Machines of Freedom (12/12) 
by Amal Nahurriyeh
  
Email:  amalnahurriyeh@gmail.com
Pairing: On the gen/MSR border, with mentions of slash
pairings.
Rating: R (non-explicit sex, language, adult subjects)
Warnings: None for major triggers, but includes some
descriptions of violence (in a R-rated movie kind of way).
There are also people under the age of 15 in this story; be
forewarned.

Summary: The end of the world is coming. And they're
doing everything in their power to stop it.
Timeline/Spoilers: Post-IWTB, seasons 8 & 9 compatible;
exists in my post-IWTB universe, which also includes
Whiteboard, The Keeping of Secrets, and Five Times
Mosley Drummy Wishes He Never Met Fox Mulder, but not
necessary to have read those first.
  

Chapter Twelve

December 22, 2012 
9:25 PM Mountain Time 
Stark, Montana 
 
Mulder had woken up in hospitals plenty of times. 
Generally, he judged how bad it was by Scully's facial 
expression, demeanor, and distance from him. So when he 
opened his eyes in a hospital bed and she didn't 
immediately appear, he figured it was either pretty good or 
really, really bad. 
 
"FISH!" yelled a small voice somewhere in the immediate 
vicinity. 
 
"Sadie, you have a three right there," Scully said, less 
patiently than she probably intended. "See? That's a 
three." 
 
"FISH!" Sadie yelled again. 
 
He managed to turn his head, despite the vague vertigo. 
Scully had Sadie on her lap on the next hospital bed in the 
small infirmary, and Will was sitting at the head of the 
bed. Sadie's cards were all spread out on the bedspread, 
while Will held his like a cardsharp. 
 
"Well, how about Will goes fishing in your cards again, for 
this card, right here." 
 
"Yeah, okay. Fish this one." 
 
"Thank you," Will said, sounding exasperated. 
 
"Scully," he said, his voice hoarse, "are you teaching our 
daughter to cheat at cards?" 
 
Scully's head snapped up, and she smiled like a switch 
turning on. Sadie launched herself off her lap and bounced 
across the space between the beds, chanting "Daddy daddy 
daddy!" She stood next to his head and jumped up and down. 
"Daddy I hid under a table and then Will went and did magic 
with you and Mama and then you got a headache but you're 
better now right?" 
 
She was making him dizzy, so he closed his eyes and reached 
out to rest a hand on her head. "Right." 
 
Scully's patted his cheek gently to get his attention. "How 
do you feel?" 
 
He opened his eyes. She was still smiling, a little. "A 
little off. No pain, but like the echo of it." She pulled a 
penlight out of her pocket. Pupil responsivity, tracking 
her finger: he sometimes wondered if she became a 
neurosurgeon because of all those years checking him for 
head trauma. "How long have I been out?" 
 
"Twenty-nine hours." Her voice sounded frayed. Maybe not 
quite so fine. 
 
"What happened?" 
 
"Up," Sadie said. "Daddy, I want up." 
 
Scully lifted her up and put her on the bed. "Without an 
fMRI, I can't really say. Your EEG was abnormally rapid 
when you came in, but it returned to normal levels within a 
few hours. Your vitals have been stable. I think you just 
needed some recovery time." 
 
Sadie had snuggled in to his chest. He wrapped his arm 
around her and looked over at Will. His legs were hanging 
off the edge of the hospital bed, and he was kicking them 
back and forth. "You okay?" he asked. 
 
"Yup. My brain is young and strong." 
 
"Don't be a punk, Neo." Will grinned. 
 
"Actually, both his and Casey's EEGs were elevated when we 
brought them in, but they resolved faster than yours, and 
they never lost consciousness. I wish I had had the 
equipment to do more recording, but no one was expecting 
that we'd have to run a paraneurology ward in here." 
 
"You'll just have to stick us in your machine back home and 
see what happens," he said, stroking Sadie's back. 
 
"I can live without knowing," she said, quietly. He got the 
impression Scully was done with this shit, for a while at 
least. 
 
He opened his eyes to look at Will again. "You're 
grounded." 
 
"My other parents already grounded me for sneaking off." He 
seemed half proud of that; he probably didn't get grounded 
that often. 
 
