Title: Beyond Limbo

Rating: PG

Spoilers: I don't think so.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters.

Archive: If you would like to it's ok with me.

Summary: After a choice is made and the consequences of that decision fulfilled, is there anything left?

Authors Notes: This is a companion piece to my Waiting in Limbo vignette I just felt there was nothing but sadness and some sort of resolution should come from the deaths of Mulder and Scully. This is not happy by any means I think one word would be bittersweet.

Beyond Limbo (1/1)

I knew he would come to me again one day. The last time was five years ago to tell me my brother was dead. I lashed out at him how long had I been living a lie. He had always said that one day I could go back, see my brother Fox up close and not from afar.

He told me Fox committed suicide. I demanded to know how, why, what drove him to such and act. He simply said...love. Love? I wondered out loud and then it hit me, Dana Scully and so I asked.

Almost pleased with himself he smiled, yes, she is dead too a double suicide a tragedy that is the culmination of a hundred romance novels. Yet at the heart of almost every story is the tale of unrequited or unspoken love...a love never meant to be.

Strange how different the aliens I had been with are actually more humane than we are. If the aliens wanted you dead, you died. With humans though we liked to watch our prey wriggle like a worm on a hook until the moment the fish swallowed you whole or you chose to stop fighting and give up.

For the last fifteen years I have been working against my brother, I have been fighting to keep him from exposing the truth. But I was promised he would never be harmed.

The day of the funeral I stood away and I saw the crowd of grief stricken family members, Dana Scully's family. Not a single soul was there for my brother except me and I couldn't be there in the midst of everything, as I wanted to be.

I saw Dana's mother, Margaret and I heard her say kind and thoughtful things about my brother, she loved him like a son maybe even more than our own mother.

As Dana Scully's mother walked away from the gravesite a light drizzle descended from the sky followed by the sun shining and creating a rainbow that seemed to touch the newly dug area that would be the resting place for my brother and Dana Scully.

Mrs. Scully stopped turning and gazing at the rainbow, smiling and crossing herself. When she turned and began walking towards the car I could see the fresh tears upon her cheeks.

In that moment I knew how I could make a difference.

When I was first taken I was one of the few the aliens didn't experiment on, I could hear them in my head they spoke to me and told me not to be afraid. They said I was 'pure' I didn't understand as a child and I still don't understand fully now.

They said I was special and that someday everyone who was a 'pure' like myself would be together, we would be protected and safe. I learned many things from their species and I think I might have shown them to look at things, events through the eyes of a child.

They became my friends.

The day came when I wanted to do something to use the knowledge I had gained and so I started working with genetics. The aliens were dying there bodies so advanced mentally that normal everyday human diseases such as colds and the flu might very well end in their deaths.

They needed our immunity.

They set me up in a lab brought me all the samples I could ever hope for, hair skin, bones, sperm and ova. I was too involved in trying to manipulate genes; too driven in finding a way to make our two species perfect that I lost track of time.

One day he came to me and took me to see my brother, I loathed the stench of cigarette smoke even as I rejoiced in seeing a glimpse of my brother and his new partner. Even now I can recall the sunlight as it glinted off her red-gold hair as she skipped down the steps.

I laughed as my brother followed after her; she was so petite yet I almost swallowed my tongue when I heard her say, "Cut the crap, Mulder." Dana Scully had a fire in her one I could sense my brother was more than willing to fan.

He always could agitate.

That night Fox Mulder and Dana Scully lost nine minutes.

I can remember touching my brother's face as the two of them were brought on board. I was told they were both 'pure' and they would be returned unharmed, remembering nothing.

Through the next few years I continued working yet also trying to keep an eye out for Fox's welfare and I was angered when I learned of Dana's second abduction. The aliens were visibly upset over a 'pure' being subjected to the human experimentation.

Those stupid humans even tried to trick my brother with a clone and she didn't even look like me, not once, but twice. I couldn't believe how the collaborators manipulated my brother's feelings, they were cold and heartless...and they finally won.

My brother and Dana Scully took their own lives.

They day I heard of my brother's death will remain forever in my mind I can remember the gray leader coming to me and taking my hand. Sending out soothing music and works into my brain, tranquility...calmness.

The leader took me to another lab sending me into the cryogenic freezers, when I opened the drawer I was so shocked I ran out of the room. I stood at the end of the hall and felt the gentle touch of the leader, his long fingers kneading my shoulders.

"When you are ready." The thought he sent me bounced around inside my brain like a Ping-Pong ball.

