The worst part of it is, he's pretty sure Maggie would still help them. If he called up out of the blue to ask her if she had an extra key to Scully's, he could probably convince her that it was some kind of surprise your daughter and try to get her to take me back ploy - and he thinks, he genuinely thinks, that the answer would be yes. She always liked him, even back when there were plenty of reasons not to, and there are times when he misses seeing her. For a couple years - not many, but more than one - he got to tag along to Scully family holidays and birthdays and feel like he was supposed to be there, and part of him wants that back.

But she'll want to hear from Scully, whether things are okay now, and he can't ask this Scully to try to lie to her mother. They certainly can't tell her that one Dana fell through a timeslip, only to be replaced by another.

Fortunately, Skinner comes through, and Mulder commits the address to memory. This is a way forward for them, a new angle of investigation. And while he shouldprobably eat a real breakfast, right now he's much more interested in setting down his coffee and going to slip into his shoes. "Let's go over there. Maybe she has a key in one of the planters."