"Well, good, but I'm grounding you for concocting a secret 
plan to save the world with telepathy and not telling us. 
How long had you been working on that?" 
 
He shrugged. "Casey and I'd just talk sometimes. She told 
me what blueprints to read." 
 
He thought back. "The chess game. When I came in, neither 
of you had your hands on the table." 
 
Will grinned. "You should have waited. We were going to try 
juggling next." 
 
"See what I mean? Totally grounded." His eyes drifted shut. 
"Scully, you want to ground him for something?" 
 
"I can think of a few things," she said. 
 
Sadie had gotten her thumb in her mouth, and was sucking 
quietly. They were going to have to work on that soon. He 
felt a soft kiss on his temple. "Get some more sleep. 
You'll feel better soon." 
 
He tried to think of something to say, but fell asleep 
before he managed it. 
 
*** 
 
December 23, 2012 
1:04 PM Mountain Time 
Stark, Montana 
 
Mulder chose to assume it was compassion for him that 
caused the postmortem meeting to be held in their quarters. 
Or maybe it was that Bill had burned through the floor in 
control and generally stunk up the joint, or that the 
dining room had been colonized by refugees. Anyway. He 
preferred compassion. He was nearly back to normal--got a 
little dizzy if he moved too fast, and still had the echo 
of a headache somewhere in his head--but he was up to most 
things. 
 
Sadie had beaten him at Go Fish, though. 
 
Monica was at the table, eating a slice of pizza. They'd 
figured out how to get delivery, which was the best thing 
they'd ever done, so there were two pepperonis, two 
sausage, and a lone vegetable pizza sitting around 
unmolested. She was watching the door, and occasionally 
running her fingers over the console shaped bruise on her 
forehead. Doggett was watching her, trying to avoid getting 
caught at it. 
 
The next person to arrive was Skinner, though, and Monica 
tried not to look disappointed. "I just got confirmation. 
The president will be coming through tomorrow. He's flying 
out through the disaster areas in eastern Pennsylvania and 
central Illinois tonight, but then he'll be here in the 
morning." 
 
"We should probably have a statement by then, huh," Matt 
said, his mouth full of pizza. 
 
"Well, then maybe we should figure out what the hell 
happened," John said, popping the top off one of the beers 
they'd had delivered with the pizza. 
 
There was a shy knock on the door. "Um, hi," Will said. 
 
"Will," Skinner said. "We weren't expecting you." He threw 
Mulder an evil look. 
 
Mulder cleared his throat. "Will's picking Sadie up. I 
thought it would be better without distractions." No 
fucking way was he letting them interrogate Will about what 
had happened, not right now, not ever. He'd rather not 
know. 
 
Scully emerged from the kids' room, with a dressed but 
squirmy Sadie in her arms. "Look, Sadie, your brother's 
here. Aren't you glad you're dressed, so you can go with 
him?" 
 
"Hi, Will! Mama, put me down." Sadie slithered down to the 
floor, and ran over to Will. 
 
"Sadie, shoes," Scully said, straightening her shirt where 
it had been hiked up from baby-wrangling.  
 
"I'm stayin' in the house," Sadie whined. "I want pizza." 
 
"You can have pizza, but you have to wear shoes if you're 
taking an elevator. Will, you want pizza?" 
 
"Yeah, okay," he said. He found Sadie's Cinderella heels in 
the chaos of the living room. "Here, Sadie, wear these." 
 
"Pepperoni!" she yelled as she put them on. 
 
"Pepperoni," Scully said, and slapped three slices on a 
plate. "Will, don't let her eat it until it cools a 
little." 
 
Isabel ducked in the door. "Whoa, I'm late. Is there any 
sausage left?" 
 
"I kept the wolves off the last two slices," Matt said. 
"So, what, we're just waiting on Casey?" 
 
"Oh," Will said. "She left." 
 
There was a hush, broken only by Monica dropping her soda 
bottle. "She left," she said, flat and incredulous. 
 
"Um, yeah." Will was wrestling with the tiny plastic buckle 
on the shoe. "She said bye a little bit ago." 
 
"Really," Monica said. "Just, that's it, bye." 
 
"Um, she said she left you stuff on your desk. That you 
should look there." 
 
