Title: The Golden Year Author: prufrock's love Keywords: MSR, Angst, Mythology, Brief Sc/O Rating: R Summary: "There is the want of the flesh and the want of the soul, and I am afflicted with both. Perhaps I should see a doctor, Scully." Distribution: link to: http://www.geocities.com/prufrocks_love/goldenyear.html Dedication: A blow against all those fat-assed purple shoulder monsters out there. You purple ones are the worst. Disclaimer: Not mine; don't sue Post-hoc Author's Note: This story is told exclusively through Mulder's eyes and he explains behavior as best as he can with the information he has to work with. The Golden Year by prufrock's love ****** Like glimpses of forgotten dreams. Ah, when shall all men's good Be each man's rule, and universal peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Thro' all the circle of the golden year? The Golden Year **** 'Deadheading,' Scully calls it. Safe from residual tabloid reporters in the fenced privacy of their backyard, she makes her way slowly from bush to bush, carefully selecting and plucking off only the roses barely past their prime by some secret system known only to Scully women. "To make more buds" she tells him. "Don't touch my roses, Mulder." "Aren't you supposed to be doing something, Mulder? This house doesn't run itself. I'm not the only one capable of picking up around here and. . ." The rest of her words are lost on him as he watches her move awkwardly, hair shining golden in the last of the dying sun. So many thoughts can be compacted into such a small word. How easily it rolls off the tongue. Alive. Other terms are more poetic - incandescent, classic beauty, gentle soul, kindred spirit - but nothing was more appropriate than 'alive'. Mulder doesn't understand this logic. If pinching off the roses makes more roses, why isn't he allowed to cut the same flowers for her while they're still pretty? Scully just gives him a look and continues her pruning or plucking or whatever it is, her canvas shoes and the back hem of her dress getting damp in the early evening dew. He'll have to find a house with a big back yard like this one so she can have her roses. Like it or not, they'll have to move again soon and she'll probably still have time to make a new garden. Her mother's house is nice, but too small to hold a family that keeps growing every time he turns around. No, not turning around. Families don't come from turning around. He and Scully pretty much have that figured out by now. A family. Sometimes Mulder is sure that if he shuts his eyes, the world will drop dead. But then he opens them and it's born again, always defying the odds. Scully doesn't seem to understand the little miracles that make up his days - it's as though she takes life at face value, never noticing the strong, dangerous pull of the undercurrent. She stays in the shallow end now, trusting Mulder to wade into the deeper water and return to sit on the bank with her, bathing in the warm sun. Mulder doesn't know if that's because she's content with her world, or because she's faced the worst so many times that she allows nothing to challenge her serenity, or because she chooses not to look beyond their pretty home and their pretty life out of fear. He hopes it's because she's content. Because he's made her happy. That damn cat follows Scully through flowerbeds, rolling playfully in the carefully weeded black dirt and hoping for a rub on his fat, lazy, useless belly. Enjoying a rare moment of silence in his domestic kingdom, Mulder pauses, sitting down on the back steps to watch her until he forgets his assigned chore. No matter - Scully will come in soon and she'll certainly remind him. She jumps suddenly and waves away a bee - probably a lone straggler making his way home for the night, but it still makes Mulder panic briefly. His memories of death are still fresh, only barely starting to cool on the windowsill. The insect flies off to wherever bees go in the darkness, and Scully finishes her rounds unharmed. A last white rosebush passes her inspection and, hand on her sore back as leverage against her belly, she wanders back to the porch where he's awaiting his lecture for not taking out the trash or not washing bottles or not picking up toys or whatever his latest sin might be. As she toes off her muddy shoes on the cement steps, the sermon begins - she doesn't even make it into the house before bitchiness replaces his Mother Earth Goddess' serenity. There's a smudge of the fertile soil on her cheek and he ignores her lecture as he licks his thumb and rubs it away. "We probably won't die of a little dirt," he tells her, "but just in case, partner. . ." Scully looks behind him at the grimy linoleum floor coated with a toddler and a preteen worth of Cheerios and Kool-aid and doesn't find that funny. He was probably supposed to mop. Her lips and hands are moving, gesturing to her swollen stomach and the bucket of Lysol she'd mixed for him. She's probably saying something about being barefoot and pregnant and having no intention of scrubbing that floor on her hands and knees, but he's still not listening. Just watching her and memorizing every nuance as the sun sets behind her head, the clouds gathering for a storm. Mulder holds open the screen door for her, then waits patiently while that damn cat meanders up the steps and into the house for the night, stopping for a lazy stretch or two. God forbid anyone should hurry the cat. An I'm-awake-come-get-me cry from upstairs and a complaint of "I'm hungry and there's nothing to eat! There's never anything to eat around here!" signals the return of real life. "Mulder, there's nothing to fix for dinner. You didn't go to the store! I can't feed four and a half people if we don't have groceries! No one wants to eat peanut butter and jellies for dinner again!" Mulder doesn't mention that sandwiches would be about the extent of her culinary ability, because that would be unwise. He just finds the car keys and a random child so she has one less to chase, and heads for the car. "Indian food, Scully?" That gets a nod. He's almost made it safely out of the driveway when he realizes he has no cash - not enough for all that take-out food. "Shit!" "You're not supposed to say that word," comes the voice of reason from the passenger seat. "Shit - sorry." Whatever gave him the idea that parenting was easy? Saving the world was easy. They should give him a medal if he made it through the teen years three times without going crazy or bankrupt or both. "Go inside and tell Scully to give you the checkbook," Mulder orders, hoping the boy can make it the thirty feet to the back door without breaking something important, wandering off, or dying of starvation. Scully's already heard the car stop and comes out, carrying the hotly-debated joint-checkbook in one hand and a foul-smelling toddler in the other. "Get me the nan with the green stuff in it." "What green stuff?" Getting the wrong thing would also be unwise. Scully plants a parting kiss on the child hidden under that tangled head of hair, and Mulder leans across the front seat for his turn. There was a line for her kisses these days and since he had the fewest boo-boos, he had to take advantage of every opportunity. Eventually their five seconds of bliss are interrupted by the car lurching a few inches as Mulder's foot slips off the brake and a rude gagging noise from the head of hair who recently discovered exactly where babies came from. She pulls away, licking her lips and probably figuring out that Mulder ate the last of the roll of cookie dough while she was outside. "You know, Mulder - the chopped up little green stuff they put inside the bread before they cook it. The same thing you got last time." Oh. That makes it so much clearer. Last time was two years ago and he'd been dead drunk. Glancing up at the house, Mulder is sure that damn cat is grinning at him from the bathroom window. "And we'd have cash if you'd gone to the bank on Saturday like I told you to, Mulder." He just puts the car back into reverse, hits the button to roll up the windows since the first raindrops are already falling, and tells his copilot to buckle up. That damn cat and the fat-ass purple shoulder monsters can grin all they want. Every moment is a treasure because it defies the odds and it's spring again. They've come full circle. **** But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me. L'Envoi **** By Mulder's calculations, he had about six and a half hours to live. Scully usually woke up about eight on Saturdays when they weren't on a case. Giving her an extra hour to sleep in since she was up late, five minutes to go to the bathroom, wash her face, brush her teeth, and figure out what he'd done was cutting it close, but he'd also granted her a whole minute to find her gun, and it would never take that long. If he went home, that added an extra thirty minutes to his life while she drove to his apartment, plus five minutes more because she'd have to get dressed and find her keys. His watch said 3:14 in the morning and he expected to be dead by 9:41. Six hours and twenty-seven minutes to live. Shit. Six hours and twenty-six minutes. The summer thunderstorm gathering outside made the room even muggier, causing beads of sweat to form on his forehead again, stinging his eyes. Weren't men supposed to automatically roll over and go dead asleep after sex? Why couldn't he ever do that? Mulder had been laying in Scully's dark, stuffy bedroom for thirty minutes now, watching her sleep off her wine and curry and counting the seconds until his own death. He tried to think what he could possibly say to her to explain it away. "I was drunk" was a lousy excuse and he knew it - although it was true. In theory, take-out Indian food went better with wine, so he'd brought a bottle of good Merlot to their regular Friday night "date". Once they'd finished that, Scully had broken out her stash of girlie wine and Bacchus was praised into the wee hours. In actuality, the dal makni and nan were currently swirling around in his belly with the tart Merlot and the sweet, fizzy dessert wine and making him curse Indian cuisine, Italian wine, and the Japanese woman at the wine shop that had recommended the two could go ever together. He knew better than to eat spicy food, drink a bottle and a half of wine, and then engage in aerobic activity at his age. As he watched his best friend, partner, and