Paracelsus V
  
  *~*~*~*
  
  Dear Melly, 
  
  It is late.  The fire burns low, crumbling into its last glowing orange
  and crimson embers.  Dana and the baby are curled together in the center
  of our big bed, and it comforts me to listen to their soft breathing. 
  Everyone is asleep; sometimes I think the whole world is asleep, and I
  am the only one awake and watchful.  I look into the fire and wonder,
  "Does no one else see what I see?"
  
  Dana does, I think, to some degree.  She told me she needs to see life
  as it is, not as what it might be in some perfect world -- in the
  perfect world I create inside my mind.  She has never looked away, and I
  am only now turning back to look again, to take stock, to calculate the
  vast amount of water that has passed underneath the bridge.
  
  Do you realize I am thirty-one years old?  I would say I am much older,
  but the calendar is very firm about it.  Only thirty-one.  
  
  I wanted to keep you safe, Melly: to wrap my arms around you and protect
  you from the world, but I could not.  I don't know if I ever did.  How
  could I keep away darkness that stalks the soul from the inside?  I did
  try, and sometimes it makes me angry that others stood by and watched me
  try, and fail, and said nothing.  We smile and we go about our pretty,
  polite routines, and inside we die.
  
  Each choice I made seemed like the proper one at the time I made it. 
  Duty, honor, country: those are the foundation on which my world is
  built.  If I was a good boy and ate my vegetables, I got pie.  I was a
  good boy, Melly.  And a good husband, and a good father, and son, and
  student, and businessman, and soldier, and all the things a man is
  expected to be, most before I was finished being a boy.  There is a star
  beside my name in the Book of Dutiful, and yet I watched everyone I
  cared for being taken from me, one by one.
  
  And it made me angry.  I am only now beginning to realize how angry.
  
  Now, something selfish and insolent inside me snarls, "It is my turn. 
  Life has taken from me until I felt the wind blowing through me as if I
  was a sieve, so to Hell with the rules.  I want this woman, Dana,
  because I want her: by my side, in my bed, across from me at the dinner
  table.  I want this child, Emily, because I love her, because I held her
  when she was born and watched her take her first breath and pretended
  she was mine."
  
  My father was fond of Shakespeare, so I'll say it this way: "What wound
  did ever heal but by degrees?"
  
  I am healing, and I do it by degrees.  Each day, I roll my shoulders,
  shake my arms, and marvel at this new freedom to move as I please.  It
  is heady.  And it is frightening.  I have spent years tiptoeing across
  the thin ice of normal, and now Dana and her daughter draw me farther
  and farther out onto the frozen pond.
  
  If I want to be truthful, I married Dana, in part, because she could not
  hurt me.  I did not love her; I do not love her -- not the way I love
  you or Sarah.  Over the years, I had built a wall around me brick by
  brick, and I allowed no one inside.  Yet Dana chips away at my wall, and
  I do not even notice her doing it. She sticks her pretty red head
  through the opening she has made and asks in her lilting accent, "Are
  you ready to come out, Mr. Mulder?" And when I growl no, she answers,
  "All right; I will be outside waiting when you are ready."
  
  Everything I have learned since I was sixteen tells me to hang back, to
  stay at the edge of the pond where it is safe.  Safer.  To tell her to
  come back to me instead of following her across the ice.
  
  But I step forward, exposing myself, and I wait for the ice to crack.  
   
  Mulder
  
  *~*~*~*
  
  The clouds slid silently across the moon, dense and black and promising
  a storm before morning, but the air was still.  Not tranquil, but
  hesitant.  Cautious.  It was too warm for an overcoat and too cool for
  shirt sleeves: that indeterminate no-temperature for which it was
  impossible to prepare.  What should have been late autumn in DC felt
  like spring, and people squinted at the night sky, sucked at their teeth
  thoughtfully, and waited.
  
  The Italianate mansion sat back from the street, partially concealed by
  manicured hedges and a collection of trees clinging to the last of their
  scarlet leaves.  It was a new house build with old money, an exercise in
  clean lines and elegant simplicity.  Mulder's taste tended toward
  Spartan, but Melly had a brief love affair with wrought iron, so metal
  balconies decorated each of the five large arched windows, and a wrought
  iron fence outlined the large corner lot.  Overall, the brick walls had
  a solid, placid look, like a lion settling down in the grass to watch
  the gazelle. 
  
  In the yellow glow of the street lamp, Mulder helped Dana, who was
  holding the baby, out of the hired carriage.  As she waited on the
  sidewalk, turning slowly to take in her surroundings, he paid the driver
  and collected their bags.  The driver tipped his hat and clucked to the
  mare, and the horse's hooves clopped hollowly away into the darkness,
  leaving them standing in front of Mulder's house.  The twin gas lamps on
  the front porch twinkled, welcoming them home.
  
  "This way," he said for lack of something more profound.  He unlatched
  the iron front gate, letting in swing wide open; they were halfway up
  the walk when it banged shut behind them, making him jump and shattering
  the genteel silence.
   
  He paused in front of the porch steps, a feeling of dread covering him
  like a woolen cape.
  
  Sometimes, traveling was much easier than actually arriving. Going had
  an optimistic, purposeful feel to it, whereas being required facing
  reality.
  
  When he opened the door, the house would be empty.  Sam would not come
  running to greet him, clutching sheet music and a horsehair bow.  He
  would not find Melly at her sewing, nor would he discover his father had
  dropped in to visit and decided to stay for dinner.  That chapter of his
  life had ended, and when he opened the front door, the page would turn
  and a new chapter would begin.
  
  Dana waited, holding the sleeping baby against her shoulder and watching
  him.
  
  His old key still fit the lock. "This must be the place," he said softly
  to Dana, his hand shaking slightly as he turned the brass knob.
  
  On the other side of the door, a dog's claws fidgeted impatiently
  against the wood floor, but Grace was too old to bother barking until he
  saw who it was.
  
  "Hello, Grace," Mulder told the basset hound, who sniffed them, then
  turned away, disappointed, and waddled back toward his bed behind the
  kitchen stove. "Samuel's dog," he explained to Dana, who nodded.
  
  The dog paused, looking back as he heard the name, then disappeared to
  the back of the house.  
  
  "Grace is a boy," Dana observed.
  
  "Yes."
  
  He lacked the energy to explain the story behind that: how seventy-five
  pounds of fat and wrinkles on three inches of legs came to be called
  Grace.
  
  As Mulder lit an oil lamp, the grandfather clock chimed eleven-thirty,
  then went back to its polite ticking, acting as if nothing had happened. 
  A landscape Melly had painted hung over the credenza.  The canister on
  the floor beside it held two umbrellas, a walking stick - his father's -
  and a baseball bat - his son's.  The servants wouldn't return until
  morning, so except for Mulder, Dana, and Emily, the only things alive in
  the house were memories.
  
  "Upstairs," he told Dana, who shifted the baby to one arm and gathered
  her skirt up enough to clear the steps.  He raised the lamp, following
  her like she knew the way.
  
  When the architect had shown them the plans a decade ago, the first
  thing Mulder noticed had been the grand front staircase, which spiraled
  gracefully up to the landing, seeming to defy gravity.  He'd had to stop
  sliding down the banister when Samuel was six, when Sam had tried to
  imitate him, fallen off, and almost broken his wrist.
  
  For Melly, the highlight of the house had been the ballroom on the
  second floor. "We could have a party," she'd said excitedly, although
  they never had.  The only use the ballroom ever got was on rainy days,
  when Samuel and Mulder had played ball in there or pretended they were
  ice-skating in their sock feet.  The door was ajar now, and the big room
  was dark and empty.
  
  The door to Samuel's bedroom was closed, and Mulder put his hand on the
  knob, not sure if he wanted to open it or not.    
  
  "Are you all right, Mr. Mulder?" Dana asked, startling him.  
  
  The lamp cast a soft glow over her face, making her blue eyes look
  bottomless, as though she could see directly into his soul.  
  
  "I'm fine," he lied, letting go of the knob.
  
  The housekeeper had gotten his telegram.  The nursery had been
  repainted, and a new cradle and rocking chair were waiting.  There were
  drawers of clean diapers and blankets and baby clothes: more than one
  infant could ever manage to wear. 
  