"That's..." Monica ran out of words and made an expansive 
gesture with her hands. Doggett handed her a stack of 
napkins, which she threw at the rapidly expanding patch of 
soda in front of her. 
 
"Oh, and Dad," Will said, with a kind of false calmness. 
"She said to tell you you're an idiot." 
 
For a second, Mulder didn't process it, because he was 
handing Monica more napkins. Then he connected through. 
"Wait, what?" 
 
Will shrugged. "She said it, not me. I don't know why. 
She's pretty weird sometimes." 
 
For a minute he was annoyed. What was she doing, judging 
him for not having better magic alien powers? And what was 
he an idiot about at the moment? Because there was usually 
a list going around, between Sadie and Scully, and he 
wanted to know what she had to contribute. Seriously, would 
he ever have a life where he wasn't inherently a 
disappointment to all the women in it-- 
 
Oh shit. His head snapped up. "Will?" he said. 
 
Will looked up and caught his eyes. He heard the whisper in 
the back of his mind. *She's just leaving now. If you run 
you could catch her I think.* 
 
*Thanks,* he thought, and hoped he could transmit. "I'll be 
right back," he said, and stood up. 
 
"Mulder, wait, we need to have this meeting," Scully said. 
 
"Just tell me about it later," he said as he headed out the 
door. "I mean, I haven't really been necessary to this 
whole thing since 1999, at the latest." 
 
The elevator was just closing. He jogged down the hallway 
and threw his shoulder between the doors. Once he managed 
to squeeze in, he jammed the surface button until the 
elevator started moving. Why hadn't he seen it earlier? 
She'd been telling him all along. He should know by now to 
expect the impossible. He bounced on the balls of his feet. 
 
The doors opened, and he jogged through security. "Mr. 
Mulder?" the kid on the desk said. 
 
"Casey, she just came through, yeah?" 
 
"Um, yes sir, do you want help?" 
 
"No, I've got this." He kept going out the door. 
 
She was walking away, towards where the drive which lead 
out to the major road, puffs of smoke around her head. 
"Casey!" he yelled, but she just kept walking. He tried 
running, but the snow was slippery, and his head was 
beginning to pound as his blood pressure rose. He stopped 
and caught his breath, and watched as she kept walking. 
 
Come on, Mulder, he told himself. You do this 20 times a 
day. And he straightened up, put his hands on his hips for 
added effect, and yelled, "Cassandra Scully-Mulder, you get 
back here right this minute." 
 
Twenty feet away, Casey stopped walking. 
 
She looked back over her shoulder, and why the hell didn't 
he see it before? Because that is the look she gives him 
whenever she hides his keys ten minutes before they have to 
leave the house. And the smile she gave Will as she put his 
helmet on in the helicopter was the one she reserved for 
small furry animals, and-- oh, the look on her face as she 
leaned over him and held his mind in her hands, that was 
the look he got that time he spilled a pot of hot soup on 
his arm and was hopping around the kitchen trying not to 
teach the word motherfucker to his two-year-old--that was 
her look when someone was suffering. 
 
She turned around to face him, the wind whipping snow 
around her face, and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear 
with the hand holding the cigarette. It was such a Scully 
gesture, and he saw it now, the eyes, the shape of her jaw, 
the nose. "Sadie," he said, and couldn't help the smile of 
recognition. 
 
She laughed and looked away. "What?" he said, and began to 
approach her, crunching through the snow. 
 
She flicked the butt away. "No one's called me that since I 
was twelve," she said, and crossed her arms. 
 
"What's wrong with your name?" 
 
"You try being Sadie Mulder at St. Mary's Academy for 
Girls. Gets old real quick." 
 
I let Scully send her to Catholic school? he thought. 
"Well, we'll talk about that in nine years." 
 
Her face got sad and wistful for a moment. "Yes," she said. 
"We will." 
 
"But seriously? Time travel?"  
 
She laughed. "You know, you shouldn't be surprised. You and 
Mom worked a case about it, remember? In Boston." 
 
He stopped in front of her and contemplated for a minute. 
"Oh, yeah. I tend to forget the boring ones." She was 
taller than Scully, which she must enjoy. "So, what. You 
couldn't leave the family business alone? Just had to come 
see what the fuss was about?" 
 