maybe-girlfriend-or- something-let's-see-what-happens-Mulder, he decided indigestion was the least of his problems. Yes, he was drunk, but not that drunk. He knew better. He'd promised. Six hours and twenty-three minutes. Think man, think! Sex "just happened, Dad" when he was seventeen; that excuse didn't fly at thirty-eight. At the point when both people are taking their underwear off, he should suspect by now that he was about to have sex. Nudity was always a strong clue. He punched and flipped the unfamiliar pillow a few times, trying to find a place that wasn't wrinkled or wet or warm. Maybe if he wiggled and made enough noise, Scully would wake up and just kill him now. He hated the waiting. Mulder switched on her lamp and glanced at Scully expectantly, jiggling the mattress a little. She was still passed out cold, that glorious hair spilling out over her smooth, dry, cool pillow. Not likely, he decided. Death would have to wait until dawn. Even with her head lolling with the motion of the bed and her mouth hanging slightly open, she was still stunning. Scully attracted him like a compass to true north, even drunk and drooling - God help him. Christ, he was still drunk. She made a little contented sighing noise and Mulder wanted to wrap himself around her, to rest his head on those perfect breasts until morning, but that wasn't what they'd agreed to. Not yet. Until less than an hour ago, Scully was as untouchable as ever. If Mulder hadn't seen her nude a few times, he would have assumed she was all smooth in front like a Barbie doll. She seemed, however, fully functional, more or less. He couldn't believe he'd had sex with her. Mediocre sex, but sex, nonetheless. Maybe Scully wouldn't remember. Maybe her standards were really, really low and she'd think the Earth had moved. Maybe she'd change her mind about waiting to make love - he'd had women put on a big show about taking sex seriously and then hop right into bed the same night. After all, she'd said 'yes'- after six glasses of wine and making him promise again that he wouldn't 'try anything' if she kept drinking. Maybe Scully would be okay with rushing into sex. To all of the above, not likely. Six hours and nineteen minutes. Maybe she'd get sick when she woke up. That could add a few minutes to his life. Or maybe she'd be too hungover to shoot straight and decide to crawl back into bed for the weekend and kill him on Monday. Six hours and eighteen minutes. He could hear the thunder in the distance. He'd promised - that's what made it so bad. Fine, Scully, they'd take it slow, mutual respect, lots of emotional baggage, professional boundaries, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. Love her, want her, will do whatever she says like a donkey following a carrot. When she wanted to wait to make love, he'd said that was a mature, responsible thing to do. Of course, if she said she wanted to make like bunnies on Skinner's desk tomorrow morning, he'd say that was a good decision too. Mulder's sexual morals were relative - mostly to his groin area. It just kind of . . . happened. Really. He was feeling good, Scully was laughing, the last of the wine was being poured and he was having this delusion that she loved him as much as he loved her. Then Mulder kissed Scully, Scully kissed Mulder, and the rest was a blur. At least they'd made it to her bed instead of having at it like animals on the rug. Scully probably wasn't going to consider that a plus. He had his mother's jewelry at his apartment - Mulder considered putting his mother's engagement ring on Scully's finger while she slept as a way of showing her he wasn't playing around. If he ever wanted to marry anyone, it would be her. In seven, almost eight years, he'd never tired of looking at her or talking to her, and that said a lot, given how quickly Mulder tended to tire of people. They made a good team and there was no question in his mind that he loved her. Maybe he could live the rest of his life without fantastic sex. Lots of men did. That wasn't fair - it was the first time and she was drunk. He'd had all those years to build up fantasies about her that no woman could ever live up to. Scully wasn't cold, she was just a little . . . distant. With Mulder, at least. The ring idea seemed a bit much - besides, he was probably still too drunk to drive home to get it. He'd hang around until she woke up, then confess his undying love for her and hope for the best. As many times as they'd been mostly dead together, surely ten minutes of lousy sex wasn't going to come between them. They were best friends, partners, equals, soul mates. By mutual decision, they were on the slow path to taking their relationship to the next level since he'd come back from England in April; this was just a small false start. No more of a problem than when Scully jumped his ass for kissing her in the office last week. They were adults. They could work this out. Un huh. Sure. He was a dead man walking. Laying. Whatever. Six hours and eleven minutes. The lightning flashed through the open window - the storm was breaking. Mulder futilely rearranged the hot pillow one more time, then scooted as far away from his partner as he could manage and not fall off the mattress. He sorted out the covers and pulled only the cool sheet over his nakedness, leaving Scully the Queen of Cold the comforter. Resting his sweaty hair in the crook of his arm like a rooster at dusk, Mulder settled down for the night and waited to die. **** And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech. In Memoriam **** Mulder awoke to the smell of coffee brewing, clean bodies emerging from the shower, and the mildest hint of vomit. It triggered a memory from childhood, but he couldn't place which one. He didn't sweat it - his life was going to flash before his eyes in a few seconds anyway and he could try to figure it out then. A clock in the distance was chiming ten, which meant he'd already been granted an extra twenty minutes on Earth, unless he was dead already and this was Hell. He didn't think there would be coffee in Hell. He'd actually given it some thought and decided that if it was there, it was probably decaf. It -was- Hell, after all. "I know you're awake, Mulder. Stop playing possum." Mulder didn't move. "I'm not going to kill you - not until you shower, at least. Get up. I made coffee." Java was the one thing Scully could do in the kitchen that didn't set off the smoke alarm or require a trip to the ER, so Mulder braved opening an eye. She was clean and wrapped in her robe, wet hair still dripping down on the collar. She held two cups in her hands - one of delectable coffee and one of water with her ring finger and pinkie wrapped around a small bottle of aspirin. Scully had instructed him to take two Tylenol before he went to the dentist; maybe she was going to give him an aspirin before a gunshot wound so he'd bleed faster. That was very considerate of her. "Are you going to be sick?" Mulder gave his head the smallest 'no' shake, immediately regretting it. "Well then, get up. These sheets reek of booze and I want them out of my apartment." Mulder rolled up to sitting, feeling like Lazarus rising from the dead on a bad day. "Take the aspirin first with the whole glass of water, then you can have the coffee. All the water, Mulder - not just enough to swallow the pills this time." He squinted, trying to locate his boxers or pants or the floor in general before he attempted to stand up. Scully shook two tablets out of the bottle and he opened his mouth obediently, then finished the whole glass of tepid water, mostly out of fear. "I'm putting your coffee on the sink in the bathroom. Go shower, Mulder - you smell bad." And Scully left the room, probably to think up more things to tell him to do. Making the most pitiful noises he could muster, Mulder shuffled into her bathroom and stood under the showerhead, hoping he was steam-cleanable, since soap was just too much of an effort. He stepped out of the safety of the shower to find Scully had brought his overnight bag up from his car so he didn't have to put on yesterday's clothes. A clean layer of clothes, a shave, and a cup of strong coffee blending badly with toothpaste, and Mulder was finally alive and brave enough to open the bathroom door. Scully had dressed, stripped the sheets off the bed, and laid down on the bare mattress to rest after the exertion. If Mulder felt bad, Scully must feel horrible - they'd had about the same amount to drink and he outweighed her by seventy pounds. And she'd still managed to get up and make coffee. Love her, love her, love her. In the bravest act of his life, Mulder curled up behind her, wrapping an arm and a leg over her in the now-cool room and bed as the wind whipped the sheer curtains like the sails of a ship. "You have to know that I love you, Scully. If I've never said it fully-conscious before, I'm saying it now. And you know that I feel like a complete bastard. How much trouble am I in?" Scully shifted even closer to him, a good sign that he was at least on the road to forgiveness, but she didn't respond. Outside the window, children splashed in the puddles, oblivious to the pained silence in his partner's bed. Mulder could hear their high-pitched laughter over the slow thudding of his heart as he waited. He'd been hoping that "I love you" thing would buy him some slack. "Are you still speaking to me?" He could actually live with Scully not speaking to him for a few days, especially if she was mad. "I'm just trying to figure out what to say. And I feel like crap." How did Mulder ask this delicately? He didn't think he'd hurt her, but it still worried him. She was so small and he'd been really, really smashed. Not exactly his most gentle moments. "Are you. . . okay?" "I'm okay, Mulder. Just a little confused this morning." "I could tell you I love you again. Would that help?" No response. "Or I could leave and let you think. Whatever you want." "Just lay here with me." She sounded so sad. So he did, curling his arm around her tiny rib cage; his hand brushing the underside of her breasts. Mulder felt her stiffen and then relax, just as she had last night, exhaling and trusting. The only times he'd ever known her to flinch were the few occasions in the last month when they'd gotten carried away kissing and she'd pulled back suddenly, as though he'd triggered a bad memory she had to squash before she