  He left Dana in the nursery to get the baby settled in, and walked to
  the master bedroom at end of the hall, swallowing against the dry lump
  in his throat.  The big room held the same ornately carved bed, the same
  furniture, but everything else had been conscientiously removed. Melly's
  clothes were gone from the wardrobe, and her perfume bottles were
  missing from the dressing table.  The room smelled like lemon oil and
  clean linens instead of like her.  No hairbrushes, no earbobs, no
  fashion magazines, no trace any woman had ever been there.
  
  The only evidence of Melissa was the intricate quilt spread over the
  high mattress: his housekeeper's unspoken comment on his new marriage. 
  Melly had just finished the quilt when she died, and someone, probably
  Mulder's mother, had the idea to drape it over her coffin like a flag
  draped over a soldier's casket.  Before they'd lowered the coffin into
  the ground, the minister had taken the quilt off and handed it to
  Mulder, who'd carried it home, certain he was about to wake up from his
  nightmare.
  
  Angry, he jerked it off the bed, folding and putting it away in a chest. 
  He'd deal with Poppy in the morning. 
  
  Fabric rustled, and there were soft footsteps in the hall.  As the
  bedroom door opened, he remembered to expect Dana, not Melly. 
  
  "Is she asleep?" Mulder asked in a perfunctory non-tone. "Is the nursery
  all right?"
  
  "It is fine.  It is wonderful.  This house is very- It is very grand."
  
  "Good," he said absently, barely hearing her.
  
  He stared at her, then sat on the sofa in the corner of the bedroom,
  beside the cold fireplace.  A book he'd been reading before bed two
  Christmases ago was on the table, his place still marked.  Normally,
  Melly's sewing basket would have been close by.  He would read to her as
  she sewed, but that space was empty.  It was as though time had stopped
  in this house and erased one woman's life before it restarted.
  
  "Are you all right, Mr. Mulder?" Dana asked again, standing in the
  center of the bedroom and waiting, like a bottle of wine presented for
  his inspection.  
  
  "You have already asked me and I have already answered," he answered
  politely. "I am fine.  How are you?"  
  
  "There are ghosts here."
  
  He couldn't tell if she was speaking literally or figuratively, so he
  didn't respond.   
  
  "Is there anything I can do, Mr. Mulder?"
  
  "No.  You must be tired," he said, changing the subject. "It is late –
  long past time for bed."
  
  "Yes," she agreed.
  
  She stepped a little closer, still a good two yards from where he sat. 
  Seeming uncertain what to do, she began to unbutton the front of her
  dress.
  
  "Dana…" he said softly, with no idea how he planned to finish his
  sentence. 
  
  She stopped, her fingers still holding the black silk fabric.
  
  "I-" he started, then just trailed off again, not finishing whatever
  he'd intended to say.
  
  He focused his eyes on the empty bed behind her.  He remembered the last
  time he'd shared it with Melly. It had been Christmas night and he'd
  been on leave from the cavalry, his chest knitting back together over
  the bayonet gash.  Samuel had been asleep, Melly had invited shyly, and,
  very carefully and gently, they'd conceived a child.  After that –
  months later, after he'd found her in the bathtub - he carried Melissa
  to the bed and sat beside her, watching helplessly as her life bled
  away.
  
  It was a very long time before he noticed Dana again, who was still
  standing before him with her bodice partially unbuttoned.
  
  There were a number of nice hotels in Washington.  He would take Dana
  and Emily to one tonight and live there until he could have another
  house built and start over.  This dead room and this haunted house - he
  would padlock the front door shut and never reenter unless Samuel came
  home.
  
  "Is this, is this your bedroom, Mr. Mulder?" she asked uncertainly,
  breaking the silence. "Did you mean that I should leave?  Do you and
  your wife sleep separately?"
  
  "No," he whispered hoarsely. "Please do not leave." "Me," he added
  silently.
  
  "All right."
  
  "You are my wife, Dana," he reminded both of them. "And, no, you and I
  do not sleep separately."
  
  She nodded very slightly. "Come to me, then," she invited softly.
  
  He stood, then was in front of her in three steps, his mouth on hers,
  his hands cupping her face.  He needed something warm and real to put
  his arms around to keep away the darkness.  She was warm and real and if
  he closed his eyes, he could almost convince himself she loved him: not
  because he thought she really did, but because he desperately needed her
  to.
  
  He kissed her like he had that day beside the road, not hesitating or
  apologizing for wanting her.  And like she had that day, she responded,
  putting her arms around his neck and parting her lips and letting the
  rest of the world fall away.  
  
  Now experienced at undressing a woman, Mulder unfastened the front of
  her dress with one hand, stripping it off.  The petticoats and camisole
  came off next, leaving her corset over her camisole and pantalets,
  stockings and shoes.
  
  "Can you breathe in your corset, so long as I don't crush you?" he
  asked, and she nodded that she could.
  
  Taking off the rest of her clothes seemed like too much time and
  trouble, so he picked her up, her legs around his hips, and set her on
  the edge of the bed.
  
  He talked to her in murmurs and touches rather than words, and heard her
  assuring him it was all right.  She was all right; he was all right.  He
  nodded, opening his eyes to watch her as he penetrated deep inside her. 
  Her fingers tightened on his shoulders, and she pressed her forehead
  against his chest, moaning softly.  He felt welcome inside her.  She'd
  weighed the consequences and chosen to marry him, despite what just
  about anyone on the planet, including Mulder, would have advised her to
  do.  She looked up, watching him in return, and he rocked his hips
  against hers, never breaking eye contact.
  
  When it was over, he waited while Dana finished undressing, held her
  until she seemed to fall asleep, and then tucked the blankets around
  her.  He checked on the baby before removing his boots and stretching
  out on the sofa in the master bedroom, in the corner opposite the bed
  where Dana slept.  The clock downstairs struck midnight, and outside, it
  began to rain.
  
  After a few minutes, Dana got up, nude, took his hand, and led him back
  to bed.
  
  *~*~*~* 
  
  The mournful whistle sounded, and two-dozen heads turned in unison.
  
  "That's the train," Mulder had informed Byers excitedly, in case John
  Byers hadn't recognized a train when he saw one.  Railroads had been
  around for almost two decades; they weren't a novelty anymore. "The
  train: it's coming."
  
  Byers had looked less than impressed.
  
  Most of the young men on the platform were university students going
  home for the break, but Mulder was staying at Harvard, hoping to get
  ahead on his studies.  The sooner he finished, the sooner he could go
  home.  Instead, his parents were coming for a visit, and, more
  importantly, his parents were bringing Samuel, who he hadn't seen since
  the beginning of the term. 
  
  The engine clacked past, then the coal car, then a series of red
  passenger cars smudged black with soot.  Mulder loped through the steam,
  hurrying to catch up and craning to see a familiar face in any of the
  windows.  
  
  Before the train came to a full stop, his father leaned out from the
  steps of the first car, holding the railing with one hand and raising
  his walking stick with the other. "Fox!" he called, jumping down.
  
  "Father!"
  
  Mulder threw his arms around him, cherishing the scent of cherry pipe
  tobacco and brandy and home.  Even at eighteen years old, even married
  with a family of his own, a son was allowed to miss his father.
  
  "How was your trip?"
  
  "Horrible.  Your mother may never be the same.  The engine hit four
  cows; you're going to hear about it."
  
  The train groaned to a stop, sighing with relief, and passengers spilled
  out of every opening.  
  
  "Oh, Fox, it was just horrible," his mother informed him as he lifted
  her down from the steps, setting her safely on the platform. "The train
  hit four cows." She paused for breath, kissing him on each cheek. "It
  was horrible.  What an awful, belching, unnatural monstrosity.  I don't
  think I'll ever be the same."
  
  "I don't think my hand will ever be the same after your mother's death
  grip.  She was certain we were going to derail at every curve."
  
  "I couldn't help it, Fox.  Your father said trains reach twenty miles an
  hour.  I was sure every second was my last.  It was just horrible.  I
  don't know how I'll survive the trip back."  
  
  Mulder smiled, enjoying their familiar banter.  If his mother had really
  wanted to take the stagecoach instead of the train back, all she had to
  do was ask; she had a good time pretending to be afraid and his father
  had a good time comforting her.  Even in a crowd of people, his parents
  seemed connected, as though they shared some secret they weren't telling
  the rest of the world.  His father offered his arm and his mother took
  it, resting her gloved hand lightly on the fine wool fabric of his
  overcoat.
  
