His entire world was collapsing before his eyes. Dana was all he had left. He couldn't begin to imagine his life without her. "I love you," he whispered. She never woke up. March 21, 1998 As he kneeled beside her, he knew the image of her lying in her casket would never leave him. She looked as if she were in a deep, dreamless sleep, at peace at last. Mulder could feel Bill Scully's eyes on him. He knew that Bill blamed him for his sisters death. He saw Margaret Scully embrace Bill's wife, Tara. Her eyes were red and puffy, and she couldn't stop crying. She had already suffered the losses of her husband and her daughter Melissa, and now Dana was gone. How much more could one woman take? The guilt Mulder felt intensified his pain. He should have been able to save her. Dana shouldn't have died. None of this would have happened if she hadn't met him. She should have left him in the beginning. But she stayed with him when no one else would, and look where it got her. The tears ran freely down his cheeks as he closed his eyes in anguish. Damn it, she shouldn't have died! March 19, 2018 Mulder laid the flowers on Dana's grave. 20 years. It had been twenty years since Dana Scully closed her eyes for the last time. Two whole decades. And in the past twenty years, not a day had gone by where he didn't think of her. He had retired from the bureau years ago. There was nothing left for him there, and his father had left him enough money to last him the rest of his life. But Mulder was miserable. He never got over her death. He tried to drink away the pain, and he passed out on his couch almost every night. Life without her was hell on earth. He had nothing left but her memory. Mulder fingered the gold cross around his neck. He hadn't taken it off, not once in twenty years. When he got back to his apartment, there was a message on his answering machine from the Lone Gunman. Langly, Byers, and Frohike were the only people he still talked to, but they didn't have much to say to each other. Sometimes months went by before he went to see them. "Lone Gunmen," Langly answered the phone. "What have you got?" Mulder asked, sipping a beer. "It's big, man. I think you need to come down here and see this for yourself." "Alright, Langly. I'll be down as soon as I can." He threw his head back and emptied the bottle. Mulder rested his hand on the panel by the door. The scanner read his fingerprints, and the doors slid open. Langly, Byers, and Frohike were seated around a computer, pounding the desk and yelling at the monitor. "No! We broke the access code!" "Try bypassing the sub-locking system!" "It's sealed tight, and their tracing us. We're gonna have to bail out." "Disconnecting." "Damn! We almost had it." "You're still at it, I see," Mulder said, walking over to them. In twenty years, the LGM hadn't changed a bit. "Mulder!" Langly looked up. "Hey, Man, you look like hell," Byers observed. "Give the guy a break. It is the 19th, you know," Frohike said with understanding. The trio stood solemnly. "We have something to show you," said Byers. He motioned for Mulder to follow him to the other side of the office. Langly handed Mulder a small, clear, plastic container, filled with a translucent green liquid. "What's this?" "It's the cure," said Byers. He didn't need to say which one. "The. . . what?" Mulder collapsed onto a chair. "How did you get this?" "Friends on the inside." Mulder slammed it down on the table. "Well, you're twenty years too late!" He stood to leave. "That's not all we have, Mulder. Have you been reading your papers? Scientists now believe that time travel is possible." "Sure, sure, but that technology won't exist for years." Mulder was growing impatient. He wasn't in the mood for games. "Wrong. It already exists. We've had the cure for years now, but we didn't want to tell you before, when you had no way to get it to her. But now there is a way." "What are you talking about?" "I'm talking about time travel. I'm talking about set the year, set the day, press a couple of buttons and you're there. It's in a top-secret, maximum security government facility in West Virginia. And we know how to get in." For some reason, this didn't surprise him. Then realization hit him. "Oh, my God. I could. . . I could save her!" for a moment he felt something he hadn't felt in years: Hope. But his face fell quickly. "Wait a minute. You can't just do that. I may not understand the technology, but I've read enough science fiction to know how damaging even the slightest alteration can be. Even if I could save her, if I did save her in 1999, she would be here now. And then if I save her and came back, we would have been together from then until now." Mulder was getting confused. "We've done the research," said Byers. "And you would really be jumping time lines like parallel universes. In one time line, Scully dies and you live the rest of your life without her. In an alternate time line, which you would create by going back in time, Scully is saved in 1998 by your future self. But once you saved her, you would wake up in that time line in 2018. So Scully appears out of nowhere as soon as you give her the cure, because in this time line, the past twenty years have already gone on without her. But everyone else remembers her having lived the past twenty years, because she didn't die in their time lines. So you both would wake up in 2018, her with no memories since 1999, and you with memories of an alternate time line." "But what about my past self in 1998?" "He continues with Scully for the next twenty years and beyond, in a third time line." It was too much at once. Mulder's head hurt, and he still wasn't sure he understood everything. "So I could have Scully back?" "Yes." "But I could screw a lot up in the process." "Yes." Mulder sighed. What the hell did it matter, anyway? He had this chance, and it would all be worth it, even if he could just tell her he loved her before she died. "Alright. Let's do it." "When?" "Now's as good a time as any." Mulder picked up the cure. "Let's go." "Mulder," Langly sighed. "You've been drinking. I want you to go home and sleep. We'll pick you up tonight at eight tonight. Wear black. Drink coffee. This isn't going to be easy." Continued in part 2 Continued from Part 1 The Lone Gunmen drove up to Mulder's apartment building in an unmarked van at exactly eight o'clock. Mulder was dressed