I was ready after seeing Margaret Scully's reaction and the unexpected rainbow that made an appearance that day.

Going back to the lab I walk into the cryogenic wing. The leader is there waiting for me. He presses a button on the wall and the door slides back revealing metal and glass cylinders. Quickly I put on gloves to protect my hands from the cold and I remove one small cylinder.

My choice is made.

* * * * *

It has been five years since my brother's death.

The man, the smoking man arrives, questioning my decision, asking me to reconsider. I refuse. I have worked for 'the cause' too many years and let my life and family, pass me by...no more.

Gathering my things he escorts me to the awaiting car. Along the way I duck my head into a room and call out, only when I feel the small hand in my own do we continue on our way.

The drive to the cemetery is quiet.

How am I going to explain?

How is she going to react to the news?

How will she react to me?

We drive through the gates and around the twisting path before stopping behind another car. I open the door and step out bending back in only long enough to grab the bundle.

Steeling my resolve squeeze gently when I feel the small hand insert itself with my much larger one and we begin walking. I can see her, Margaret Scully; she is holding a book open and reading aloud just as she has done for the past five years on this very day.

The small hand jerks away from me, the owner running ahead I want to scream out, but my voice is frozen. I stop and watch as the tiny arms of a four-year-old child embrace Margaret Scully.

"Hello, Grandmother!" She brightly says.

"What?" Margaret gasps.

She turns around hearing my approach I continue until I am directly in front of her, she is scanning my face and especially my eyes for some kind of recognition. Her hand clamps over her mouth and I speak.

"Mrs. Scully? I am Samantha Mulder."

We talk for a long time I tell her a story of gifts and sacrifices of a sister's love for the brother she was unable to know. And when I am finished she doesn't condemn, she only smiles as I hand her the infant I carried in my arms.

She looks at me her eyes brimming with tears before she speaks.

"Why come here, now, after five years?"

I look down at the little girl still holding on to her grandmothers leg and then to the sleeping infant in her arms, before I reply.

"It was time...time for them to know their family. I couldn't let them be cheated as I was."

Margaret kisses the baby's soft cheek.

"Grandmother? My name is Katherine and that's my little brother, Justin," she tugs at Margaret's coat.

I stand back and watch as Mrs. Scully hugs Katherine to her, before we begin walking back to the car.

I don't think it's necessary to tell her all the truth about how these two children came to be. She doesn't need to know that both of them were created from a nine-minute abduction and then removed and frozen. She only needs to know that I loved my brother and I carried the two children created from his sperm and her ova.

I helped to give them life...a future.

"Aunt Samantha?"

"Yes, Katherine?"

She stops and points to grave.

"My mommy is beautiful."

Margaret stops her face white and looks back at the headstone. Katherine let's go of her grandmother's hand and skips back to the grave. We both stand mesmerized, as she appears to hold a conversation with the air.

"I love you, mommy...daddy...yes I promise to be a good girl...bye."

She blows a kiss over her shoulder as she bounces back to where we are standing. She is grinning from ear to ear.

"They were waiting." Katherine states.

"Waiting?" Margaret stammers.

"Yes they were waiting for Aunt Samantha to come back and bring Justin and me to meet you."

I am shocked and I stoop down so I'm at eye level with her.

"Katherine? Are you making this up?"

"No, they said they aren't in limbo anymore...they are free to move beyond...together, forever." She replies with the truthfulness of the child she is.

I stand and Katherine speaks again.

"If you don't believe me...just look."

She points and there is not one, but two rainbows on the horizon. Both of them meeting at the gravesite there is a bright flash and we all shield our eyes from the glare and when I open them again the rainbows are gone.

Margaret takes Katherine's hand in her own, a single tear sliding down her cheek and she smiles lovingly at her newly found granddaughter.

"Yes Katherine. I believe they are." She states simply.

This one sentence lights up Katherine's whole face and they continue walking toward the car. Katherine crawls in her grandmother's car without hesitation. Margaret turns and holds out her hand to me I don't know what to do this demonstration of physicality is foreign to me.

"Samantha," she softly says. "You don't have to be alone anymore...we are your family now."

My humanity was born anew that day and I slipped into the car with Margaret Scully as we pulled away I could make out the figure standing on the hillside even from this distance I can see the plumes of smoke circling around his head.

I drop my eyes looking into my lap taking in for the first time the happy chattering of Katherine as she questions Margaret about Dana. They say you can't miss what you never had...they're wrong.

Maybe I was in a limbo of my own. Moving beyond is going to be hard, but I'm looking forward to the experience of life...

The End