  "Twenty miles an hour," Mulder echoed dutifully, knowing trains could go
  much faster and his father just hadn't told her. "How terrifying." 
  
  Senator Mulder winked at his son, then reached over to rumple his hair
  as though he was still seven.  Mulder grinned and submitted, stooping
  down a little.  He was several inches taller than his father.  
  
  "Mother, you look beautiful.  Is this a new dress?"
  
  She answered that it was, and his father said something about it costing
  millions of silk worms their lives, but Mulder didn't really hear either
  of them.
   
  A light-skinned Negro woman stepped out of the train car, carrying a
  carpetbag in her hand and a little boy on her hip.  Her hair was covered
  with a white kerchief, and the steam made her calico dress flutter,
  showing the outline of her legs.  Her father's Cherokee heritage showed
  in her face, just as it showed in Melly's, and gave her a proud, exotic
  air that caused a murmur among the well-bred students on the platform.
  
  If anyone looked closely, the child she carried bore a resemblance to
  her, but few people looked closely.  It was a regrettable, yet
  unforgivable error of birth: Melly and Sarah's mother had been Jack
  Kavanaugh's wife; hers had been his slave.
  
  "That's one pretty nig-" a young man near them started to comment before
  he realized he wasn't in South Carolina and amended, "Colored girl." 
  
  "That's my boy," Mulder shouted, reaching up to take Samuel from her.
  "My baby boy," he announced victoriously, holding the toddler high in
  the air, then lowering and hugging him tightly, afraid he might get
  away.  He closed his eyes, savoring the warmth of his son. "Oh, my Sam. 
  How's my Sammy?  Was he good on the train, Poppy?" 
  
  "He did just fine, sir," she answered, keeping her eyes down.  Another
  of the Mulders' servants took the carpetbag, and Sam's nurse disappeared
  back into the car. 
  
  "Da-dee, Da-dee, Da-dee," Samuel chanted, pounding his fist against
  Mulder's chest.     
  
  "Sammy, Sammy, Sammy," he answered, spinning him around so he squealed.
  "My Sammy boy!  You're so big, baby boy." 
  
  The crowd of men on the platform grinned and murmured indulgently, but
  fell silent as another woman exited the train car, her pink dress
  fluttering.  
  
  "Surprise, Fox," his mother murmured. "Happy birthday, sweetheart."
  
  Mulder looked up, curious, then truly surprised.  Behind him, he heard
  Byers whisper "My God," under his breath.  His roommate had seen
  pictures of Melissa, but he'd never seen her in the flesh.  No one at
  school had, and Byers had dubbed her Mulder's "phantom wife," much
  mentioned but never glimpsed, and said he'd begun to doubt her
  existence.     
  
  She hesitated on the metal steps, and, spotting Mulder, she smiled
  uncertainly.  He smiled back, relieved.  Maybe she was Melly again,
  instead of some tearful, distant stranger who'd somehow taken her place
  after the baby had come.  Her skirt swayed, showing her petticoats and
  the tops of her dainty boots as she took one step down, holding tightly
  to the railing.  
  
  Byers finally exhaled, and the crowd edged closer to the train, making
  Melly shrink back.
  
  "Mah-mee," Samuel announced, pointing to and naming her the way he'd
  point and announce "dog" or "cat." 
  
  "This wasn't my idea, Fox," his father insisted, raising his hands to
  declare his innocence. "The doctors think it's too much excitement for
  her and I agree, but she wanted to come for your birthday. She and your
  mother have been conspiring."
  
  "Oh, you think it's too much excitement to eat a peach, you old fuddy-
  duddy.  Melissa's been fine on the train, haven't you, dear?" his mother
  responded, and Melly nodded, still watching Mulder from underneath her
  eyelashes.  People tended to call Melly "dear" a lot, and it would never
  have dawned on her to object. "She misses Fox and it's not too much
  excitement at all.  Stand up straight, dear; don't slouch," she reminded
  her, and Melly obediently squared her shoulders. 
  
  "Watch her ‘round the baby," Poppy reminded him softly, and Mulder shook
  his head that he remembered as he smiled, shifted Samuel to his hip, and
  went to kiss his wife's cheek.    
   
  There was another murmur on the platform as they embraced chastely. 
  Most of his classmates knew Mulder was married, an oddity for their age
  and station, but he'd just become a much-envied young man.  At eighteen,
  he already had what they dreamed of: a healthy son, a beautiful adoring
  wife, wealthy, loving parents, and nothing but great prospects. As
  always, he was ahead of the game.  His future was as set as the stone
  walls of Harvard.
  
  Years later, when John Byers had a family of his own, Mulder had asked
  him if life ever seemed just slightly too tight, like a suit cut a
  quarter-inch too snug.  Although it looked fine and was perfectly
  wearable, it felt confining, never allowing him to completely relax. 
  Life was fine, as long as he didn't want to take a deep breath.
  
  When they were twenty-three, he'd asked, after a few glasses of wine, if
  Byers ever felt that way.  His wife Susanne had refilled their goblets,
  and they sat in the parlor, watching Byers' young daughters taking their
  first steps.
  
  Byers had said "no," shaking his head and not seeming to understand what
  Mulder had meant.  He'd never asked again.
  
  *~*~*~*
  
  At its conception in the year Caesar first noticed Cleopatra, it was a
  brilliant system, but by 1582 the faulty Julian calendar had accumulated
  ten extra days, so March 21st fell on March 31st.  To correct this, the
  Gregorian system was developed, and that October, Pope Gregory XIII
  moved everyone two hundred and forty hours backward and started over.
  
  Popes could do that.
  
  Those hours became the lost time, the violet-black, surreal no-time
  between the last bit of night and the first breath of morning.  Between
  lovers, between a down mattress and soft blankets, between strong arms
  and yielding flesh, the universe cast down its eyes demurely and looked
  away.  Time held its breath, denying anything had happened, although it
  often had. 
  
  "She's still asleep," he told her through chattering teeth, as he
  returned from checking on the baby and slid beneath the covers. "Someone
  should light a fire in here.  Maybe I'm used to Georgia, but it's
  freezing."
  
  Half awake, Dana moved toward him, thoughtfully bringing all the heat in
  the bed with her.  To get him to stop shivering, she put her arms around
  him, fitting her body against his.
  
  "Are you awake?" he asked, and was "um-hummed" lazily from the back of
  her throat.
  
  She purred as he kissed down her neck, across her collarbone, then
  gently to her breast.  He reached up, lacing his fingers through hers,
  while her other hand rested lightly on the back of his head.
  
  With Dana, he never felt he was pushing her to do something she'd rather
  avoid. She treated lovemaking as a normal part of life; she didn't seem
  to find it painful or any more embarrassing or distasteful than fixing
  him breakfast.  She wanted to please him; he only had to tell her what
  he wanted.
  
  It was effortless: making love to her. 
  
  There was a difference between being allowed and being accepted, and he
  felt accepted.  He wasn't a moron; he knew there were women who enjoyed
  being close: touching, kissing, caressing.  Sarah had, as far as their
  fumbling had gone.  Dana either did, or she was good enough at
  pretending to convince him, though it wasn't hard to fool a man who
  desperately wanted to be fooled.  Not much could make intimacy bad for a
  man, but a thousand little things can make it better, and feeling
  welcome was one of them.
  
  If he could just stay in bed with her in his arms, he might be able to
  face the coming day.
  
  "You're wonderful," he whispered to her. "I love you" was a betrayal and
  "Thank you" seemed pitiful, so he just repeated, "You are.  I've missed
  you." 
  
  "You have missed me?" she murmured sleepily, rolling her thumbs along
  the lower vertebrae of his spine and opening her legs.  
  
  He wasn't sure why he'd said that, and he wasn't inclined to stop and
  think about it, so he answered, "It's a long walk to the nursery and
  back."
  
  He pressed his erection against her and closed his eyes, savoring the
  prospect of slow lovemaking before he began what was sure to be a long
  day. 
  
  "It is a trip to the nursery that does this to you?" 
  