could continue. A light switched on. Maybe he was going to have to puke after all. Mulder collected his thoughts and kept his voice steady: "You know I won't hurt you, Scully. What's wrong?" That was why she had so many reasons for not "getting serious." Why she dodged anything that even hinted at sex between them. She had covered it well unless she was intimate with someone, but it was still pretty obvious up close and personal. It would have been obvious to him last night, but he'd been too out of it. Not frigid, but somewhat – maybe inhibited was a good word. No – more like a woman much younger or less experienced. Hesitant. Not sure if this was supposed to be fun or not. "Was it that bad, Mulder? Was it that awful?" "No, -I- was awful, and I'd love a chance to make it up to you." He raised his head to kiss her cheek, using his nose to push away the hair that was drying in waves against her face. "My first year in college - that's why I transferred when my family moved." "What happened?" "Nothing awful; I just have flashbacks sometimes, especially with someone new. I was young and I had too much to drink. I let things go past the point that I was comfortable with and then there was no turning back. It was as much my fault as his." Years of women's lib and his mother's teachings came out of his mouth before he thought. "How can you say that? It wasn't your fault, no matter what you did. Anything but a clear 'yes' is rape, especially if you'd been drinking." "Is it, Mulder?" There was more heavy silence as the room suddenly warmed and the children seemed to stop laughing outside the window. He'd just walked right into that one. How quickly the mood changed . . . "Don't you dare, Scully. Don't you dare pull your passive- aggressive bullshit with me. We got drunk and did something stupid, but WE are consenting adults. If you feel guilty, that's fine, because I feel guilty as hell, but don't you dare try to make it sound like you weren't responsible for your own actions. You don't have a tattoo to blame it on this time." Mulder rolled off the bed and stood up so quickly his head lurched. He wasn't staying around to be called a rapist, whether she'd been assaulted two decades ago or not. Bitch. Scully followed him into the living room, yelling back. "No, Mulder, I have you to blame it on. You promised me!" "I promised you? It was a stupid, childish promise, but I said would stop when you asked me to and I always have. That doesn't mean you have carte blanche to invite me into your bed and then blame me afterwards so you won't feel like you made a mistake. WE wanted to have sex, so WE did. Get over it!" "Yes, WE did! WE just had unprotected sex, which means I've just been exposed to God-knows-what. Don't you ever think about anyone but yourself, Mulder?" This was like trying to have a fight with the fog. No matter which way he turned, he was still wrong. He tried to remind himself this was just a defense mechanism, but that part of his brain wasn't listening. "Scully, YOU did my last blood work! What do you think I picked up in the last three months?" "I don't know Mulder, why don't you tell me? I'm sure she has long legs and her IQ in her push-up bra and is probably fantastic in bed!" Who the hell was this woman? One lousy lay and she turns into Phoebe? If she wanted to play Phoebe games, Mulder was an expert at returning those serves. There's no crying foul when you wanted to play dirty. "No one, Scully. No other woman in five years, because I was waiting for you. Not Phoebe, not Diana, no one. Because I loved you and I thought you were worth waiting for. Now I'm not so sure." Tying the last bow on his laces, Mulder picked up his gun, keys, and duffle bag, and stalked out, leaving Scully standing at the end of her couch, her mouth still open. Slamming the door behind him, his head and heart still pounding, he didn't feel nearly as good as when he thought she was just going to shoot him. **** But for the unquiet heart and brain A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise Like dull narcotics numbing pain. In Memoriam **** Mulder made it to his car before he had his cell phone out and was hitting the speed dial for Scully's apartment, the rain splattering in fat salty drops on his windshield. "Don't hang up," he pleaded quickly when she answered. She didn't hang up, but there was a long, empty silence. Mulder's phone was getting sweaty from his palm and he felt the dampness of his shirt against his back and chest in the humidity. He was caught between fight and flight, and he didn't want flight. He'd already run so far that he might not be able to find his way back. "I wanted to tell you I'm sorry. That was an awful thing to say and I don't have any excuse. You're worth waiting a millennium for, even hung over with bed head and curry breath." There was still silence as the line crackled. He strained to hear if she was crying. "I'm sorry, Scully. That's all I know to say. I made a mistake and I'm sorry. I do love you." More silence. More beads of sweat dripping down the back of his neck. He kept hoping those three little words would somehow work a miracle. "I'll see you at work on Monday. I'm going to go home and calm down. Okay, Scully?" "Okay, Mulder." And the line went dead. Mulder was right - he did finally have to throw up that morning. **** That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things. In Memoriam **** He was sitting in his office by dawn. Not like it bothered him to get up that early; he hadn't been to bed the night before. Mulder paced, drank enough coffee to give himself stomach cramps and two trips to the bathroom, went up and bugged Skinner until Kimberly came in at seven, and even read a few of the memos that were piled on his desk. He'd gone for bagels from the new bakery for the other early-birds, answered all his e-mail, checked voice mail at home and at work three times, and was actually balancing his checkbook when he heard heels clicking down the hall and stop outside the door. Mulder froze, holding his breath, until he heard Scully turn around and start to walk away. He knocked over his chair and banged his shin in his haste to get up, and caught her ten feet from the door, herding her the way a lame collie makes circles around a flock of timid sheep. Mulder ran his hands through his hair, rested them on his hips, and finally shoved them deep into his pants pockets because he didn't know what to do with them. He wasn't grabbing Scully like a caveman, but he was blocking her escape route. "Just talk to me, Scully. Please. I will do whatever you want." Scully didn't even meet his eyes, but Mulder realized they were attracting attention from the people in the elevator. Mulder yelled for them to hold the doors and ushered Scully in, noticing she didn't flinch away from his hand on her back. It was just sex, then. Once they were through the lobby and outside in the blinding morning sun, Mulder slowed their pace. He'd just wanted Scully not to feel like she was on his turf or that she was trapped; he had no particular place to go. No real plan except to not let her leave. Not to lose her. The sun crawled lordly across the sky, glaring down at him as he searched for words. "Tell me how to fix this, Scully. Tell me what to do." She stepped back into the shadows where she couldn't easily be seen, sat down on a step, and buried her face in her hands. "God, Scully, I'm so sorry." Mulder sat beside her, close, but not touching. He stared at the pavement, watching the unfortunate worms frying in the harsh sun in front of his feet. He bet it seemed like such a good plan when they'd slithered out onto the cool, wet sidewalk only a few hours earlier, but this was how it ended for them. Poor little worms. "You knew exactly what to say to hurt me. To humiliate me. One night and you knew exactly how to humiliate me." Mulder just sat. It was true, of course. He didn't get to be the Bureau's darling right out of the academy without being able to find people's weak points. This was about their fears of rejection and need to lash out before someone else could hurt them. This was them both growling loudly to protect their soft underbellies, the animal eclipsing the intellectual. She'd called him a rapist, a liar, and a cheat, but he wasn't mentioning that. If Scully needed anything right now, it was power and dignity. Wonder if she knew that? "What do you need, Scully?" "I need some time and some space, Mulder. I know I acted badly - I know what I said to you was as inexcusable as what you said to me. I don't know what's wrong with me. I need to figure it out instead of running - instead of letting us destroy each other." No, Scully had no idea what she needed. He wondered if she'd also run so far that she'd lost her way back in her haste to escape. Mulder stood and offered her his hand. It seemed like an eon before she took it, her palm moist against his. "I'm going to ask Skinner to send me to do profiles, Scully. They ran me ragged my first three years at the Bureau, so they'll do it again until I tell them to stop. I won't come back until you tell me to." She nodded dumbly, following him back toward the Hoover building. Mulder stopped while they were still a good distance away, far from prying eyes. "And, Scully - if it never gets any better that it was Friday night . . . or if you walk out of my life and never look back . . . I'll still be a lucky man." Then he dropped her hand, shoving his fists back in his pockets so he wouldn't touch her and told himself he was giving her some space, not running. Respect, not fear. Once they reached the building, he waited in the lobby while Scully caught the elevator, watching her hips sway as she walked, then jogged up four flights of stairs to wait for Skinner to get out of his meeting. **** There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds. In Memoriam **** Skinner obviously knew something was wrong, but he didn't ask. Mulder was on a plane that afternoon, bound for Topeka and The Boiler, as that killer was called. After that came Memphis and Potty Mouth, then Boston and Strangler Deux, then Los Angeles and a bunch of dead little girls. No cute name for the two men in LA. He left the number for every hotel on their office voice mail, but Scully never called. His cell phone stayed charged and in his coat pocket, but the few times it rang, it was either Skinner with a new case or the Gunmen reporting