Author's Notes: Sorry for the long delay. At least it wasn't two years this time? Life is just very busy, postpartum depression can be a nasty menace that hangs around for far too long, and honestly, I have had difficulty trying not to let myself get bogged down by technical, scientific details to just keep the story moving. I have had this chapter planned since before I started this in 2016, and then after reading Scully's origin novel, definitely wanted to use this chapter to work in components of that for this story. There will be heavy spoilers for Devil's Advocate, which Chris Carter has christened to be part of Scully's canon. Therefore, if you haven't read it and don't want to be spoiled, then I guess turn back now? Go check out the book? Buy it on Audible? (Seriously, that last one. Emma Galvin is give a stellar narration of young Scully.)

Also, note the new username. Luna was someone from another fandom, and I have since decided to try and keep consistency across platforms. Come find me on Reddit. Come find me on Tumblr. Come join me at the Montreal Comic Con, eh?

Ottawa National Forest

Upper Peninsula, Michigan

March 15, 1992

10:24 AM

Hot, panicked breaths danced as vaporous clouds in the crisp, northern air. Scully tried to run through in her head what they should do next. She and Mulder were both armed, but surely the draw of either of their guns would set this woman off. Someone would surely get shot.

What year is it? What does she mean by that? Scully thought as she stared into the woman's deep amber eyes trying to get a better read on her. Her eyes were both feral with fright and empowerment all at once.

"WHAT YEAR IS IT?!" The woman now shouted, lunging forward with the rifle and settling the stock further into her shoulder.

Scully side-glanced at Mulder who suddenly spoke up, "2016. The year is 2016."

As Scully snapped her eyes back and watched as the woman's face seemed to relax momentarily. Then the woman swallowed and without lowering the rifle asked, "Who is William?"

Scully knew her heart was beating at rapid pace, but with the mention of the name William it's thumping now flooded her ears. It was so loud that she barely heard herself say, "He was our son."

This time the woman nodded, bit her lip, but still did not lower her rifle. With either a glare or eyes squinting against the reflected sun on the dazzling snow, she pressed them again with great insistence, "Are you Fox Mulder and Dana Scully?"

Scully felt herself nod and heard Mulder mumble a "yes" next to her.

Still the rifle didn't lower, and the woman continued, calm yet demanding, "If you are the Mulder and Scully from 2016, then you can tell me who Invisigoth is. Who is Invisigoth?"

Now Scully felt the mask of puzzlement slide over her face like the visor of her snowmobile helmet. She was sure 2016 was the answer to the woman's first question as well, and the other two were no-brainers, but this was a question she did not expect. The name sounded familiar, but she could not quite place it. It felt entirely out of context for the situation.

Luckily Mulder spoke. However, he sounded equally confused. "Esther Nairn. She was a hacker and a programmer. She died trying to upload her consciousness into an AI."

It was upon hearing the name "Esther" that Scully remembered the case. She didn't even steal a side glance at Mulder, but kept her eyes trained on the woman to see her response. It appeared that most of the remaining tension had drained from her face and was replaced by a glimmer of what Scully perceived to be satisfaction. Either way, the woman lowered her rifle. Scully heard Missy and Byers both let out dramatic sighs of relief.

The woman studied them all carefully for a beat before saying, "Okay, follow me."

With that the woman turned on a casual heel, slung the rifle over her shoulder, and started back to the trailer.

They all had followed the mystery woman back in silence to the trailer. As Scully looked around, everyone's face swum with a fury of emotions, but this is what they came for: answers. Hopefully, this was the person that had them.

The woman held a rusted, metal screen door open for them, and they all looked around to see if anyone else was around before the entered the very outdated, and equally, rusted trailer. As Scully stepped in, she was surprised to see that, while not a shining example of modern luxury, the trailer was meticulous and well-kept. Though it had been clear, by the amount of dust dancing in the streams of winter light shining through partially close blinds, that nobody had occupied the trailer for quite some time. Save for whatever it seemed their host had brought with them or used recently, it was as if they stepped into an adult-sized time capsule. A silent motion was made for all of them to sit at a mustard laminate table trimmed with oxidized chrome which hugged one side of the trailer and was flanked by stiff, vinyl bench seats. It was covered in small neat stacks of folders and data tapes, a tape recorder, and a small, spiral notepad.