  Mulder abruptly stopped and pushed away from her. "No," he said icily.
  "It is not."
  
  She stared at him, her forehead crinkled and her chest and neck reddened
  from the stubble on his face.
  
  "I'm going to work," he suddenly decided, sitting up. "The housekeeper's
  name is Poppy.  She's here by six.  She'll see to anything you and Emily
  need and she'll be polite about it, or I'll have her head."
  
  "I do not understand.  Why are you angry?"
  
  "I'm not angry," he lied, his words clipped. He got as far as the edge
  of the bed before he exploded, "How dare you!  How dare you even think I
  would-" He searched for the right words. "Harm her."
  
  The bed shifted as Dana sat up.  She tried to touch him and he jerked
  away. "I was being funny.  Silly."
  
  "You think that is funny?"
  
  "I meant you were only gone a few minutes and you said you had missed
  me.  I thought it was funny you could miss me in two minutes.  Maybe I
  said it wrong.  What do you mean ‘harm her?' You care for Emily.  You
  ask me a hundred times a day if I think she is all right.  I see you
  with her.  I hear you call her ‘Emmy' and say you are ‘Daddy.' I think
  you pretend she is your daughter: the baby Melissa was going to have. 
  Why would you harm her?  I do not understand."
  
  He exhaled slowly, knowing he had overreacted. "No, of course I would
  never hurt her." 
  
  "Then what?  Please tell me." 
  
  For a heartbeat, he thought about it, and for the first time since
  before Samuel was born, he almost told someone the truth.
  
  Still sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to her, he answered,
  "Melly had a sister named ‘Sarah.' That was what our daughter would have
  been called.  I just call Emily ‘Emmy.' I will stop, if you like."
   
  She succeeded in putting one hand, then both, on his back, silently
  massaging the tense knots away.
  
  "Sarah died," he added after an uncomfortable pause. "Melly's sister
  Sarah.  She died when we were fifteen and Melly was fourteen.  Sarah was
  my friend."
  
  "I am sorry."
  
  It took several tries before he continued, "Sarah was my fiancée, Dana. 
  We grew up together, our fathers were in Congress together, and it was
  one of those ‘everyone expected it' situations.  Except that I loved her
  very much.  And she loved me."
  
  "How did she die?"
  
  He wet his lips. "They say, of cholera." 
  
  "How did she die, Mr. Mulder?"
  
  "She miscarried.  Hemorrhaged.  There was an infection…"
  
  "I am sorry," she repeated in the same soft voice, stroking his bare
  shoulders.
  
  He listened to the rain drumming steadily on the roof above them.
  
  "Did you know about the baby?" she asked cautiously.
  
  "No.  Not until it was too late.  She must have known, but she was
  afraid to tell me." He shifted, rearranging his hands on the crumpled
  sheet. "I knew about Samuel, though.  Before Melly and I married."
  
  "Oh." 
  
  "People say many things, Dana.  I'm sure they'll relish saying them to
  you.  You know me; believe what you want." 
  
  He hung his head, unwilling to look at her, and examined his bare feet
  dangling a few inches above the rug.  He was cold again.  As he sat,
  gooseflesh formed on his shoulders and arms, and the dark hairs rose
  protectively.
  
  "Being here, watching you last night and this morning, I think perhaps I
  do know you," she finally said. "Will you come back to bed?"
  
  "It's past five.  I'm usually up by five.  I won't go back to sleep."
  
  "I was not asking you to go back to sleep.  I asked you to come back to
  bed."
  
  "But I won't sleep," he insisted.
  
  "I am not asking you to sleep, Mr. Mulder."
  
  "Oh," he responded slowly, the tips of his ears warming as he finally
  took her meaning. "Oh."
  
  He slipped back beneath the warm covers and into another hour of no-
  time, forgetting himself and the world outside their bed.
  
  *~*~*~*
  
  He realized, after he'd written the note, that he'd never seen Dana read
  anything.  She enjoyed him reading aloud to her, but it wasn't outside
  the realm of possibility that, as a woman, she couldn't read well
  herself.  And it wasn't likely she had any acquaintance the poem, since
  it had only been published it in 1860 and wasn't widely known before the
  war.
  
  He initialed it, regardless.  If she didn't know the verse, she wouldn't
  know he was misquoting, and just being literate was no guarantee she
  could decipher his handwriting.
  
  "Passing stranger, you do not know how longingly I have looked upon you. 
  You must be she I was seeking.  You give me the pleasure of your eyes,
  face, flesh, and you take of my beard, breast, and hands in return.  I
  will see to it I do not lose you.  M."   
  
  He looked at the slip of paper, hesitating.  He'd never written a love
  letter, and bastardizing Walt Whitman probably wasn't the way to start. 
  Lust wasn't love, and he'd rather Dana read Mark Twain's stories if she
  wanted something to laugh at.  
  
  Mulder picked up the pencil again and wrote across the bottom of the
  page:
  
  "Sleep well.  I am going to the paper.  I will see you and Emmy at noon. 
  The housekeeper's name is Poppy.  She will see to anything you need. 
  Make yourself at home.  M."
  
  He tore off the top half, tucking the original note in his coat pocket
  and propped the bottom of the page against the lamp for Dana to find
  when she awoke.  He fenced Emily in beside her with heavy pillows so the
  baby couldn't roll off the bed, kissed them both, and blew out the lamp
  as he left.    
   
  *~*~*~*
  
  The streetcar running from The White House down Pennsylvania Avenue
  could have him at work in ten minutes, but Mulder walked, trying to
  recapture the rhythm and flow of the city he called home.
  
  Wagons of produce rolled past, bound for Central Market, wheels
  splashing over the cobblestones.  Shopkeepers' brooms whooshed over wet
  sidewalks, clearing the way for the first patrons to arrive.  In the
  cafes, gossip hummed over cups of coffee, raindrops slipped from the
  edge of his umbrella, and horse-drawn trolleys squealed past as
  Washington woke.
  
  If Samuel was his first child, The Evening Star had been his second,
  born only a few years later, to his own father's dismay.  Bill Mulder
  had tried to dissuade Mulder from buying the business, then to persuade
  him to adopt a more proper, hands-off approach to the newspaper trade. 
  Gentlemen owned businesses; they didn't run them.  To that end, Mulder
  had invested in several publishing houses – and then railroads and
  telegraph and other companies – and tallied his quarterly profits in a
  most genteel manner.  The Evening Star, however… Poppy was forever
  saying he shouldn't wear suits to work; he only ruined them.  He started
  the day with his collar buttoned, his hair combed back, and his
  waistcoat on, and ended it with his sleeves rolled up and his collar and
  waistcoat off, cursing and getting ink stains on his trousers as he
  climbed inside one of the huge presses to fix it.
  
  It was his passion and his refuge.  In a society clothed in fine linen
  and white lies, Mulder printed the truth.  He might not be able to right
  the wrong, but he could expose it.  Politics, women's suffrage, slavery,
  the war: regardless of his own views, The Evening Star welcomed debate
  when most papers couldn't find both sides of a coin.  Avoiding the
  rumormongering that filled his competition's pages, he challenged
  hypocrisy, he exposed the liars and the thieves – and he signed his
  name, regardless of the consequences.
  
  His father had eventually given up trying to dissuade him, and regarded
  his son's passion for newsprint as an eccentric hobby – like growing
  orchids or building tiny ships in bottles.  Until he died, when asked
  profession his only son had chosen, Senator Mulder had taken a deep draw
  of cherry tobacco smoke from his pipe and said simply, "He is an
  idealist."
  
  The building was still quiet when Mulder arrived.  By definition, it was
  The Washington "Evening" Star; the presses would start running after
  lunch. In the morning, reporters wrote copy, telegraph operators on the
  top floor scanned the tickertape for Associated Press stories, and the
  editors laid out the pages.  Once the people in Byers' part of the
  building decided what they wanted to print, it went to Frohike's men to
  actually print it: to set the type, prime the machines, feed the rolls
  of paper into the presses, and then to cut and fold, by hand, the
  quarter-million newspapers that went out each afternoon, six afternoons
  a week. 
  
  John Byers greeted him with a smile and a warm handshake that would have
  turned into a hug if Mulder hadn't pulled back. 
  
  "How are you?" 
  
