Who: Scully; Open to All What: Scully arrives. When: Aug 28, early evening Where: Crescent Hotel Status: Incomplete
Three years ago, there had been Eureka Springs. Only it was Mulder alone, and Scully on some other assignment, and now it's Eureka Springs again. Finally, the X-Files had brought her back to the place where Mulder had disappeared. It was a quaint, quirky place, an odd air of--of mystery about it, definitely of something other. What had been the file that brought him there originally? Probably one of the ghost ones. There were places in the town said to be haunted. Despite everything she'd since seen, though, she dismissed the idea. Ghosts? Not likely. What had happened to Mulder was the Syndicate's doing; it had been proved by their unwillingness to investigate, how the case was so quickly shut.
So much had happened in three years. Cancer had happened, a child she'd never known about had happened. She missed Mulder. She missed his sunflower seeds and the pencils in the ceilings and his dramatics and his absentmindedness and his insistent belief in everything everyone told him, ever. She missed him more than she would ever admit, could ever say, and that was why she went back to Eureka Springs as soon as she could, why she didn't resign her job in protest because she knew it would take her back to him someday. Only three years and she was loyal to him; only three years and cared about him too much.
When she arrived in Eureka Springs, she awoke with a start in an unfamiliar room. For one gasping moment she thought that maybe she had been dreaming the whole thing. Then she blinked, and looked around, and saw that this was no motel room that she recognized from her long train of them working on the X-Files, nor was it her bedroom back home. The one thing that convinced her that the past three years was not some kind of horrible dream was when she glanced to the mirror on the other side of the room and saw her hair. Definitely not a dream, because three years ago she wouldn't have dreamed of wearing her hair so short.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and her eyes were caught by something on the bedside table. Frowning slightly, she picked it up. She had a room? In a hotel in Eureka Springs? She hadn't even checked in when she arrived. She picked up the credit cards, and found her jacket on the back of a chair. It even had her ID in it. What was going on? She was still wearing her blouse and slacks, as though she'd happened to fall asleep in them; she pulled on her jacket, slipped her feet into her shoes. What was going on? And was Mulder here?
She glanced up and down the hallway, shutting the door behind her. She began to walk down it slowly, glancing from door to door, then, as she began, inexplicably, to panic. It wasn't like her to lose her head but--this was so--what was she doing here? How was this happening to her? She hurried down a flight of stairs, miraculously not tripping over her own feet, and started down the next hallway, too absorbed in trying to find something familiar, finding something--someone--where was Mulder--and she let out a startled "Oof!" as she smacked into whatever unfortunate person had happened to be in the way of her panicked charge.