Redemption (23/26) by GeorgeHale Rating: R Feedback: Classification: Colonization/Mythology/MSR/William, post I.W.T.B. Canon. Spoilers: Left, right, & center. This is best served if you REALLY know your X-Files. Disclaimer: I wish I made this. This has been my catharsis, five years in the making. Maybe it can be one for you, too. Warning: Violence, Gratuitous employment of the 'Our little sailor' clause (swearing,) Fluff with two 'f's, Cheesy dialogue, Friendly Ghosts, Melodramatics, Plot devices, Fiji Mermen (no, not really,) Angst, Blasphemy, Dehydration via crying, Scientific Whammies, Plams, Lots & Lots & Lots of...Bees, Magical Growing Scully Cross Chain, Red Herrings. It's going to get strange and ugly before the end. ------------------------------------------------------------------ XXIII ------------------------------------------------------------------ "But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God - so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land!" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick ------------------------------------------------------------------ GULF OF MEXICO Unknown Coordinates March 16th, 2013 10:13 a.m. There was an odd sense of calm as Kryder moored the ship in the harbor of the unknown city that lie before them dusted in grey. If he hadn't known better, the man would have called it Pompeii and saw that it was slowly disintegrating. Knowing better, he spotted and dusted the signs nearby until he knew they had arrived. They had lost time checking another town and ultimately acquiring some fuel, but this had been their destination and he was glad they had finally been able to identify the correct inlet to pilot the trawler west. The group was low on food and his stomach growled reminding him of that fact. He had been going with the least he could manage. The bland powder biscuits they had on ship were poor sustenance and he tried not to focus on the growing demand his hunger tried to command. Feeling the rope attached to Mulder behind him gave him little comfort, but a sense of direction. He'd been caving once when he was younger, and it had been just as dark. He was afraid to call out, but this discovery warranted it and he cleared his throat of the all-consuming dust blowing everywhere before he shouted. "Hey! This is it, Mulder. Túxpan." From here they would travel on foot again unless they could find another vehicle. Casting his light through the shifting shades of black and grey in front of him, Mulder doubted their path. There had been no more dreams as they'd travelled by boat, and he wondered what he would tell his family and friends when they reached the ancient ruins if there was nothing there to find. He had always hoped the boy on the beach would hold the answers, but the boy was on the boat with his mother and seemed just as lost as he was. The beam of his light dimmed as he shut it back off. There would be no spotting the Black Oil in their path if any lingered. Mulder clipped the light back along his pack. "We should look around - see if there were any vehicles for sightseeing. Some of the tourist outfits had to have operated out of here." "It's going to be hard to find anything in this, but we can try," Kryder agreed, coughing. Swiveling a clip near his scope, he attached his flashlight to his rifle. "Anything to get out of this air." Behind them, Scully called from the deck of the ship. Her filter muffled her voice, but it was still distinct. "Mulder? How far off are we?" Mulder tugged on the rope attaching him to Kryder to warn the younger man before he moved back to stand below Scully on the dock. The wind was kicking up again and he shielded his eyes to focus on her. "We're close. It's another 150 miles, give or take." "You're sure about this?" she asked. "Not at all," he admitted. Mulder loved his loyal doubting Thomas. "You still want to see? We could keep moving south," Scully suggested. "See if there's an end to the darkness." Mulder smiled, wishing he could believe it might be so. They had once vacationed near these shores and the water had been crystal blue, teeming with life. Maybe one day they would be again. "I think the darkness found us, Scully. I don't think it's going away any time soon." "This is it, then?" she asked. "No more running," he answered, holding his hand out for the ladder. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Mulder, Scully, William, and Kryder pushed forward through the darkness toward an abandoned café. The building was leaning on its foundations enough that the door would not give, and Mulder broke a window so they could enter. They rested around a table inside, breathing heavily and coughing occasionally through their facemasks. Once he caught his breath, Kryder went to search the location for anything useful, leaving the three of them in silence. Taking a lighter from a pocket, Scully lit a candle resting in a container on the table and shut off her flashlight. She was the one who finally broke their unspoken vigil with words. "What are we doing here, Mulder? Just what is it you hope to find?" Mulder paused before answering. That was the million-dollar question, wasn't it? "Sixty-six million years ago, a mass extinction event wiped out seventy-five percent of all life on Earth. Dinosaurs perished mammals and birds rose to become the dominant vertebrates of the new age. Whether you want to chalk it up to an asteroid impact, flood basalt events, or something more sinister, something or someone triggered a global reset. It wouldn't be the first time, it wouldn't be the last. That much you already know." "Mulder... Someone?" Scully questioned. "I know," Mulder said, imagining the lifted eyebrow he couldn't make out. "Just bear with me for a moment. Say the Purity virus really is the primordial sludge that provided the genesis for all other life and races...we've seen it control human beings before, use them as hosts..." "What are you suggesting?" Scully asked. "You're saying the Black Oil itself is sentient?" "What if it could control the Colonists as well? What if it is controlling them? The ship in Africa you saw, Scully, carved with verses from major religious texts spanning history..." Mulder raised his hand when he heard Scully sigh. "Just hear me out. You saw it with your own eyes. Say the Colonists returned to their home planet only to find that they were no longer welcome, that they'd been replaced, that the world they knew was gone? They planned to recolonize and terraform with the assistance of their new third-cousins. In exchange for a method of delivery to expedite the virus, the Colonists would allow some humans to live on in a hybrid form as slaves...the Gregor clones we've encountered. While the Consortium collaborated and plotted for their own immunity and gains, what they hadn't planned on was that the Earth itself might reject these invaders as parasites, that whatever form of life had come before...didn't want them back." Scully opened her glove so some ash slid onto the tablecloth. "That's what you're attributing this to? You know, Mulder You've come up with some far-fetched theories through the years, but I think this takes the cake." "You know this story; it's in the tradition of Lucifer. Mythical creatures descend from the heavens, upset with their maker for displacing them. To the Navajo, it was insect people from the First World, Ni'hodilqil, the dark Earth." "So now you're saying this is the Apocalypse? You've lost me." Scully was confused by Mulder's line of logic, if there was even one left to be had. "I don't see the need to cast it in purely Christian allegories," Mulder continued. "Albert called it the world in flux. Whether you subscribe to the premium edition of the Ragnarök from Norse mythology or the popular mythos of the Apocalypse, it's a rebirth through brimstone. Subscribe to Nietzsche and his theory of "eternal return" that's widespread through many cultures and systems of belief. Your tattoo - the Ouroboros. Amor Fati, the "love of fate." Something has drawn us here, Scully. I feel it - it's there...I think time is cyclical and we're just here to wind the watch." Scully knew she couldn't laugh at Mulder, despite the absurdity of his statements. She left the numbness wash through her. "You're kidding...Your whole life's work, and this is your grand truth? Your way to slay the monsters? To redemption? Rewind the clock?" "I don't know. My father kept me from being taken all those years ago so that I could uncover the Project and try to stop it. That was his hope, anyway. These dreams I have, that Will has...we're told to ask the elders for guidance. I think it means the dead. Guess we're gonna find out," Mulder replied. "Maybe you'll get that clean slate after all. You remember that Cher song, *"If I Could Turn Back Time?"* ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Hey, Scully." "Yeah?" "What was all in that cocktail you made us on the Ardent that time?" Scully found herself shaking her head at Mulder's randomness as they walked down an abandoned street. "It's a bit hazy, but if I remember correctly...it had a few lemons, snow globe water, and...the liquid from a sardine can." "Doesn't sound half bad right about now." "I've still got some water in my canteen if you're thirsty," Scully offered, worried now if alien-human hybrids could suffer from dehydration. Mulder hadn't fared so well on the Ardent and she was surprised he could later remember anything about the ordeal. "Nah, save it for you or the kid." "If you're thirsty you need to drink, Mulder." "I'm alright...Look." Mulder pointed needlessly at the distance where lightning silently arced sideways across the sky. It was the first natural light they had seen in days. Behind him, William, Scully, and Kryder paused to take in the sight. "Let me guess," Scully speculated dryly. "We're heading for the heart of that storm." "Would you believe me if I said there was a light like this the night Will was born? It helped me find you," Mulder said, continuing. "It sort of reminds me-" A vibration from the walkie-talkie on his hip cut his soliloquy short as he reached for it and answered. Frohike had paged him. "Hey, the guys said they've found a work car on train tracks heading our direction. I've got coordinates if you want to check it out. You guys have any luck scavenging?" Mulder looked behind him at Kryder's small bag of items they had found. "Heh," he admitted. "Okay, feed me some numbers." ------------------------------------------------------------------ They stood before the monolith of industrial age machinery modernized with a wedge plow. "They had to use this for a wrecker," Byers stated. "I didn't even know that was a thing. Not that I'm an expert on trains," Mulder conceded. "Do you think it will run?" "Cranked right up when we tried it," Langly said, shrugging. Scully walked around the side, and climbed the steps to the open entrance. "We can't all fit in here." "Some of us can ride outside if we have to," Mulder said, coming up behind her. "It wouldn't be for more than a few hours at the most." "At the most?" Scully questioned him. "What do you think happens after we get to the ruins, Mulder?" When Mulder didn't respond, she said his name again and her voice grew more insistent. "Mulder...You think that's going to be it, don't you? When this thing runs out of fuel, we're going to be stranded. Look, we're already low on food, not to mention water-" Mulder hushed Scully as Will came up behind her. "Alright, alright, shh. I don't know, Scully. I wish I did. Beats walking. Beats staying here. We'll keep searching." Mulder stuck his head back outside the car. "How much fuel do we have?" "Should get you there and most of the way back, Mulder," Byers responded. "That's your justification?" Scully pressed him. "Seriously?" "We're way past the realm of extreme possibilities, I know." Scully's eyebrow asked him if that wasn't the understatement of the century. "Mulder," Scully sighed, shaking her head. "Tell me these visions, dreams you've had...that you didn't just make them up to give us a goal to reach, something to hold onto so that we wouldn't lose hope." Mulder huffed indignantly, shaking his head. "You would think that...This hasn't been a sightseeing tour for me. These things I've seen...I haven't made them up, Scully. We're beyond folie … deux here. This is more like...folie … plusieurs." "That's exactly what I'm afraid of." Scully pursed her lips and nodded then once, ducking her head. "We can't take Skinner, you know...he'll never survive the trip." "I know," Mulder replied. "We'll have to come back to the boat. We can't abandon him." "No," Mulder shook his head as he looked past her, thinking, "we can't." Mulder's walkie-talkie crackled to life at his hip and he jumped as he reached for it. "We'll stay with him," Frohike said from the other end. "I must have forgotten to shut you off," Mulder said absently, wondering how much precious battery power he had wasted. "You've been listening in this entire time?" Mulder asked. "Hey, an old man's got to get his thrills somewhere," he responded sarcastically. "I don't know what's going to happen when we arrive," Mulder admitted. "I get it, Mulder," Frohike replied. "Go after the white whale. God willing, we'll be here when you get back. We'll keep searching the town, see what supplies we can turn out." Mulder shut off the radio and stared at the ground for a moment before he lifted his eyes to meet Scully's. "Now you're having second thoughts," she said out loud for him. It was just them in this moment, lit by the harsh LEDs of Scully's headlamp. Mulder nodded, half-smiling to himself. "Second thoughts? I have to be in the hundreds by now." Scully conceded. "You said it yourself before, Mulder. There's nothing left to go back to anyway. No more running, remember?" Mulder looked to William, thinking of the boy's oak tree planted in Virginia. He wondered briefly if it still stood. "It's waiting for us," the boy said. "We should go." Coming up from behind them, Kryder set down his bag. "Sometimes we must come full circle to find the truth."