  "I'm glad to be back," Mulder answered, sliding into the old leather
  chair behind his desk.  Someone had emptied the waste bin and cleared
  away the coffee mugs, but unfortunately left the clutter.  Once things
  made it to his desk, they tended to stay there until they grew legs and
  escaped or crumbled to dust.
  
  "I'm sorry I wasn't at the, at the funeral.  I wanted to tell you that
  I'm sorry.  About Melissa.  And your father.  I didn't know until
  Susanne wrote to me.  I am so sorry," Byers said.
  
  Mulder straightened a stack of papers he'd left out almost four years
  ago. "Thank you."
  
  "Susanne spoke with Poppy last week at the market.  She said you've
  remarried.  And have a new baby.  Congratulations.  Susanne and I would
  love to have you and your wife join us for dinner."
  
  "Again, thank you.  Another night, though.  I'd like to let her get
  settled in."
  
  Byers waited, then cleared his throat, noticeably uncomfortable.  They
  were old friends, but different men than they'd been before the war. 
  The years of fighting and blood and loss hadn't broken them, but they
  were changed – altered just enough that their friendship no longer fit
  as it once had.
  
  "Is there any news about Samuel?" Byers asked, finally.
  
  Mulder looked up. "No.  Not yet."
  
  "Many soldiers are still making their way home.  More men return every
  day."
  
  Mulder didn't respond.  Samuel wasn't a farmer's son who had to walk
  home coatless and barefooted.  All he needed to do was make his way to
  any government office and say he was the late Senator Mulder's grandson. 
  Byers knew that as well as Mulder.
  
  His editor-in-chief shifted his feet, seeming unsure what to say next.
  "Anyway, it's good to have you back."
  
  "It's good to be back," Mulder responded honestly. "Really."
  
  Byers nodded. "Is there anything you need?  The books, maybe?  Do you
  want to look at the accounts?"
  
  "I think… I think I just need a little time.  To get settled in again. 
  It feels…" he started to say, then didn't finish.
  
  His office felt the same as his bedroom had the night before: like a set
  awaiting the performers return.  Except his role was now being played by
  a different actor.  Mulder half-expected someone to notice him and tell
  him to leave because he didn't belong there.  Six months ago, he'd been
  knee-deep in blood, killing men and boys he had no qualm with so they
  wouldn't kill him first.  And now, he was in his suit again, sitting at
  his desk, like only a few days had passed.  To him, eons must have
  passed, and the life he'd returned to belonged to a stranger.
  
  "It gets better," Byers assured him. 
  
  Mulder nodded, then opened a desk drawer, checking its contents and
  avoiding eye contact.
  
  "I'll let you get settled back in, then," he said and closed Mulder's
  office door gently as he left.
   
  *~*~*~* 
  
  He'd made three trips to the vast AP telegraph room on fourth floor, two
  to the reporters' desks on the third, watched Frohike supervising the
  typesetters piecing together that evening's front page, and followed
  Byers around like a shadow for an hour before Mulder realized why he was
  so restless.  As much as he enjoyed having dusty newsprint under his
  fingers again and the acrid scent of hot metal and ink around him, he
  found himself eyeing the clock as it edged closer to lunchtime.
  
  In the last two weeks, he hadn't been away from Emily and Dana for more
  than a few minutes.  He missed them.
  
  "Why don't you just go home?" Melvin Frohike asked, annoyed at Mulder
  staring over his shoulder again.  Frohike had been running the mechanics
  of a newspaper longer than Mulder had been on this Earth, and he didn't
  need a supervisor. "You're worse than a bitch without her puppies.  Have
  lunch, check on your new wife and baby, and then come back and actually
  accomplish something."
  
  "Do you want to come with me?  Meet Dana and Emily?"
  
  Covert glances flew around the room as the typesetters and engravers
  looked to see if they'd heard correctly.  Anyone who thought women were
  the worst gossips had never worked in a building full of newsmen.  The
  baby was a girl, then, and she was named either Dana or Emily. By two
  o'clock, everyone who was anyone in DC would know that.
  
  Mulder had been getting somber congratulations all morning, but no one
  had the nerve to ask him any details.  Most of the men, like Byers, had
  been at war when Melly and his father died, and it was awkward paying
  their condolences in one breath and asking him about his new wife and
  baby in the next.
  
  Frohike held up his stubby fingers, stained black with ink. "I'd love
  to, but I have to look my best if I'm gonna to meet a pretty lady."
   
  "You mean you know some way to improve on this stunning façade?"
  
  "Everything's under control here.  Go home, Mulder," Byers agreed,
  bringing down another stack of handwritten stories for Frohike's men to
  translate into print.  The deadline for articles was eleven, but Byers
  was forever rushing downstairs with "just one more" at eleven fifteen.
  
  "I'm going home for lunch," Mulder decided, rolling down his sleeves.
  
  "What a brilliant idea," Frohike grumbled, scowling at Byers as he
  snatched the new articles. "Stunning façade…" 
  
  *~*~*~*
  
  He looked around the kitchen nervously and almost went back outside to
  make sure he had the right address.
  
  Lunch was nearly ready; the old cook offered Mulder a taste from a
  wooden spoon and a welcome peck on the cheek as he passed.  Loaves of
  bread had just come out of the oven, and their mouth-watering aroma
  permeated the air.  The long dining room table was set for two, with a
  vase of flowers decorating the center.  The fireplace crackled, pushing
  warmth into the walls, and a maid he didn't recognize smiled, then went
  back to polishing the silver, screwing up her face in concentration.  
  
  "So this is what it feels like to come home to normalcy," he thought and
  immediately felt guilty.
     
  He found Dana in the nursery rocking Emily, and paused in the doorway to
  watch them.  Samuel had been five when Mulder built the house, so the
  nursery had been an optimistic afterthought consisting of the architect
  crossing out "bedroom" and writing in "nursery" on the blueprints. 
  Until Melissa become pregnant two Christmases ago and been overcome with
  decorating fever, it sat empty, a dusty reminder of things that weren't.
  
  "Hello," he said quietly, when she noticed him and looked up.  
  
  "Hello," she whispered back, smiling. "She's almost asleep.  How was
  your work?"
  
  "It was fine." He sat on the window seat, his back to the steamy window. 
  Outside, the storm was passing, sounding like it was raining out of
  habit rather than malice. "How are you?  Is everything all right?"
  
  "Everything is fine, although I keep getting lost in this house."
  
  "Did Poppy come today?" he ventured. "I didn't see her downstairs."
  
  "I sent her home.  She was upset, I think."
  
  Mulder sighed.  He'd been afraid of that. "I'll deal with her.  I'm
  sorry, Dana.  I probably should have warned you.  Poppy is - She was
  Samuel's nurse and she's protective of us, but I didn't expect her to be
  rude to you.  I won't have that."
  
  "No, she was civil.  She took care of Emily: changed her, bathed her.  I
  had the feeling I was being, oh, what is the word when you decide how
  much a thing is worth?"
  
  "Appraised?"
  
  "Yes: I was appraised this morning.  Then she asked if your son had gone
  to work with you, and when I said he had not, she seemed confused. 
  Poppy thought you returned home because you had found Samuel."
  
  "Oh no." He hadn't dreamed Poppy would interpret his telegram to mean
  that.
  
  "She has his room ready," Dana continued, "When I told her you had not
  found him, she asked if she should put his things away, like she put
  Melissa's things away.  I told her not to, to wait.  That you were still
  looking for him.  Was that all right?"
  
  He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on her warm lips. "That was
  perfect."
   
  *~*~*~*
  
  After lunch, he trailed his fingers over the ivory keys, aimlessly
  striking a few chords.  The piano was in perfect tune, but Melly and
  Samuel were the performers.  Mulder's musical gifts were best suited for
  being the audience.
  
  This was his favorite room.  His books lined the walls, so they'd called
  it the library, although Mulder was usually relegated to the desk or the
  comfortable chair in the corner.  The piano had been his present to
  Melissa, but the other instruments were Samuel's.  If it had strings or
  keys, Sam could play it.  What begin as violin and piano lessons when he
  was five had moved on to cello and guitar and, to his music tutor's
  horror, banjo and harmonica.  There was even an accordion Mulder had
  agreed to in some fit of overindulgent insanity.  
  