As she and Mulder and Missy and Byers slid onto opposite sides, the woman grabbed a stool and pulled it up to the end of the table. Scully got a better look at her for the first time. She looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties, with smooth skin that was so dark, that it almost appeared blue in the dim light. Black, curly hair was neatly braided in two, perfect rows, away from a face with high, prominent cheekbones, almond eyes, and full lips which encased alabaster teeth. Scully imagined that, given another set of circumstances, she would have a face that people would consider to be naturally warm and kind; however, that was clearly not the case anymore.

The woman spread long, spindly fingers on the tabletop, chapped and ashen at the knuckles from the bitter, dry air. As all everyone's gaze settled directly on her, she quietly cleared her throat and began, "My name is Erica Hamill. I am the one that brought you back here." She motioned around the room, but the deeper meaning was understood by all.

It was Missy that vocalized the question Scully imagined everyone was thinking. "How?"

Erica looked between Missy and Byers. She didn't answer Missy's question, instead she asked her own, "You are Melissa Scully and John Byers, correct?"

But the question rhetorical, and Scully watched as Erica's attention moved to her and Mulder, "Is it okay that they hear all this? You trust them? Can I trust them?"

Mulder, once again, found his voice before Scully could find hers, but it falter and croaked before finding its ground, "Yes. Please. Whatever you have to share with us, you can share with them. They are here to help us. How did you get us here, Ms. Hamill?"

"Doctor, but please, call me Erica" Erica corrected before continuing with a deep sigh, "I want to apologize for my behavior earlier. I needed to be certain it was you. My wife and I agreed on how we would handle this situation, if it came to this. She was just the one who actually knew how to use that thing."

An uncomfortable chuckle escaped Erica, as she nodded her head back at the rifle. A clear wash of sadness moved over the woman's face, and she grew silent, looking down to pick uncomfortably at the edges of elongated, oval nail beds.

Moments before that Scully had caught Missy give her a questioning look at the mention of a woman mentioning her "wife." Scully dismissed the look with her own and a slight shake of her head. They could talk the nuances of twenty-first century, social politics and personal freedoms another time. It was Scully's turn to keep the conversation moving and make sure they got the answers they were looking for.

"Erica, what is this situation? Who is your wife?" Scully prodded gently to break the other woman out of her melancholy reverie.

Erica looked up at her and then the rest of the table, bit her lip, and dove in, "My wife, Ingrid, was Esther Nairn's half-sister. We met on joint, top-secret projects manned by what we thought, or I thought, were legitimate government and military agencies, but what I now know to be whatever form of the syndicate group you both worked to bring down, still existed. These projects were essentially pet projects and bootcamps to find the talent they needed to be certain they would survive alien colonization if their vaccination program was a failure."

Scully looked over at Mulder to get a read on his reactions during Erica's brief pause. He looked like an eager child on Christmas Day, before and after they learned Santa wasn't real. The pause was short-lived and Erica continued, "I was working in neurological research on what I, initially, thought was an experiment to help remove, alter, and transfer memories of vets who were suffering from extreme forms of post traumatic stress syndrome. Ingrid had been working on several theoretical and quantum physics projects, that I honestly never fully understood, when we were recruited to their project.

"I was uneasy about joining, but I wanted to protect myself and my family, and be with Ingrid, who had already agreed to join the project. By that point, Ingrid had told me about her sister, and all the information she had received from her sister."

Scully felt confusion wash over her as Erica brought up Esther again. Esther had been dead for years, as far as she knew.

"I am sorry, Erica, but what do you mean by 'information she had received from her sister.' Esther died. Agent Mulder and I were there when it happened."

Erica looked at her, "Physically, yes. Psychologically, no. Ingrid had contact with her sister through…"

Scully watched as Erica tried to find the words she needed. However, it was Byers that offered something up.

"The net?" He said.

Erica grinned and shook her head, "Sure. It's the 90's, right?"

Scully couldn't help but grin herself as Byers brow furrowed.

"So Esther was successful in her end goal. To upload her conscious artificially?" Mulder asked.

"Yes, as far as I know," Erica offered, "Esther started to leak information to her sister about everything that these men we were working for were doing, had done. We wanted to take that information and expose them and find a way to develop the vaccine on a larger scale to save everyone. The problem, however, was time. We needed to hold off and see if we could utilize their resources so Ingrid could finish the work she had started on time travel and myself with memory transference, to go back, just long enough, with our memories intact and the right people to pull the plug.

