Drabble #22
by Aloysia Virgata

Email: aloysia.virgata@yahoo.com

Category: Revival

For self-immolating anon: I love everything you have ever written and if you manage to make my prompt happen I am probably going to catch fire and die. A ficlet/drabble where the shoe on the IWTB poster in the first teaser is William's.

***

An unkempt boy in mud-stained clothes. He wears an olive drab jacket, loose on his gangly frame. Chestnut hair hangs in his eyes, his outsized feet on Mulder's poster. Scully knows, and the knowledge burns.

"William," she breathes, her chest tight.

The boy looks away. "I think I used to be."

Scully swallows, afraid she will shatter if she touches him. "How is this possible?"

He still won't meet her eyes, his toe scuffing the floor. "I've always known I was adopted. But I...I started to remember things. From when I was a baby."

Do you remember how I loved you? How I brushed your perfect toes across my face? Do you remember the sound of my heart breaking?

"Your parents...?"

"They didn't believe me." He watches her now, defiant, daring her to challenge him too. "I ran away."

"We have to ca-"

Tears pool in his blue eyes. "Please," he says. "I just want the truth."

The echo of his father is what finally undoes her.