  Two wooden easels stood near the windows where they could catch the
  morning sun.  One, Melly's, was empty, and her boxes of oil paints and
  brushes had been removed.  A few of her paintings still hung on the
  walls, but the unfinished ones had been stored away.  Like the quilt on
  the bed the night before, her paint-splattered easel had "accidentally"
  been left behind like skeletal remains.
  
  "Did Melissa draw this as well?" Dana asked, pausing in front of the
  other easel.  
  
  On the pad was a detailed charcoal sketch of a man, a teenage boy, and a
  dog in the woods.  Snow covered the ground and blanketed the tree
  branches, pristine except for their footprints.  The man carried a
  rifle, and the basset hound loped ahead of them in pursuit of a rabbit,
  his long ears flying and tongue lolling happily.
  
  "No, Samuel drew that," he answered.  Mulder paused to sip from his
  wineglass. "I told you he was talented.  Melly liked oils; Sam likes
  charcoal or ink.  That's Sam, my father, and Grace hunting."
  
  "I do not know art, but this seems excellent."
  
  Mulder set his glass on a table and joined her at the window.
  
  "He has a gift.  He draws what he sees, just like he plays whatever he
  hears.  We've published some of his sketches, and there are probably
  more," Mulder speculated, folding down the sheets of paper that had been
  flipped over the top of the easel. "Poppy," he told her, showing her the
  sketch of a tall, pretty, pregnant mulatto woman standing on the back
  porch with a basket of laundry. Behind her, on the clothesline, long
  rows of sheets billowed in the wind.
  
  He flipped again, and grinned. "Me," he admitted, showing her a man in
  an officer's uniform astride a horse, looking heroic.  The picture was
  drawn from the perspective of a small child, making the rider seem god-
  like. "A little dramatic, but me."
  
  He folded another sheet down, then stopped, his grin going from
  indulgent to wistful as he saw the last drawing. It was a woman in a
  long nightgown standing at the window where they now stood.  Her dark
  hair was down, falling over her shoulders, and one hand rested on her
  pregnant belly as she stared through the glass, watching for him to come
  home. 
  
  "And Melly," he said with difficulty, caught off-guard. "That's- I
  didn't know this was here.  I've shown you photographs, but this looks
  more like her.  That's Melly, right before… The day before she died. 
  Sam drew this for me.  That's our Sarah," he added, rubbing his
  fingertip over the figure's belly, smudging the charcoal lines.
  
  "I did not realize she was so far along."
  
  "Seven months," he said, looking away from the drawing. 
  
  "She was very beautiful."
  
  "Yes, she was."
  
  "Mr. Mulder…" she began soothingly.
  
  "No, it's not that.  Melly's been gone for fifteen months.  It hurts,
  but the wound is not as raw as it once was.  I love her and I miss her,
  but it's more that Samuel drew this.  I know what he must have been
  thinking, feeling as he sketched her.  As he waited for me to come home. 
  I miss him so much," he said hoarsely.
  
  "I know you do."
  
  She put her head on his chest and her arms around his waist, staying
  there until someone in the doorway cleared her throat, making her
  presence known.
  
  Mulder glanced up, let go of Dana, and stepped back, realizing his
  housekeeper had returned. "Poppy.  Hello."
  
  He might have hugged her, or at least shaken her hand, had Dana not been
  there.  He didn't want to give Dana the wrong idea, and regardless,
  Poppy was keeping her distance, watching Dana the way one surveyed sized
  up fellow bidders at the auction.
  
  "It's not right: me staying home," Poppy answered tersely, shifting the
  toddler she carried from one hip to the other. "I belong here."
  
  She still wore her work uniform: a black dress, a starched white apron,
  and a white kerchief covering her black hair.  She was a striking woman
  in her mid-thirties – an octoroon, with African, Indian, and mostly
  white blood.  She was tall, with high cheekbones, skin the color of café
  au lait, and dark, vigilant eyes.  An ex-slave, she was a competent and
  loyal housekeeper, but she lacked the dignity and seemingly effortless
  efficiency some house servants possessed.  Rather, there was a high-
  strung intensity about Poppy, as though she was always at the edge of a
  storm.  Like Waterston's mistress, Dori, Poppy's mother had been Haitian
  and the slave mistress of a white plantation owner.  And the greatest
  Voodoo priestess of her time, at least according to Poppy.
  
  "We're always glad to have you," he responded. "Dana told me there was a
  misunderstanding.  About Sam.  I'm, I'm sorry.  Are you all right?"
  
  She shook her head brusquely, not wanting to discuss it in front of
  Dana. "There anything I can get you, sir?"
  
  Poppy had once caught him perched on his parents' dining room table
  shrieking like a girl and about to wet his trousers because there was a
  spider on the floor.  He'd been five, and it had been a big spider. 
  Poppy, seven, had joined him, and also refused to come down until Sarah
  smashed the spider with her shoe and rescued them.  Needless to say, he
  was only "sir" in public.
  
  "No, we were just looking at some of Sam's drawings.  Did you know he'd
  sketched you?"
  
  "No.  Sir.  I did not, sir.  Can I have my girl here?" She gestured to
  the light-skinned, dark-haired toddler she carried. "Just for today. 
  There ain't nobody to look after her right now, and she won't be no
  trouble." 
  
  "That is fine," Dana answered. "For today."
  
  Instead of accepting that, Poppy waited for Mulder to speak.
  
  Mulder looked at the pretty little girl, feeling another thread being
  pulled from the threadbare fabric inside him.  Sam had told him Poppy
  had given birth to an illegitimate baby, but it was unsettling seeing
  the child for the first time.
  
  That should have been his daughter, but it wasn't.
  
  "What's her name?" he asked.
  
  "I been calling her Sadie," Poppy responded, her accent similar to
  Melly's soft Tennessee drawl. 
  
  He nodded. "That's a nice name."
  
  She shifted the toddler a second time, seeming awkward, and waited for
  him to speak again.
  
  "It's fine, Poppy," he said eventually. "You know me better than that."
  
  Poppy nodded. "Yes, sir.  Thank you, sir.  Good to have you home again. 
  Congratulations about your daughter.  Ring if you need me.  Ma'am," she
  added in afterthought.
  
  "Is she married?" Dana asked when they were alone again. "Poppy?"
  
  "No, she isn't married," he answered. "She was Sam's nurse, Dana.  She's
  been very loyal to us over the years.  She's family.  I'm not dismissing
  her for making a mistake."
  
  "No, of course. I understand," Dana responded, and then asked, "How old
  is her daughter?"
  
  "Fifteen months," he answered cautiously.
  
  "Oh."
  
  "I'm not the father, Dana."
  
  "I had not yet considered that you might be," Dana said thoughtfully.
  "She thinks Emily is your daughter, though."
  
  "Yes.  And Poppy is Melissa and Sarah's half-sister, so she actually
  thinks Emily is her half-niece by marriage." 
  
  A crease appeared between Dana's eyebrows as she tried to follow that
  tangled genealogy. 
  
  "Poppy's daughter was born the night Melly died.  That's where Poppy was
  and why she thought I might not want to see her child.  I don't care if
  she brings the baby to work, and she knows I wouldn't dismiss her - not
  for anything short of murder." He clapped his hands together, which
  sounded overly loud in the quiet library. "Well, I think I should get
  back to work.  Have a nice afternoon."
  
  *~*~*~* 
  
  He was in his office by twelve-thirty, and out the door again as soon as
  the last edition rolled off the presses at four.
  
  "I'm looking for the lady of the house," he announced in a bad cockney
  accent, keeping his head down and hiding under the top hat and livery
  he'd borrowed from the groom. 
   
  Luckily, the maid who answered the front door was the same one who'd
  been polishing the silver earlier, and she didn't recognize him.  And,
  though it didn't speak well of her powers of observation, she didn't
  recognize her employer's horses and buggy, either.  
  
  "Of course, sir.  Just a moment, please."
  
  Mulder struggled not to laugh and tightened the reins as Athos and
  Porthos began to fidget, knowing something was afoot.
  
  A minute later, Dana appeared, taking off her white apron and dusting
  flour from her hands.
  
  "Yes, sir?" she answered politely. "How can I help you?"
  
  "Are you the lady of the house?" he asked, barely understandable.
  