in a black turtle neck and black jeans. He had finally shaved the scratchy grey beard from his face, and he had dug out his old gun, should he need it. Mulder couldn't believe he was doing this. He had never accepted Dana's death, but this seemed crazy, even to him. But his life was an empty hellhole without her. "Here's the plan," said Frohike. We'll bypass security with the codes. Once you activate the time machine, they're gonna know someone broke in. Langly will hold them, and when you go back, Byers and I drag your unconscious body to the car and make our getaway." "Unconscious?" "Time travel can be pretty rough." When they reached the facility, they parked the van and walked carefully to the electronic force-field-type fence. Langly entered in a 14 digit access code, and they moved on to the main building. At the front doors, Langly entered in a series of codes and ran an access card through a slot. All that was left was the fingerprint scanner and the voice scanner. "How are you going to do this?" Mulder demanded. Langly pulled a rubber hand from his back. "Ta-da!" Mulder shook his head. "You never cease to amaze me." For the voice scanner, Langly pulled out a small recording device and pressed 'play'. "Enter," said the recorder. The doors slid open. "Yes!" Frohike said quietly. "Hurry up," said Langly. "Byers knows where to go and how to work the thing." "Thanks for doing this, Langly." "Anytime. Now, go!" "Alright, we're going." Byers led the way down the hall. "It's this door," he said, stopping suddenly. He entered in a series of codes, and the door opened. They stopped in their tracks when they saw the time machine before them. "Damn," said Frohike. It was huge, with panels and monitors everywhere. "Alright, we don't have time." Byers said quickly. He pulled a needle from his pocket. "Inject her with this. All of it." Mulder took the needle. "Sit in this chair," Byers instructed. "Once you get there, you'll have until 5:00 PM. That's one hour. You cannot tell anyone who you are, or the tiniest detail of the future. The less you say the better." Frohike helped to strap Mulder in. "You ready?" "I'm ready. It's been twenty years. I've waited long enough," he replied with conviction. Byers set the time to 4:00 pm. He set the day to March 19th. He set the year to 1998. "All set." he called out. "Let's go." He pressed the start button. March 19, 1998 Mulder woke up in a hospital bed. "You're awake!" said a blond nurse. "Where am I?" Mulder struggled to sit up. "You're in the Washington D.C. General Hospital. You were found unconscious in the hallway." That was Scully's hospital! It must have worked. "What time is it?" Mulder asked frantically. "It's just past quarter to five." "I have to go!" Mulder cried, sitting up. "I have to see Dana Scully!" "You can see her as soon as we run a few tests, you were out for a long time." "NO! I have to go now!" he pushed the nurse aside and jumped out of the bed. "Sir, please!" Mulder was out the door. Although 20 years had past, he knew the way to Scully's room by heart. He silently opened the door to find his younger self beside Dana's bed. Dana's eyes were closed. The younger Mulder looked up when he heard footsteps in the room. "What the- who are you?" "Listen, this is going to sound crazy, but I'm your future self." "My what?" he studied the older man's face. "I have the cure to Scully's cancer." This got his attention. He was on his feet in an instant. Future Mulder held out the needle. "I am you in the future. Time travel exists 20 years from now, and I stole the machine to get this to you. She needs this injection. Without it, she dies tonight." "How do I know you're telling me the truth? I need to run tests on whatever that is before I inject her with it." "There isn't time! I can only stay here until five o'clock!" He glanced at the digital clock beside the bed. It was 4:56. "You're sister is Samantha! You still have nightmares about her being taken! Dana Scully is the most important person in your life! She held you in the forest and sang 'Jeremiah was a Bullfrog'! You held her in Allentown when she first knew about the cancer! You almost killed yourself when she was abducted! You love her more than life itself and you can't live without her!" His younger self stared at him, openmouthed. The clock read 4:57. "You want proof of that? I'm standing right here! Do you want to know what your life is like without her? It's nothing. I've lived without her for 20 years, and I'm still not over it. I've got pictures of her all over my apartment. I still hear her voice in my dreams!" he yelled desperately. "And you've got two minutes to give her this injection before you lose her forever!" Younger Mulder was stunned. "Give me the needle," he said finally. His future self sighed with relief. He held out the needle as the hospital security burst into the room. "Hold it right there!" commanded an officer. "Do it!" Younger Mulder grabbed the needle and flew to Dana's bedside. He was shocked to find her awake. "Mulder, what's going on?" He rolled up her sleeve as another security man reached to restrain him. He plunged the needle into her arm and injected it's contents into her bloodstream. Future Mulder sighed with relief. "Dana!" he cried, pulling away from security. He pushed past his younger self, who was being handcuffed by the other guard, and reached for Scully. Dana looked terrified. She gasped as he pressed his lips to her forehead. Doctors rushed into the room and Mulder was yanked back from the bed and handcuffed. His head was spinning. "I love you!" he screamed before his legs gave way and everything went black. March 20, 2018 When Mulder woke up, his head felt fuzzy and he was physically exhausted. He could tell by the smell that he was in a hospital. He opened his eyes to the most beautiful sight in the world. A woman was sitting beside his bed, holding his hand. Her hair was streaked with grey, and she looked to be in her sixties, but Mulder knew that face anywhere. "Scully?" he whispered, overcome with emotion. Dana smiled and pulled him into an embrace. After the cancer, her death, and 20 years, he was finally holding her in his arms. And then he heard her voice, and he heard her simple, beautiful words that erased the past two decades and made everything alright. "I love you, too." TO THE END I crave feedback! VondaRain@aol.com