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The bridge between the worlds is closer now than ever.
That’s what he thinks he hears, in the back of his mind somewhere, a quiet voice playing out in his subconscious like the final warning before the blackness engulfs everything.
He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it before.
Many times in his life he’s walked down roads that have nearly led him to the great beyond, crossing over the bridge into bright white light and a never-ending tunnel. But all those times, it’s never been quite like this. He’s never been suspended in starlight in the way he is now, held moments from the end by powerful things he doesn’t think he’ll ever be equipped to understand. Somewhere in a deep sleep, drifting amongst the heavens, he’s mere moments away from death.
His father is here.
Deep Throat is here.
And perhaps that’s what convinces him.
The two men who have told him the most truths and fed him the most lies; they’re standing shoulder to shoulder in the starry sky; and they’re talking to him from the afterlife.
He tries to listen to their tirades about the world’s greatest mysteries, the need for endless boundless courage, and God knows he almost believes them. He wants to believe that all of this will be fixed by wishful thinking, by faith alone instead of perseverance, but the gunshot wound is throbbing in his shoulder, and before he can do anything else, he's thinking about the woman who put it there.
Dana Katherine Scully.
She believes in faith.
But she also believes in truth.
She believes what he believes, in the final conquest, in truth, in justice, even if their explanations along the way are complete blinding opposites.
In the face of his new train of thought; the apparitions of Deep Throat and his father fade out into nothingness, leaving him with nothing but an expanse of dark sky. He thinks he might be left here forever, the wound blistering into his skin, but the stars rearrange themselves once again into the shape of another.
A third man appears to him amongst the heavens, looking down at him with a blank expression which ebbs its way into a steely gaze.
And he doesn’t know who this is.
It’s someone he doesn’t immediately recognise, and he wonders briefly whether it might be a mistake. A crossed wire, an act of randomisation, the chance to see someone else’s version of what heaven might be like. But something tingles under his chest, and the stranger seems remarkably familiar. He considers the possibility that it could be the face of a man in a case file, a glossy photograph paper clipped to a field report like the red string of fate holding this all together.
But then it comes to him.
This man doesn’t belong in a case file.
This man belongs in a photograph he’s seen only on Dana’s mantlepiece – a Navy captain, with her eyes, and an aptitude for adventure.
This must be Ahab.
This must be her father.
He’s always regretted never meeting him.
But perhaps now he’ll get the chance.
“Mr. Mulder,” William Scully says, taking a leaf out of his daughter’s book, woe betide anyone who ever calls him Fox. “This is not your time.”
Almost immediately, he wants to disagree. He wants to tell the man about the wisdom of the voice in his head:
The bridge between the worlds is closer now than ever.
He can feel the pull of the great beyond, and wonders how much longer he can hold it off. Lying here with no way back, his biggest regret now is that he never got to make his goodbyes.
“Your quest is not yet over.”
The stoicism is something he’s heard countless times. But he thinks this might be it now. After all, what can he do about it? He can’t hold off death. But Dana’s father isn’t letting him get off that easily.
“She needs you.”
And he cracks a smile at that.
“I reckon I need her.”
His smoke-filled lungs are testament to that. But if he’s being honest with himself, he thinks the afterlife will be a very cold and lonely place if she isn’t there with him. If he doesn’t get to pass the time with her every single second he’s here, watch as her eyerolls twist into subtle smiles with every click of the slideshow. He’d miss her berating him, backing him up, disproving all of his theories and following him to the ends of the Earth.
They’ve only had two years together, and he thinks he’s the happiest he’s ever been.
God forbid he’d ever have to go back to the man he was before he met her.
The man he knows Deep Throat and his father want him to be.
“How do I stop this?”
In a split second of starlight, he realises he wants out of it. He’s not going to lie here and take it. Not if it means never seeing her again.
He’d asked his father where his sister was. Whether she’s up here in the afterlife or back down there on Earth. But it occurs to him that he’s not interested in the answer.
He’s not looking for his sister now.
He’s looking for a way back to Dana Scully.
The bridge between the worlds is closer now than ever.
The voice in his head reminds him, more desperately than before.
But bridges can always be burnt.
He wants to take one last look at the starlight and the way towards the great beyond before turning his back on it.
Your quest is not yet over.
William Scully hadn’t been talking about the Truth. He’d been talking about his daughter.
She needs you.
And perhaps that much is true.
Look after her.
He can’t do that from here.
Keep living for her.
He’ll be damned if he’s going to ignore a favour asked by a dead man.