  "I suppose I am.  How can I help you?"
   
  "Is your husband here?"
   
  "He is at his office.  Is there something I can do for you, sir?"
  
  "Love, you can climb in, come with me to the heath, strip off me
  clothes, climb on, and make a man out of me."
  
  She blinked, then gaped until he raised his head, grinning wickedly.
  "Mr. Mulder?  You are awful!"
  
  "Climb in," he responded, taking off the hat and jacket, and leaning
  down to offer his hand.  
  
  "Dinner-"
  
  "Is almost ready; I know.  Just for a few minutes.  You keep asking
  about DC.  I thought you'd like to see it since the rain's finally
  stopped.  Is Emily all right?"
  
  "I just fed her."
  
  "I missed it," he said regretfully as she settled in, covering her full
  skirt with the lap blanket as they began their tour.  
  
  Aside from being the seat of democracy, Washington boasted the finest
  collection of potholes and whorehouses in the nation.  A week seldom
  passed without a body being found floating in the cannel or some
  political scandal hitting the front page.  If a man wanted a case of the
  French Pox or to sell a load of junk railroad bonds, DC was the place.
  Mulder saw it for what it was -- the powerful center of a crippled
  government struggling to rebuild itself -- but he tried not to jade
  Dana's introduction to her new home.
  
  "That's The White House," he told her as they reached Pennsylvania and
  turned right down the broad, muddy street. "Where the President lives,"
  he added as they passed. "There was a good swimming hole on the south
  side until the Army started using it as pasture land for cows during the
  war." 
  
  She twisted from side to side to see, excited and peppering him with a
  dozen questions per block.  
  
  He showed her the new Treasury Building, then made a side trip,
  remembering she'd liked a ghost story he'd heard and told her during
  their honeymoon.  Supposedly, when the ship was being built, a hapless
  ironworker had been trapped alive between the dual hulls, and, in the
  interest of economy, left there.  The crewmen swore they could still
  hear the ironworker tapping with his hammer to be let out.  On a whim,
  he and Dana had taken a lantern and investigated to no avail.
  
  "That's the Octagon house," he told her, slowing the horses so she could
  look. "President James Madison lived there for a time.  It has six
  sides, but eight angles, hence ‘the Octagon house.' Some say it's
  haunted.  There's a dead Colonel who rings bells, and, sometimes, the
  ghost of a murdered slave girl who screams."
  
  "These are musical ghosts?" she said skeptically.
  
  "Are you making fun of me?"
    
  "Well, yes," she admitted.  
  
  He cleared his throat, turned a corner, and continued, "All these are
  newspapers.  This part of Pennsylvania Avenue is called Newspaper Row. 
  The Washington Post, The Washington Times… We don't like them.  That's
  Tom Bradley's Saloon, where my father bought me my first drink of
  whiskey.  I used to meet him for lunch near here when I was young."
  
  "Did your parents live close by?"
  
  "No, my mother and stepfather have a house in Georgetown when Congress
  is in session.  I suppose Mother still has it.  And then they actually
  live in Boston."
  
  "Your mother has remarried?"
  
  "Yes," he said tightly, then changed the subject. "If we would keep
  going, we'd pass Center Market and eventually get to the U.S. Capitol
  Building, but we'll do that another day.  Poppy can show you where the
  Market is.  I thought you might like to stop here, though, before we
  return home."
  
  "What is here?"
  
  "The Washington Evening Star.  Would you like to see my paper?  Some of
  the typesetters are still cleaning up, but the reporters and the office
  staff are gone.  I thought you might like the penny tour while it's
  fairly quiet."
  
  He tied the horses to the hitching post in front of the building and
  helped her down.  
  
  Byers was carrying a sheaf of papers across the lobby, which he dropped
  and stopped short when he saw them.  He turned his head sideways,
  looking like a reddish Labrador Retriever who'd heard a funny noise. 
  Mulder's editor-in-chief, by comparison, made Mulder look like Romeo
  with the ladies. 
   
  "Dana, this is John Byers.  He's the man who really runs things around
  here."
  
  "John Byers," Byers repeated when he was able to talk again, still
  pumping her hand. "My name is John Byers."
  
  "Byers is also the soul of wit and grace," Mulder commented, and Byers
  finally let go of Dana's hand.
  
  She flexed it, getting the blood flowing again. "I am pleased to meet
  you, Mr. Byers."
  
  "You are Irish.  My mother was Irish," Byers responded, then launched
  into a long discourse in gobbledy-guck.
  
  He and Dana were mid "guck" when Mulder gave him a stern look and the
  tour continued in English, Byers at their heels.
  
  "The lobby, obviously.  My office." He showed her the cluttered desk and
  collection of junk and dust, then moved on. "The first floor is almost
  all offices: circulation, advertising, accounting.  In the back are the
  loading docks.  Wagons take each edition to the street corners for the
  newsboys to sell, to the train deport to be shipped locally, and to the
  boat docks to go overseas."
  
  He opened the door to the stairs, offering Dana his arm as they climbed.
  
  "This is where the paper is actually printed.  Byers approves all the
  stories and images, then the typesetters-" 
       
  Like a badger popping up from his hole, an almost bald, scruffy head
  appeared from behind one of the machines. Frohike pursed his lips,
  whistling softly. "I should have come to lunch.  Hello, pretty lady."
  
  "Don't touch him," Mulder warned. "You don't know where he's been. 
  Dana, meet Melvin Frohike.  He was part of the deal with I bought the
  paper: I had to take him.  Rumor has it he sleeps underneath one of the
  presses at night and lives on the raw flesh of apprentice typesetters. 
  Don't ever believe anything he says."
  
  Frohike grinned and offered his filthy hand, and, after examining it,
  she shook it.  Dana was nothing if not a good sport.
  
  They showed her how the metal type was set and, after the presses ran,
  broken down to be cleaned and reused. At the engravers' benches, Frohike
  explained how sketches were carefully transferred and then carved into
  pieces of wood or metal in order to be printed.  It was an exacting
  craft since one tiny mistake made the whole engraving unusable.
  
  "Samuel's," Mulder said, putting one hand on her back and pointing to
  the framed prints hanging on the wall above one bench. "Most drawings
  you see in a newspaper or magazine are drawn by one man and then
  engraved by several others, so they're unsigned.  He signs his, since he
  does all the drawing and carving himself."
  
  "Did you meet Samuel?" Frohike asked, which was a roundabout way of
  asking how long she'd known Mulder.
  
  "I have not met him yet," she answered.  
  
  Frohike and Byers waited expectantly, but she didn't elaborate.   
  
  "I understand there's a new baby at your house," he tried.
  
  "She's Emily, she's almost three months old, and she's beautiful, now
  stop fishing for information and show her the presses," Mulder
  intervened.
  
  The presses weren't running or he wouldn't have allowed her in the room
  with them.  If the hem of her skirt or sleeve accidentally got caught in
  one of the huge machines, it would pull her in.  Most of the men who ran
  the presses had nicknames like Stubby for a good reason.  No one in a
  skirt or below the age of fourteen - or however old Samuel happened to
  be - was allowed near the presses.
  
  The third floor was almost deserted as they walked through, and
  scribbled, crumpled papers littered the floor, waiting for the janitor's
  broom.  Reporters were at their desks at six in the morning and gone by
  two. Once the presses ran and they had tomorrow's assignments, their job
  was over until the next day.  
  
  "A.P.?" Dana asked, seeing the sign as they reached the top of the
  building.
  
  "Associated Press." he explained, raising his voice to be heard over the
  manic tapping of the telegraph machines. "Stories come into this office
  from all over the country and then are sent out by telegraph.  If a ship
  comes into port with an interesting article from Europe or Brazil or
  China, we can send it to another US city over the telegraph and it's
  there in seconds."
  
  "And soon, to and from Europe," a gangly blond man told them, sidling
  over to meet Dana. 
  
  "That's right.  The ship we were on, The Great Eastern, was on its way
  to New York to lay telegraph cable across the Atlantic.  If it's
  successful, we'll be able to transmit messages instantly to London and
  Liverpool.  And to Dublin," Mulder added, smiling at her.  This was his
  element.  As awkward as he felt dealing with people, he felt equally at
  ease with facts and words.   
  
  "Langly," the man introduced himself, since Mulder had forgotten.   
  