"Unfortunately, we just were not able to work quickly enough, to comfortably get it done right. To transfer just our memories without the conduit of another person to transfer them and some sort of alien disturbance that allowed for us to alter space and time. They found out about our plans to expose them though. They killed Ingrid, and they would have killed me to, if I had not made it to our back up."

"Us." Scully heard herself whisper.

Erica nodded solemnly with tears in her eyes, and Missy covered her hands sympathetically with her own. "We knew that we would be able to get you to change the course. To set things straight. Believe us. Help us. That you would want to right the wrongs that had been inflicted upon the people you loved too."

"I am sorry about your wife," Scully heard her sister say with deep compassion, "but we will try to help you anyway we can."

"So this isn't you from this time?" Byers asked for them all.

"No," Erica replied with a gentle snort as she crossed her arms over her chest after wiping a few leftover tears from her face. "Somewhere in southern California, there is gangly, ten year old, with the same face, that goes by the same name, probably wearing a pair of Zubaz."

Scully felt her eyebrow raise as more questions flooded her mind, but Mulder beat her to the punch with her first.

"Then what does that mean for you?" He asked leaning forward onto the table.

Erica wiggled her closed mouth back and forth, with a look that suggested she was trying to work out how to best divulge what she had to share. She scratched her head and mirrored Mulder, by leaning back onto the the table, "Well, I don't plan on killing my grandfather."

She smirked and then continued, "But to be honest, this whole time travel business was Ingrid's wheelhouse. She just taught me enough about how to go back. Whenever they come, a new connection between two points in time is created. A wormhole, but with which you can only go backwards. Ingrid's role in the projects was to find a way to get select groups of people through that wormhole in a manner that was controlled. There were documented circumstances of time bending back on itself, taking people back with it, but it was random, never really controlled. And often the results could be erratic and devastating if the circumstance were right: switching of consciousness between individuals; bodies or parts of bodies stuck in random objects; incomplete transfer of a body… It was a hot mess until the late 90s and early 2000s when they could at least get an accurate prediction of when and where they would be that would create the correct kind of space time disturbance, but there was still no direct control over whom or what was being transferred and to when. " Erica paused and Scully watched her scan the faces around her. It was clear that they all were in some state of confusion or at least trying to hash out what had just been divulged, and it was clear Erica understood that as well when she apologized, after a beat, for sounding convoluted.

Mulder grabbed at his face before releasing the considered questions he had clearly been holding, "So your wife obviously found a way to control the whom or what, but not the when, I am guessing? This is a little more than a few years back for us."

Erica clasped her hands between her legs and leaned in with an apologetic look, "Like I said, this was Ingrid's wheelhouse. She might have done a better job of getting us all to the right place in time. I did the best I could with the information I had. My forte is in isolation, extraction, and transfer of neurological information, which is what the two of your are experiencing. I just knew I could successfully transfer the totality of your conscious if I was at least able to make it from point A to point B. It was clear to me that both of you were great candidates for extraction and transference after reading Esther's hacked reports on their experiments with you, Agent Mulder, during your neurological event during the early 2000s and with you, Agent Scully, during the Craiger Initiative in the late 70s."

Scully felt like the bench of the booth had given beneath her with how quickly her stomach dropped and how hard Missy's hand had suddenly clamped onto her own from across the table, as if to keep her from falling to the floor. She opened her mouth to try and speak, but no words came out of lips that opened and closed like a fish out of water. Craiger had been the name of the town in Maryland that they moved to in 1978. The town where in the spring of 1979, the horrible things Mulder had pressed her about last night had happened. Was she to understand that it all had been part of some experiment?

As if reading her mind Missy spoke for her with urgency, "What experiments in the late 70s, Erica?"

"Um…I mean these data tapes contain files about the experiments. I brought as much as I thought would be useful to us with me. I can show you." Erica stammered at Missy before turning to face Scully, her face filled with grave concern, "You didn't know about the experiments? Your father signed off on the initiation and termination for your involvement in the project, Agent Scully. I thought maybe you…"

All eyes were on her, and Scully felt the room spin and shake at Erica's words and mention of her father. Before she could think rationally and interpret the looks on everyone's faces, she felt her body rise from the booth and move out the door of their dark enclave into the glaring light of a late winter's day like a ghost.