another of his fish had died. After a few weeks, the hotels and motels and endless bad coffee and drive-throughs all blended together. He could have been twenty-eight years old, young and idealistic, still a little uncertain as to why everyone didn't see the same patterns in the cases as he did. He was the Bureau's golden boy again, except that now he recognized how exploitative that title was. The commendations and pats on the back came with a twist of the knife in his gut. They expected miracles from him; for him to pull profiles out of thin air. And every time he started to slow down, someone reminded him that people would die if he took a weekend off to fly home. That didn't push his buttons the way it once did. His sister was dead; the quest to find her was over. Now it was just a job. He still didn't fly home. Because he was giving Scully her space; not because he was afraid, of course. Not because not knowing at least allowed him to hope. That wasn't it at all. It was like the last decade never happened, except that instead of carousing at the end of the day, Mulder went back to his hotel room, very alone, and waited for the phone to ring. He checked it every half hour to make sure it still had a dial tone and the ringer was turned on until he either fell asleep or it was dawn. He would have checked the phone more often, but he thought that would have been obsessive. And he waited. Mulder thought enough to generate the profiles and complete necessary daily activities, but all other mental energy was devoted to Scully. He rewrote that single night in his mind several thousand times, making minor changes until it was perfect. He choreographed every move into fluid passion, doing and saying all the right things. He was gentle, slow, letting her find her way until her eyes were ready to close. Or open. Mulder edited that Saturday morning until they ended up making love on the bare mattress in the warm sunshine and cool breeze, hangovers and hesitations forgotten. She sat between his legs afterward, leaning back against him as they read the morning paper. His face was beside hers as they scanned classifieds for a bigger apartment and her hand raised the cup up so he could take a sip of her fancy coffee. Her hair fell in a million directions over her face as she looked back over her shoulder at him. She smiled. There was a dab of the silly froth she liked on her lower lip and he licked it off, enjoying the way it contrasted with the taste of her skin. Give him twelve weeks to plan and Mulder could have it perfect. Actually, he'd had almost eight years to plan, and this was still how it turned out. Mulder twisted the top off his beer and opened the new case file. This killer liked redheaded little boys. **** Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns. Tithonus **** Skinner called him off the case and back to DC, ordering him to write whatever profile he could on the plane and fax it once he got to the office. Mulder had barely opened the case file and had gotten so excited when the phone rang that he spilled his beer. "It's an emergency, Agent Mulder. Get on a plane." "It's always an emergency to someone, sir." No, Maggie Scully was dead. Mulder had made Skinner repeat it three times to make sure he was saying "Maggie" and not "Dana." On the long plane ride back from Hawaii - yes, there are serial killers in Hawaii, they're just very tan - Mulder tried to decide what to say to Scully. He didn't have the file yet, but Skinner had said it looked like a simple car jacking that had gone bad. Scully had asked that Mulder look over the police file and the crime scene, even though it was nowhere near Bureau jurisdiction. Having Skinner consent and pull Mulder off a high-profile case to do it probably meant Scully was crying when she asked. Skinner was a big softie for her. Skinner wasn't the only one. She's been there for Mulder when his mother died; he at least wanted to do the same for her. He didn't have to think up a sonnet; just be there. Forever, if she'd let him. There was no question in his mind at This point. He worked up the nerve to call her from LAX, although Scully had to know Skinner was going to have him fly home. It was just an excuse to hear her voice and he'd thought of a few good lines in the plane. He got the machine at her apartment and at work, so he left messages that he hoped didn't sound too stupid or desperate. A male voice answered her cell phone, who Mulder assumed was Charles, the phantom brother. Scully was sleeping, but could he take a message? Mulder just said the same thing he'd said on the last two machines - that he would go directly to get the file, then to the crime scene and then to his apartment. He hung up, thinking he would stop by the morgue to see the body and talk to the ME before he went home, but he wasn't going to mention that. Mulder was dead on his feet by the time he got to the office. It seemed to be light outside, but his biological clock was so screwed up that he had no idea what meal to eat if he got hungry. Skinner had bagels again, so it must be breakfast time. It could be any day of the week except Sunday - Kimberly didn't ever come in on a Sunday morning so she could go to church. Mulder decided it must be Tuesday - Tuesdays generally sucked. Wolfing down his second still-warm bagel while scanning the file, he decided Skinner was right - Mrs. Scully had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her mother had handed over her keys without a struggle and quickly gotten out of the car, exactly what Mulder would have told her to do. Some punk shot her in the head anyway and driven off in her Toyota. Scully was grasping for straws if she thought there was anything else. Mulder remembered feeling that need to grasp - the need for it to be someone's fault, part of some greater plan instead of just random evil. Scully still hadn't called, which cut him deeply. She wanted him to investigate the case, but not bother her. God forbid Scully ever admit weakness or allow anyone into her inner sanctuary. Fine. He'd do his job and fly back to Honolulu tomorrow afternoon and leave he to her precious space. Skinner took issue with that plan, insisting Mulder and Scully needed to "talk." Skinner had a way of sticking his nose in where it didn't belong. He also had the address of the house where Scully was staying and he strongly suggested Mulder go there. Now, Agent Mulder. Take one of the fleet cars and go. Rinse off in the gym, shave, change clothes, and go now. The case and the body can wait. Go now, Agent. **** He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse. Locksley Hall **** The look in Skinner's eyes made Mulder very uneasy and his stomach knotted tighter as he drove through the ritzy neighborhood. Where the hell was she? Where else would she go? His apartment? The office? The Gunmen? Except for her brothers, who were generally floating around the Mediterranean, Scully had few close friends after working with him for so long. This was probably Ellen's place, he decided. Mulder had heard Scully mention her a few times, but he'd never met her. The distinguished-looking man that answered the door probably wasn't named "Ellen." Mulder was really, really hoping he was Ellen's husband, but he was having his doubts. Ellen had a slew of kids, and most dads had trouble car-pooling in the freshly-waxed Porsche sitting in the driveway. "You're Dana's Mulder?" The man asked. Mulder nodded. He had previously been just "Mulder," but "Dana's Mulder" would do just fine, thank you. "I'm Daniel." Mulder decided it was his stomach that had suddenly detached and fallen down into his gut, crashing brutally into whatever was below a stomach full of bagels. Liver, maybe. Everything in his belly basically felt like it was being crushed in a trash compacter, so it really didn't matter which part of his anatomy it actually was. It just hurt. Bad. It was probably supposed to. "Please come in - Dana's upstairs. She's been sleeping, but she's probably awake now. She wants to see you." Mulder had the distinct impression that Scully wasn't sleeping in the guestroom as he followed Daniel through the showy house. There was nothing overt in Daniel's manner, but it was there - this man had carnal knowledge of his partner. Not a decade ago, either. Mulder just kept walking, eyes straight ahead so he couldn't see the world, one foot in front of the other in the deep carpet. The older man left him outside a closed door, telling Mulder he'd be downstairs if they needed anything. Feeling like a bridegroom that was the butt of a very bad joke, he knocked and called to Scully as he entered, marveling at how small she looked in the huge bed, swaddled in the gaudy designer sheets. Scully sat up, her eyes and nose red and the rest of her too pale, even for her. She wanted to be held, so Mulder picked her up off the rumpled bed and carried her to a love seat, settling her on his lap and pulling her as close as possible without physically merging. Crisis or not, he'd be damned if he was laying in the bed she'd been sharing with another man. He could smell Daniel on her. On her skin and in her hair. Expensive aftershave, dry-cleaned shirts, and masculinity. The smell of another man seemed to start inside her and permeate its way out. It did start inside her. Deep, deep inside her in very dark, damp places where he wasn't welcome. Mulder tried not to breathe as he held her. Scully didn't speak; she just shook. Minutes became hours and hours became eons. He petted her like a frightened, feral animal, smoothing her tangled hair, and running his palm over the soft, wrinkled fabric on her back. This was not real. His Scully did not sin. Mulder sinned, but his pure, poised Scully that he held above reproach had not just let him find her in a stranger's bed. Again. It opened his eyes to things he'd looked at so long that he'd ceased to see them. He wondered what she'd found in this man's arms that she hadn't found in his. It certainly wasn't love. There was a soft knock on the doorframe and Daniel came in, carrying a plate of fruit and crackers, which he set on the floor beside Mulder's feet like an offering to Goddess-Scully. "Try to get her to eat a little so she won't be sick again. I can't get her to eat anything." And Daniel wisely left again, this time closing the door quietly behind him, his helplessness grating at Mulder. Maybe that was what