She licked her lips and avoided eye contact. "Exactly. No 
fun being the baby of the family." 
 
God, she even lied like Scully. "No," he said, and thought 
about her pulling a gun on the Van de Kamps, lying to 
Monica for months, shooting Bill and that commando without 
blinking. Sadie, for all her casual violent impulses, cried 
when she stepped on a spider. This girl in front of him is 
hardened. He gets a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. 
"Did we--did we not win? Is that it?" 
 
"No, no, I'm not post-apocalyptic Sadie," she said, shaking 
her head. "World saved. You're a hero." 
 
He studied her face, looking for it. Her voice in his head 
whispering *don't die, you're ok,* the odd look she gave 
him in the elevator that morning, the way she always seemed 
to be watching him out of the corner of her eye. He sucked 
in his breath as he put it together. "It's me," he said. "I 
died, didn't I?" 
 
She was staring at his throat, as if she were unsure where 
to look. "You weren't prepared," she said quietly. "When 
Bill blew out the software, and you--compensated--you 
didn't know what the effects were. Neither of you did." 
 
"And you and Will were in the shelter, and couldn't help." 
 
She looked up, seemed to weigh whether to tell him 
something, and looked away again. "I didn't cause the 
raid," she whispered. His eyes closed involuntarily: the 
Van de Kamps with their one little shotgun against three 
helicopters. OK, yeah, he's fine with them alive. When he 
opened his eyes she was studying his face. "I don't 
remember you," she said, and he could see instantly 
regretted it--it had been involuntary, like the first time 
Scully had told him she loved him. It came from the id, and 
the superego hated it.

Her arms were still crossed. He took her by the elbows, 
leaned down, and kissed her forehead. She sagged into the 
embrace, as if she didn't know what else to do. "Thank 
you," he said aloud. *I love you,* he thought, and hoped 
she heard. 
 
She took a long shuddering breath and pulled away. With one 
hand she wiped her cheeks dry, and smiled up at him. At 
least someone had gotten his mouth. "I'd love to stay and 
chat. But, sadly, I've got an expiration date. I've got to 
go catch my ride back home." 
 
"How old are you?" He brushed her hair off her forehead. 
 
"Twenty-six. So, you know, try not to get hit by a bus for 
the next twenty-three years, okay? Because I have a life."

"I'll do my best," he said, and kissed her again. 
 
"I'm sure you will," she said. She turned and began walking 
back towards the road.  
 
He watched her, and thought, achingly, of what these past 
days had been like for her. "Hey," he called out. She 
looked back at him. "Sorry. About the whole..." He made a 
gesture that he intended to mean imprisonment, distrust, 
and attempts to shoot. 
 
"Punching me in the fucking face thing?" She grinned. 
 
"Yeah, that too," he said, and crossed his arms. 
 
"Mmm hmm. I deserve, like, a pony for that shit." 
 
He laughed. "I think I can do that." 
 
"Well, all right then." She tucked her hands in the pockets 
of her leather jacket, and trudged off in the snow. 
 
He watched her disappear. When she was lost to him, he 
looked up at the cloudy sky and closed his eyes. Safe, they 
were safe, and somewhere not too distant his son and 
daughter played together in the world they'd saved. 
 
"Mulder?" Scully's voice broke through his little reverie. 
He didn't turn around as he heard her boots crunch in the 
snow. "Jesus, it's freezing. Are you okay?" She slung his 
jacket around his shoulders. 
 
"I'm fine," he said, and thought, we did it. 
 
"Did you find what you needed to find?" she said, gently. 
 
"Yeah," he said, and smiled at her. 
 
"Are you going to tell me?" 
 
"Depends," he said. "You going to believe me?" 
 
"Depends," she said. "You got any evidence?" 
 
He couldn't help it. He tipped his head back and laughed. 
The world was a beautiful place on a morning like this. He 
was about to suggest they go back inside, but then he 
looked at the ground and saw it. 
 
A single cigarette butt, cooling in the snow. 
 
He squatted and examined it for a moment. It was still warm 
when he picked it up from the burned side. Just faintly, he 
could see a lip print on the filter. Scully squatted next 
to him, and he turned to look at her with a grin. "Hey, 
Scully," he said. "Did your PCR machine survive the 
apocalypse?"