  "Dana Waterston," she said, then quickly corrected, "Dana Mulder."
  
  To cover the awkward pause that followed, Mulder had her sit at one of
  the vacant telegraph machines, explaining how it and Morse code worked.
  "Langly can even tell you the name of the operator hundreds of miles
  away who's sending the telegram to him, just by listening."
  
  "I know their dots and dashes," Langly said cryptically.
  
  "Same way you tell a boy kitten from a girl kitten," Mulder whispered to
  her, and she smiled. "Go ahead, press the key."
  
  She did, sending a single electronic click amid the thousands of others
  in the room.
  
  "Someone just heard that in New York," he told her.
  
  "Opie heard it," Langly supplied.
  
  Dana stared uncertainly at the machine. "In New York?  Are you teasing
  me again, Mr. Mulder?"
  
  "I promise I'm not.  Press it again; confuse Opie to death."  
  
  He stepped back, watching Langly and Byers show her the protocol for
  sending a message.  She pressed the key a few more times, fascinated.
  
  "She loves you," Frohike observed quietly. "Of course she loves you. 
  All the pretty ones do.  Damn it, at first I thought I had a chance with
  her.  Alas, my poor heart is breaking." 
  
  "Oh, hush up," Mulder said, laughing and watching her.
  
  *~*~*~*
   
  It was late.  The fire snapped and crackled, and occasionally a log
  split and disintegrated into molten-orange coals.  
  
  He sat on the floor near the hearth in their bedroom, leaning back
  against the sofa with his bare legs outstretched.  Dana was facing him,
  one knee on either side of his hips with a blanket loosely draped around
  her.  No gentleman would let a lady shiver in bed as he made love to
  her.  The proper thing to do was pick her up, carry her to the fire, and
  make love to her there.
  
  "Are your feet warm now?" he murmured, outlining the ridge of her
  collarbone with his lips.
  
  "They are, thank you.  Would you like to feel?"
  
  He slid his hands under the blanket, down her backbone, and to the hot
  flesh of her backside. "Yes, I would.  I think I'll start here and work
  my way down.  I want to be thorough," He stroked the backs of her
  thighs, then slipped his fingers between them. "And check-" He slid his
  hands higher, urging her legs apart. "Every-" Higher, to the soft, damp
  patch of hair. "Inch," he finished huskily. 
  
  Watching her face change as he touched her was intoxicatingly erotic. 
  She – this - was opium in female form: just as dangerous and twice as
  addictive.
  
  He tugged at the blanket and it fell to the floor, leaving her bare in
  the firelight.  Her cool breasts grazed his chest, a delicious contrast
  to the warmth of her back and the hotness inside her.  At his request,
  she'd left her hair down, and it hung almost to her waist in thick
  auburn waves.  It shimmered as she moved, and was as soft as silk as he
  ran his fingers through it.
  
  "There's a science called phrenology that says you can tell someone's
  personality by the shape of their skull," he whispered, running one hand
  over her scalp. "For instance, this ridge at the back indicates physical
  lust, and above it, this one, a love for children and family.  Loyalty. 
  Here is kindness, intelligence, ideality, and this: stubbornness.  It is
  frighteningly large."
  
  She pulled away, trailing her index finger down his profile to his lips.
  "That is where I bumped my head this morning, Mr. Mulder."
  
  "Thank God.  I was worried." He sighed, pretending to be relieved.
   
  "You are making up this phrenology science."
  
  "Are you calling me a liar?"
  
  "No, sir, only a creative truth-teller."
  
  He smirked, kissing her fingertip. "No, it's true.  And please don't
  start calling me ‘sir.' ‘Mr. Mulder' is bad enough.  Can't I be
  ‘Mulder,' just this once?"
  
  She leaned forward, her hips poised over his. "‘Malda,'" she murmured
  into his ear, "Is ‘gentle' in my language, and ‘modhar' is ‘soft.'
  
  "Always ‘malda,' I promise.  You know that.  I'm not ‘modhar,' though."
  
  She started to get up, thinking he wanted to go back to bed. 
  
  "No, like this.  Just like this."
  
  "Here?"
  
  "Here." 
  
  He positioned and guided her hips slowly down, biting his lip as her
  inner muscles enveloped him.  She hesitated, then slid down farther, a
  little at a time, until her hips rested flush against his.  She stopped,
  breathing heavily as her body adjusted. 
  
  "Oh, God.  Jesus, Dana." He groaned at the sensation of being a thousand
  kisses deep inside her.
  
  He exhaled through his teeth, letting his head fall back on the sofa
  cushions.  When she shifted, he gasped, putting his hands on her hips
  and rocking her against him again.  
  
  "Like that.  That's nice," he whispered to her. "So nice.  Don't stop." 
  
  She let him guide her into a slow rhythm, then, once she knew what he
  wanted, rested her hands on his shoulders as her hips rose and fell over
  his.  Mulder raised his head, opening his eyes to watch her, fascinated. 
  
  
  "You are beautiful," he murmured in awe. A fine sheen of perspiration
  covered her breasts, and her mouth moved silently as she rocked,
  exhaling with each thrust. "You are.  I like watching you."
  
  She tilted her hips slightly, changing the angle and taking him deeper
  inside her.
  
  "Don't stop, Dana.  Make love to me."
  
  She murmured something in Gaelic that sounded like his name, resting her
  forehead against his shoulder.  He put his arms around her, closing his
  eyes.   
  
  "Don't stop," he told her again, with increasing urgency.  
  
  Her thighs trembled, and her breath was hot and labored against his
  shoulder, but she didn't stop.  He gritted his teeth as the pressure
  inside him built, blocking out every other sensation.  Then, suddenly,
  he felt her vaginal muscles spasm and heard her moan in pleasure. 
  
  She went limp against him, and, his arms still around her, he quickly
  lowered them both to the floor, laying Dana on her back, and entered her
  again, easily sliding inside. "To hard?" he asked, feeling her hips
  rising to meet each desperate thrust. 
  
  If there was an answer, he didn't hear it.  A dozen more deep thrusts
  and her fingernails dug into his shoulders as it happened again: a quick
  series of inner contractions, more powerful this time.  His response was
  an ineloquent curse and release so intense he saw stars.
  
  One of life's mysteries solved, he realized, once he could think again. 
  That, he assumed, had been the female orgasm. 
  
  She opened her eyes, looking flushed and uncertain in the firelight.
  
  "It's fine," he assured her, pushing her hair back from her face. "I
  want you to like this.  Did you?"  
  
  She nodded breathlessly, licking her swollen lips.
  
  "So did I."
  
  *~*~*~*
  
  "Why, Dana?" he asked, spooning up behind her, and closing his eyes.  In
  the spirit of chivalry, he should have swept her up in his arms and
  carried her back to bed, but Sir Lancelot must be much steadier on his
  feet after intimacy.  Mulder had settled for leading her by the hand,
  getting her a drink of water, and tucking her in. "Why did you do it?"
  
  "In front of the fire?  Because you asked me to, Mr. Mulder," she
  mumbled back, wanting to sleep.
  
  "No, why did you marry me?" he clarified, his old insecurity rearing its
  head again.
  
  She sighed. "Again, you asked."
  
  "No, there's no shortage of men who would have asked.  Why me?  Because
  I was your friend?  Because I was there?"
  
  "Because you wanted me."
  
  "Was it just that?  Dr. Waterston was unfaithful and you knew I would
  not be?"
  
  Dana didn't respond for a long time, and he thought he'd upset her by
  mentioning Waterston.  Except for slipping at the newspaper this
  evening, she hadn't mentioned him since they'd left Savannah, so neither
  had he.
     
  "Have you ever wondered if there is something more?" she finally
  whispered. "Have you ever laid in bed at night and stared up into the
  darkness and wondered if what you have is all there is to life?"
  
  He stroked her arm reassuringly, then, instead of answering, asked her
  if she wanted him to bring Emily to their bed for a little while.  The
  nursery was at the other end of the upstairs hall, so they couldn't hear
  the baby unless she shrieked, and it was almost time for her to nurse
  again.  
  
  By the time he'd returned with the Emily and worked up enough courage to
  answer her question, Dana was asleep."
  
  *~*~*~*
  
  End: Paracelsus V