Scully was looking for. Other men were for sex; Mulder was for cleaning up the mess afterward. It's hard to be useful to a woman in a crisis when you're busy worshiping her. Mulder was as much in awe of her as Daniel - Mulder had just been mostly dead with her a few more times. A man can't do mouth-to-mouth or apply direct pressure if he's standing there in reverence of her beauty. Bodily fluids leaking out tended to make a woman more real to Mulder. Apparently, not real enough. Or maybe too real. Whatever. Mulder shifted Scully and wiped her nose and eyes with his sleeve, oblivious to the yuck factor. Hell, snot beat alien slime. She opened her mouth and chewed on command until most of the crackers were gone, then rested her head against his chest, listening to his heart beating. Content. Could he live like this? Let her have her one cheap fling every three years or so, throw it in his face, and go back to their normal life as friends and partners, but not as lovers? Maybe Scully was right - maybe it wasn't just about him. Maybe it was just a little bit about a very frightened, very lonely woman whose mother had been gunned down and who had no one else to turn to because her best friend had gone off and left her because he was a coward. Maybe. Looking down, Mulder realized Scully was wearing a blouse with blood all over it and there was more under the fingernails she always kept so nice. She looked like she'd put the blouse back on earlier, leaving off her bra, panties, and stockings, but putting back on her skirt and blouse since she didn't have anything else. Mulder tried not to imagine the hands undressing her while he continued to try not to breathe, which was difficult. "How about a bath, Scully? You want to get cleaned up?" He needed her to get cleaned up. Scully nodded 'yes,' so he led her to the master bathroom and started filling the big bathtub. It was going to take awhile. He looked around for bubbles or any of Scully's bath stuff, but this was pretty much a man's bathroom. A man who bought Obsession deodorant. God, what an ass. Oh good - more guilt. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Scully retching into the toilet, losing all six of the crackers it had taken him fifteen minutes to get into her. She flushed the toilet and leaned her head against the tile wall, starting to cry again. Mulder brought her water to rinse her mouth out, but she shook her head when he wanted her to drink. "It'll just come back up." Her voice was hoarse from crying. The sound of it made his heart hurt. Or maybe that was his liver; hard to tell. Anyway, it hurt. "Okay. Can you take a bath by yourself?" Scully didn't answer, so he undressed her and helped her slip into the warm water, worried at how thin she was. Mulder was through bathing her and was rinsing the last of the conditioner from her hair when he realized thoughts of sex or her being nude hadn't even crossed his mind. He couldn't decide if that was because she was so upset, or she'd been with another man. It seemed like too much to think about right now, so he added that to the things he wasn't doing - replacing not breathing now that she smelled like Ivory soap instead of sex. Mulder was down to not thinking about him having sex with Scully and Daniel having sex with Scully. Neither was an easy thing not to think about and his lover hurt. Liver. His liver hurt. He left her swathed in clean towels on the love seat while he went to get his duffle bag from the car trunk. Daniel trailed him through the house like an ineffective puppy dog, asking how Dana was doing. "Badly," was Mulder's answer, walking quickly before the urge to shoot the man returned. What could he put on her? His t-shirt and sweat pants would do until he could get her something else. Mulder was drying her hair with the purple towel when it dawned on him that she might not want to leave. He just ignored that thought and tried to get the fruit and some water into her. It took seven bites before she was stumbling to the bathroom to vomit again. He picked her up off the bathroom floor, cleaned off her face, and realized she wasn't crying tears anymore. Dehydrated. ER time. Maybe not. Maybe Dr. Daniel could do something useful and put in an IV until she calmed down. Maybe he could sedate her a little. Her mother was just murdered last night, after all. She'd given him handfuls of something the night Mulder had finally realized his mother had killed herself and he was grateful for every pill. Dr. Daniel was uncooperative and suggested Dana needed hospital care. Mulder was leading a barefoot Scully through the front door when Daniel came out, carrying Scully's briefcase and suit coat, also drenched in blood. Scully obediently got into the passenger seat of the Crown Vic and Daniel put her things in the back like a child trying to be helpful when Mommy had the flu and being about as effectual. Mulder drove away without a word. His mother's lessons in manners never covered what to say when you find your best friend half-dead in her ex-lover's bed. Mulder had no intention of writing any thank-you notes. **** Let knowledge grow from more to more. In Memoriam **** "Welcome back, Dr. Scully!" The young Korean doctor was too exuberant for Mulder not having slept in days - or weeks, depending on which time zone you went with. He met them as they walked through the automatic doors from the lobby and nipped at their heels with questions. Mulder ignored him and kept a firm arm around Scully to prevent her from falling again. She'd fallen once already in the parking lot when he turned his back for a second. She fell once when he turned his back. Hum? Sense a theme, Mulder? "Are you feeling any better? How are you doing?" George Washington was one of their favorite one-stop patch-up- shops, and Mulder didn't recognize this doctor. He must be new. Joy - that meant Mulder was going to get "the look" when he gave Scully's medical history. "How's she doing?" the doc asked Mulder when Scully didn't respond. "Badly." Mulder decided he liked that response. "She can't keep anything down and she's dehydrated," he said, covering Scully as she curled up on the hard exam table. The doctor gave her a quick check and announced she needed fluids and food. Thank God for his superior medical knowledge. Mulder started to ask that he do a rape exam, but that was just being needlessly mean. For whatever reason, Scully was with Daniel of her own free will. The nice nurse that came to start the IV and take blood was one they'd encountered several times previously. She was more concerned and less bouncy than the new doc, asking Scully about the plans for her mother's funeral and how Dr. Waterston was doing as she inserted the needles. Scully didn't respond, but the nurse kept up the chatter as a distraction, addressing Scully as 'honey.' "Are they dating?" Mulder cut in, a bad taste forming in his mouth. Probably from his liver/lover. "I don't think so, child. He was here on a consult when her mother was brought in and she finally left with him instead of the other man. I didn't think that was such a good idea, but it wasn't my place to interfere." "Who was the other man?" Mulder asked. "The other FBI man - big, tall, white guy with glasses. Looks like a middle-aged Marine. Cutie pie, but he needs more hair and less attitude. He came in with her when she got real sick with cancer that last time." Skinner. That's how Skinner knew where she was; he'd seen her leave with Daniel. Mulder smothered a smile at the idea of Skinner being the 'other man,' although if he had to share, he preferred Skinner to Doctor Daniel. Maybe Skinner's turn would come in her next triennial fling. The large woman taped the IV securely to Scully's skin, patting her hand like a comforting parent, then tucking it back under the blanket so it wouldn't get cold. "That should help you feel better and get you to stop throwing up, honey. You'll be up and around chasing those aliens in no time. This will be rough for a little bit, but trust me, it's worth it in The end." Mulder had no idea what the blonde nurse meant, but Scully's IV was making his tummy feel better already. He must have dozed off in the wooden chair beside the exam table, because he awoke to the sound of the curtain hooks whirring and the doctor gleefully announcing the lab work was back. Mulder managed a grunt of interest, but Scully seemed more alert, listening to the man and nodding. Through all the medical jargon, Mulder caught "Paxil," "release you in the morning," "morning sickness," and "first trimester." He must be only half-awake. Scully's eyes were closed again - maybe the doctor had never been there at all. "Wake up for a second, Scully. Did he just say you're pregnant?" She nodded, not opening her eyes. "I just found out. I was going to tell you. I was, Mulder." It took a moment for it to sink in and his brain to restart. Mulder had about a billion questions he wanted answered immediately, but she was too weak. For once, he restrained himself. They'd have a long time to talk about it once she was better. Or he could get some coffee in him and go talk to that obnoxiously enthusiastic doctor about the baby. The baby. Wow. A baby. How? There were no ova. Had Cancerman done something to her? That would make her four months pregnant. No, she would have figured it out earlier if she were that far along. This was their child, conceived the old-fashioned way. The 'get drunk and screw' method. All those people spending thousands on in-vitro should try it. He and Scully were going to have a baby. Wow. Not too many things left Mulder speechless, but the idea of becoming a father kept him silent for a full five minutes. "Tell me what you're feeling, Mulder," she asked in a soft, hesitant voice. "I'm surprised. And thrilled. And worried. And guilty. And scared. But I love you." "Me too." Then she was asleep. **** Oh yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill. In Memoriam **** Her brother Bill, of course, loved to be in charge of things, so all Mulder had to do was get Scully to the wake and funeral on time. She wasn't incapable of taking care of herself, but she was willing to let Mulder take over for a few days while she got out of her head, as she once called it. Out of duty, Mulder reviewed the events surrounding her mother's death, but there was nothing he could add to the police file. It was just a random, senseless killing and they'd probably never catch the man that did it. Someone shot one of the sweetest women on Earth so he could go joyriding in her six-year-old Camry. Mulder was having a long talk with Maggie Scully's body the morning of the funeral. He'd flashed his FBI badge to get into the basement where the bodies were prepped and no one down there had bothered to make him leave yet. It was almost the truth - he was assigned to this case, but he'd already seen the body at the morgue for the forensic data. This was about something different. He'd have to go get Scully soon, but there were a few things he wanted to say away from other ears. Mulder remembered the woman who went with him to pick out Scully's tombstone and then invited him into her room once Scully was returned and they were turning off the respirator. He remembered Mrs. Scully trusting him to keep her little girl safe. He remembered feeling closer to Scully's mother than he ever had to his own. He promised her he'd take care of her daughter and her grandchild; to make sure they both had whatever they needed. Mulder hoped she knew that Scully was pregnant - that Scully had told her over lunch before her mother left to get a few groceries, ending up lying in an empty parking space with a bullet through her brain an hour later. Mulder and Maggie Scully's body were discussing possible baby names when the door to the public part of the funeral home opened. Mulder ignored it, repeating that he was not naming any children Ahab or Fox, but he would consider William, as long as the boy was Will and not Bill. As far as girls went, anything but Samantha or Melissa was fine - no sense in giving a little child such a heavy name. He was good with a Katherine or a Margarete or pretty much whatever Scully wanted. Maybe not Teena. Katerina, maybe? Maybe not. Mulder's discussion was one-sided, but he was certain Mrs. Scully was listening - not here in the basement, but close by. Mulder sensed a presence behind him and turned to find his future child's namesake standing in the doorway. He stood up and blocked Bill's view of what used to be Maggie's face. The funeral was going to be a closed casket out of necessity. "Bill, you don't want to see her like this." "They said you were down here. You're supposed to be watching Dana! Who's with Dana?" "Some cousin. I lost track. I'm leaving to go get her now - or do you want to go?" Mulder tried to pull the sheet up to hide the gunshot wound, but the woman doing the hair and makeup objected. Bill might be a pompous fool, but this was still his mother. "I want to see her, Mulder. I want to make sure it's true." Mulder felt the first flicker of kinship he'd ever had experienced with this man, and stepped to the side so Bill could approach. Like most people that seldom encounter death, Bill was afraid to touch the body, so Mulder lifted the side of the sheet modestly and put Bill's big hand on hers. "A large caliber bullet struck her below her right temple, passing through her brain and exiting above and behind her left ear." Mulder brushed back Maggie's hair to show Bill the smaller of the wounds, much to the annoyance of the cosmetologist. "That angle indicates she was standing up while the shooter was below and in front of her, probably sitting in the driver's seat of her car after she got out. That bullet stopped her higher brain functions immediately - including any ability to feel pain or fear - but it took several more hours for her heart to stop. She never knew what happened and she never regained consciousness, Bill." Bill just held his mother's cool hand, probably chanting to himself that real men don't cry. "I brought her rosary and some clothes." "That's good. You can put her rosary in her hand now, so she'll have it. They'll be getting her dressed soon." Bill complied, folding the string of simple white beads into her hand and then pulling the sheet back down. "Don't tease her hair. She doesn't like it poofy," Bill told the woman with the rat-tailed comb. "Sir, you really shouldn't be back here. And it's a closed casket - no one is going to see it." "We're seeing it now. Brush it out and wipe all that crap off her face," Mulder told her. He pulled a picture of Scully out of his wallet. "See this woman? That's who she looks like. Not Tammy Faye Baker. She looks like Scully." Mulder suddenly had to remind himself that real men do cry, but he preferred not to do it in front of Bill. "Let's go get your brother and sister and let them finish getting your mother ready." Bill followed him out of the cold room and up the deeply carpeted steps, excusing himself to go to the bathroom before they left - probably to cry. Mulder was glad; it gave him a chance to sit on the bench behind the funeral home and sob for a bit. Bill finally emerged half an hour later with the same flushed face and bloodshot eyes that Mulder wasn't admitting to having. They got in Mulder's car without a word, staring straight ahead so they didn't have to speak. Mulder popped open the glove box to reveal a supply of paper napkins that obviously neither of them needed, since real men don't cry. They each took several. For Dana - in case she got upset. **** But oh for the touch of a vanish'd hand, And the sound of a voice that is still! Break, break, break **** Charles made it in for the funeral, but he had to fly out immediately afterward, so Mulder barely got to shake his hand before he was gone again. If these men were going to be his brothers-in-law, Mulder wanted to know them a little better, especially Charles. Actually, only Charles. Despite their male bonding experience, Bill quickly resorted to his usual attitude about Mulder. There had been words after the funeral, to put it very, very nicely. Scully had gotten dizzy as she and Mulder walked back to the road, so holding hands became a necessity. A few steps later, he caught her just before she hit the ground and carried her to the car, letting her go limp against him. Every cell in his body wanted to just keep walking - carrying her away from the sadness and into the sunset before he set her down. Mulder had seen a few Doris Day movies. The hero and heroine kiss, walk off into the sunset, and the credits roll. They just live happily ever after, but the movies never say exactly how. They never woke up in bed the next morning after lousy sex and too much wine and expressed their love by calling each other a frigid whore and a lying rapist. Until he figured out how to do happily-ever-after, Mulder decided he had better let Scully stand on her own two capable feet. From the passenger seat, Scully laid her head against his thigh as he waited and Mulder covered it with his hand, shielding her and waiting for the tears and the vertigo to pass. Scully's flat belly was eliciting the strong must-protect-what-is-mine instinct of the alpha-male, although alpha-male had no idea how to do anything constructive about it. Following them to the car, Bill laid into Mulder for making a scene and Mulder wisely ignored him and petted Scully's hair. The man's mother was dead - her body lying in the white casket on the hill above them. Be the bigger man, consider the source, do unto others. Mulder even apologized, for what, he wasn't sure. Bill ranted about appearances and Mulder expressed more empty remorse, trying to get Scully to drink some of the apple juice they'd brought with them and not really listening. The car was hot and Mulder hoped the juice hadn't gotten too warm. He'd turn the air on for her - help her cool off until Charles was ready to go. Mulder looked back over his shoulder, wondering how long that would be. Charles was still on his knees, resting his head on the casket, only the quiet man and his mother in the universe. A favorite son saying goodbye. Mulder envied the pain that Charles must have been feeling. All Mulder had felt when his mother died was guilt. A sharp razor cut would have been a welcome change to a throbbing exposed nerve. With a cut, there was first the shock and the dread as you waited for the blood. After came the exquisite pain and then the slow healing. There was even a scar that proved survival and solicited childhood memories. With a nerve, there was no healing an ache he couldn't even locate. It just radiated through him and he could only numb it and learn to live with it. Charles could take as much time as he needed. When Mulder went around to the driver's seat to start the car, Bill started in on Scully about making a fool of herself in front of all their mother's friends. That was a mistake. Alpha-males might not be not be subtle, but they growled loudly. In the next few minutes, the words "sick," "dead because of a fool's quest," "some alien virus," "pregnant," "father," "I am," "son-of-a-bitch," "take advantage," "hurt her," "like some whore," "ignorant, pompous ass," and "fucking bastard" were exchanged two feet away from the topic of discussion and her juice. Charles, who seemed to have the more level head of the brothers, left his mother's grave to intervene between the two men before anything except pride could be damaged. Bill's wife what's-her-name whined him into their rental car, still shouting insults, while Charles kept Mulder at bay. As soon as the driver's door closed, Mulder clammed up and just fumed, angry at himself for letting the other man get to him. It was his partner, his friend, his child, and none of Bill's business. Except that it was his sister. Mulder the alpha-male needed to settle his ass down. "Dana - is it true? Mom said you couldn't have any kids," Charles asked in a low voice from the back seat as Mulder drove, keeping his eyes on the road and his big mouth shut. "It's true," she answered. Charles leaned back, not saying anything else. Even in his severe black suit, probably reserved exclusively for funerals, he was a sailor to the core. Charles reminded Mulder of the stories Scully told of her father; a man of few words, and wisdom that seemed simple in its complexity. Glancing in the rear view mirror, Mulder saw the bloodshot blue eyes watching him. Measuring him. "Anything she wants, Charles. Anything that will make her happy," Mulder answered the eyes. A small hand, sticky with apple juice, came across the console and took Mulder's in the quiet car as he drove Charles to the airport. **** So careful of the type she seems, So careless of a single life. In Memoriam **** It was really childish to gloat, so he tried not to. It wasn't like It was his amazing manly prowess that got her pregnant. It was mostly lots of wine dulling his usual insecurities and being stupid, but he wasn't looking a gift horse in the mouth. Anything that tied him to Scully for the rest of his life was a blessing. Skinner let him stay with her as long as possible, but another Little boy was missing in Hawaii - Mulder needed to fly out as soon as possible before CNN had a field day. Whatever medications the ER doctor had given Scully, she wasn't throwing up all the time and she was planning on going back to the office Monday morning. Mulder wanted to get married over the weekend, finish up the profile in Honolulu, and then come back to enjoying his new wife and child. That probably wasn't going to happen. Scully hadn't said another word about being pregnant, and she'd had him sleep on her couch instead of in the bed with her, even once all her family left. That was a bad sign. It was time to talk. He sat her down at the dining room table once they were back at her apartment and said those exact words. And waited. And waited. "What do you want me to say, Mulder? I didn't think I could get pregnant, but obviously, I can." She sounded like she resented it. How could she resent their child? Maybe it wasn't their child. Maybe congratulations should go to Dr. Daniel. No, that wasn't true. Mulder knew who the baby's father was. Where the obligation lay, as old-fashioned as that sounded. "What do you want from me, Scully?" "I want you to leave and let me grieve my mother. A baby doesn't change anything between us." "Of course it does. It changes everything. We had one fight, three months ago, and you've been sulking ever since. I think we have a reason to move on - it's not just about us hurting each other anymore." "It -could- be just about us." If Mulder were ever going to hit a woman, it would have been at that moment. His fingers clinched and then opened again under the table, out of Scully's sight. "Don't bluff, Scully - you're bad at it. You would never have let me find out if you weren't going to have the baby. You want this child as much as I do." Caught, Scully dropped her eyes and stared at the shiny wood of the table. Mulder stroked her flushed cheek. "I know you're hurting - this has to be one of the worst weeks of your life - and I don't want to ask for more than you can give right now. I'll leave, but I want to know I'm not going to come back and find you in another man's bed." There, he said it. Screw the being an adult, forgive and forget, crap. Mulder wasn't good at sharing. Even with Skinner. "It was a just weak moment, Mulder." "I know that. We all have them." It made him feel better to hear her say it, though. "How many have you had while you've been gone?" Emotions had been running high the last few days, and that did it for Mulder. There was an audible snap inside his brain, had anyone been in there listening. "I'm sick of this game, Scully, and I'm not playing. You call me when you grow up." She was right - not a damn thing had changed. Mulder stood to leave, his chair crashing to the floor behind him. He'd seen her through the worst night right after she got home from the hospital - she was functional again. Commitment over. The courts would grant him visitation rights and he'd just write her a check every month for the next eighteen years. No, he didn't want that. Neither did she, since Scully was standing between him and the door. "I'm sorry, Mulder. Don't go." "Give me one good reason not to." "I love you." His anger left him with his next breath. He knew she loved him, but she'd never said those words before. If it was a ploy, it worked, because he wrapped his arms around her and was prepared to forgive her for anything, including sleeping with the entire cardiac care unit. "I love you too, Scully. I just don't know how to fix this. I feel so helpless." Scully leaned heavily against him, trusting him to keep her safe. She was his best friend, his partner, and she was pregnant with their child. It was almost too much for him to bear. "I want to make love to you, Scully. Do you want that?" She kissed him and he pulled back. "No - tell me 'yes.' Say it." "Why, Mulder?" "Because it's you. You're wonderful. Tell me 'yes." "Yes." Such a soft little voice. "I love you." Scully didn't respond, but she followed him into her bedroom. Knowing Scully was somewhat frightened added a whole new element to sex; one that Mulder wasn't entirely proud of enjoying. His Scully wasn't afraid of anything except maybe snakes, and certainly not of him. He'd been with a few women who were inexperienced or had been treated badly, so he had some idea of what to do, but it still made him feel very masculine. For the first time in his life, he understood the appeal of virgins. Mulder filed that thought away to feel guilty about later. Slowly - very, very slowly. No sudden moves, no force, no roughness. He talked to her, telling her what he was doing and how it felt. Wonderful was how it felt. Having Scully finally license him with her body after all these years made him feel like he must be glowing. He guided her hands, encouraging her, careful not to let his whispers to her sound like a porn soundtrack. Sex, for Scully, needed to be pretty right now. Mulder felt the slight tremors and looked up into shining eyes. She was happy. She was content. How his mouth and fingers could cause that was beyond him. He wanted to penetrate while she was relaxed, so he moved up on her body and hesitated. "Can I hurt the baby, Scully?" "No, Mulder. Only me." "Never hurt you, Scully." And, as far as he could tell, he didn't. That was the best he knew how to do - as best as he could make love to her. For her. She still told him to leave the next morning. Maybe it was that he'd insisted on wearing a condom. **** Hold thou the good; define it well; For fear divine Philosophy Should push beyond her mark, and be Procuress to the Lords of Hell. In Memoriam **** He stopped to meet with Skinner before his flight as was requested and was surprised when his AD offered him a ride to the airport. On the way out of the parking garage, they passed Scully coming in, but she didn't notice the two men in the nondescript Bureau car. They stopped to watch her park, square her shoulders, and walk into the building alone. "How's she doing, Agent Mulder? And I already know she's pregnant, so you don't need to lie." Was the status of Scully's uterus posted on the Internet somewhere? Because everyone else seemed to be better informed than Mulder. "Do you know who the father of her baby is, sir?" "She didn't say, but I can make a pretty good guess, given that her partner suddenly requested out of town assignments about three months ago. I know she's pregnant when she shouldn't be, that she's lost weight, that you two had some sort of fight, and that the man she left the hospital with after her mother died probably did not have her best interests at heart, Agent Mulder. And I know I'm taking you to the airport so you can leave again." "Then you've already pretty much got the whole story, sir." Mulder liked Skinner, but then again, he also knew Skinner liked Scully. Discussing her with him just seemed wrong. "If you keep walking away from her, someone else is going to keep being there when you're not." Mulder first interpreted that as a threat - when the cat is away the mice do play - and he was speechless. Was Skinner saying what he thought he was saying? "That came out badly - I didn't mean me. I meant anyone. She needs someone right now and she'll find someone. It can't be you if you're not there. I learned that lesson the hard way. Cost me my marriage." Mulder relaxed a little. "I'm not running out on her, sir. She Keeps telling me to leave. I'd never abandon her." He took a breath and added quietly, "or our child." "Looks like we're still headed to the airport to me, Agent Mulder." "Are you telling me I don't have to go, sir?" "No, Agent Mulder, I'm just telling you that you should invest in a round-trip ticket before it's too late." They made the rest of the drive in silence. **** Whose faith has center everywhere, Nor cares to fix itself to form. In Memoriam **** It was three o'clock Hawaii time, which meant it was nine at night Eastern time. Mulder found a free phone and dug out his calling card. He was lucky - the Captain had let him use the phone at a desk in the station instead of one outside in the rain. The local man wasn't impressed with his profiling skills, but given his lack of progress, Mulder couldn't blame him, so the free phone was truly a nice gesture. The roaming charges on his cell phone were outrageous, so he's called from payphones in lobbies, outside the men's room at gas stations, and once from the side of the road where he had to wait while every car with a bad muffler passed so he could hear. It didn't matter where he was or what he was doing - if it was three in the afternoon, thee investigation stopped. It was time to call Scully. Mulder had told her he would call when he left her apartment, feeling like a one-night-stand slinking away by making empty promises. In three weeks, he'd never missed a night. Maybe this time, Scully might even answer. Nope. Mulder left the usual message, telling her he loved her and he missed her. He hoped she was feeling better and he was still at the number he'd left if she wanted to talk to him. Then he hung up, just like always. He left out that his profile was at a dead end and, although he had a nice tan, he was no closer to going home than he was when he got here. There was just nothing concrete to go on; no pattern, just a bunch of dead or missing little boys. The evening news had all sorts of theories about the killer - maybe the FBI should start paying the anchors to profile, because some of their ideas sounded better than his. They stuck a microphone in Mulder's face every evening and he always said the same thing: the investigation continued, but there were no firm suspects as of yet. That wasn't enough for the parents of the missing boys. It wouldn't be enough if it was his child that was missing. "Sounds like you got trouble at home, mister." A slight woman with short, dark red hair was sitting patiently behind the desk beside him. "Trouble doesn't even begin to describe it." Mulder didn't like eavesdroppers, especially when it came to his private life. "I didn't mean to overhear. The Captain sent me down here - said you wanted to talk to me. I'm Jenn from Records on the third floor." Mulder was drawing a blank. "They think my son was one of the first victims of your serial killer." Ding! The mother of Jeffery Anderson - the eight year-old who had vanished two summers ago. The local P.D. thought every single child that had disappeared for the last decade was a victim of the same killer; a common syndrome, but the Anderson kid sounded like he actually might fit a profile. Although Mulder didn't really have a profile. Whatever. The Captain had said the mother worked as support staff for the Department. Mulder did want to interview her, just not right this second. Oh, what the hell. It's not like Scully was going to call him back. "Good to meet you, Ms. Anderson. Jenn. I'm Special Agent Mulder with the FBI. I'm here investigating the disappearance of those boys. Would it be possible to talk to you about what happened to your son?" "That's why I'm here." "Would you like to go someplace more private so we can talk?" "Last time some man said that to me, I ended up like this," she said, pulling herself to her feet and revealing a very pregnant belly. Small, feisty woman, red hair, big belly, lonely Mulder in Paradise. It must be Tuesday - Tuesdays always sucked. The worst. Sucked the worst. Mulder sighed. "Come on, Jenn Anderson - I'll buy you something jam-packed with nutrition on Uncle Sam's dime if you'll give me an excuse to get out of this building for an hour." "That's a very novel approach, Agent Mulder. Sure you're not embarrassed to be seen in public with a woman roughly the size of a whale?" Mulder thought that she looked exactly like Scully would in a few more months. Expectant. "Not in the slightest, Ms. Anderson." He held the umbrella over both of them while she made her way slowly across the street to the obligatory grease-trap located near every police station. Choosing one of the tables because she couldn't fit into a booth, Mulder was astonished at the amount of food this tiny thing ordered. "It only takes a few hundred extra calories a day, but I saved all mine up until the end. I've got four more weeks to eat a couple hundred thousand calories," she explained. He was interested to see where she was going to put all that food, because he didn't think it channeled directly to the baby. "Okay, Ms. Anderson - I've already read the statement you gave the police, which was very helpful. What I actually want you to do is look at pictures of some of the other boys we think were victims of the same perpetrator. You're looking for any physical similarity- coloring, height, build, birthmarks - anything that they would have had in common with your son." Mulder opened his briefcase to get the photos and heard her laugh. "Your books, Agent Mulder. 'What to Expect When You're Expecting' and 'Sexual Dysfunction: A guide for assessment and treatment.' One generally comes before the other, hopefully. If you get them out of order, it's not nearly as much fun." Mulder slammed the briefcase shut, gritting his molars. "No. No, it's not, Ms. Anderson. Could you please just look at the pictures?" She studied them carefully while she devoured her plate of fruit and a double order of streamed veggies. The rest of the food she arranged carefully in the to-go box; 'for later,' she'd explained, adding all the crackers, rolls, and butters on the table to the box. Mulder got the sense that this was a big treat for her, whether she let on or not. The file said she was a single mother raising a second son and obviously expecting another on a Record Clerk's salary - that probably didn't afford too many opportunities for dining out, even at places like this. He softened a bit and smoothed his ruffled feathers. It helped that her shoulders were as narrow as Scully's, and there were a sprinkle of familiar freckles across her nose. Irish to the bone. "Are there any better pictures than these? It's hard to see the details," she asked. "I have the autopsy photos of three of the boys, if you can stand to look at them." Mulder opened his briefcase again, this time turning it away from her so she wouldn't see he also had a "Games Babies Play" book he'd been memorizing. He hesitated before he handed them to her. "Agent Mulder, if you can tell me what happened to my son, I can look at anything you've got." God, that sounded like Scully. Again she studied them carefully, even asking for and reading the autopsy reports of the markings on the bodies and the parents' descriptions of their children. Mulder's sandwich was long gone when she finally answered: "Port wine stains. One of the other boys had a port wine stain on his wrist. That's all I can find. I'm sorry." Then she laid her head down on the table and was quiet for several minutes. "That's a birthmark, right?" Mulder asked when she finally raised her eyes. She nodded, most of her posturing gone. "Where was your son's? I'm wondering if it's just the marks, or if there's a specific pattern. I'm looking for a pattern." She got to her feet with great effort and opened her purse, pulling out a battered wallet. Mulder tried to object, telling her the meal was a courtesy for her cooperation, but she dropped a twenty on the table anyway and told him she'd show him her son's birthmark if he'd just shut up. Mulder followed her out into the rain, hurrying to catch up with the umbrella. A boy with auburn curls was waiting for them on the front bench of the station, the school bus barely pulling away. Mulder stared for a moment - the boy was identical to the one in the photo, just a few years older. A twin. "Show this man your belly, James." James obligingly pulled up his thin t-shirt to reveal a small, dark purple mark. "Jeff had the exact same mark." Like the other parents, she already referred to her son in the past tense. "And the other boys we've found had birthmarks on their hands or feet or forehead or places where the skin had been removed. I think we're only finding a few of the bodies - that's why the pattern isn't evident, but he's escalating. He started out taking boys with marks, but now he's creating his own wounds. He's recreating Christ's wounds, Ms. Anderson. That's it - that's the link between all the boys. His father or abuser had the red hair. It's someone with a religious background that had an opportunity to see all the boys semi-undressed." Mulder was lost in profiler land, thinking the faster he got the description written, the faster he could go home, although home wasn't much more pleasant. Scully didn't want him and all his fish were dead. "Sounds like you've got it, Agent Mulder. I'm glad I could help. You call me if you find my son's body." Then she picked up her remaining son's book bag, took his hand, although he was much too old to be holding her hand, and started to walk off in the rain. Mulder stood watching them under the shelter of his umbrella as she told the skinny boy she'd brought him a piece of cake and some fish and macaroni and cheese for dinner as she waddled away. That did it for Mulder's soft heart. "Let me drive you home," he yelled after her. "We don't accept rides from strangers," the over-protective boy yelled back through the gale, stepping in front of his mother. "I'm not a stranger - I'm an FBI agent. I'll even let your mother hold my gun while I drive." "Can I see your badge, mister?" Mulder held it up for the boy to examine. James and his mother exchanged glances, then returned to the safety of the awning while Mulder went to find his rental car. They drove the few miles slowly through the rain and heavy traffic, Jenn holding his gun on what remained of her lap, and the boy having a field day going through Mulder's stuff in the back seat. "What's this?" James asked, holding Mulder's handcuff key over the front seat. "The key to my cuffs. Do you have your seatbelt on?" "What's this?" "Put your seatbelt on. That's my cell phone. Don't mess with it." but he left that unsaid. "Who's this?" He'd found Mulder's wallet in his coat pocket. He must have stuck it there after he used his calling card. "That's my partner. Put it back. Seatbelt." He said he carried the photo in case Scully disappeared again - so he had a ready photo for identification. Good excuse as any. "Look, Mom, she looks like you." "She sure does. Put that back, James. Pull over here, Agent Mulder. And relock the doors right after we get out. No one around here cares that you work for the FBI if they decide they want your fancy car." Mulder looked hesitantly at the rows of poorly-kept government apartment buildings that seemed to stretch forever, feeling like it was a very bad idea to leave this woman here alone. A big white cat was sitting against the screen of a window, braving the rain and expectantly watching for his family to come home, but that was the only friendly thing in this place. James was cleaning up the mess in the backseat before he got out and saw Mulder looking at the clandestine animal. "You won't tell nobody about Buttons, will you, mister? We ain't supposed to have him." Mulder looked back into expectant hazel eyes, asking him to keep a little boy's secret. Maybe Scully was going to have a baby with eyes like that. "No, I won't tell anyone." He held the boy's gaze for as long as possible, thinking about teaching a little boy to play catch and spit for distance as opposed to accuracy. Wonder if there was anyone available to teach James Anderson those things? "I don't want people feeling sorry for us, Agent Mulder. I've got my son and a little girl on the way. I've got a steady job and I've been saving for a car. That's more than a lot of people have. Come on, James." She opened the door against the wind. "And Agent Mulder - it's good for a child to know his Daddy. We pregnant women get a little crazy sometimes. I wish now I'd made some different choices, but it's too late. Thank you for the ride. You lock this door, now, just as soon as I close it." Then the heavy door slammed and Mulder watched her moving clumsily up the sidewalk, carrying her doggy bag, the heavy backpack, and holding her son's hand. The cat jumped down from his perch when he saw his humans and was waiting at the door for the boy to pick him up. Once they got safely inside, Mulder pulled away from the curb, wondering if Jennifer Anderson would be interested in a position as an FBI profiler, because there was about to be a vacancy. ****