By Her Side Series by Vickie Moseley

By Her Side series cover

GO TO BY HER SIDE SELECTION PAGE

By Her Side Series by Vickie Moseley

By Her Side original cover by Rachel Lewis

Vickie Moseley’s
By Her Side Series

By Her Side I

Title: By Her Side Author: Vickie Moseley
Summary: Bill Scully gets a call from his mother to go to his sister’s side. But not for a reason he approves of.
Rating: R for rough language (he’s a sailor for Pete’s sake!)
Category: V, MSR (implied) Scully (Bill and Dana) angst, Mulder torture
Spoilers: Tons. Mostly up to the movie, so all of seasons 1 – 5.

Disclaimer: The characters depicted within belong wholly and completely to somebody else (namely 10-13 Productions). This falls somewhere under ‘coveting thy neighbor’s fictional persona’ but I lust after them with my mind, not my pocketbook. No copyright infringement intended.

Author’s note: I fully intend to hear from some ‘differing opinions’ on this one, but I had to see if I could paint Bill Scully as something other than the embodiment of evil. In short, I tried to walk in his shoes for a day. This is the result. There may be another one or two like it. Comments to me: [email protected]

By Her Side by Vickie Moseley [email protected]

“Bill, it’s Mom.”

I’m 38 years old and she still feels the need to identify herself to me over the phone. She’s been doing it since I left for college. Like I could ever forget the sound of my mother’s voice. But some things never change.

“Yeah, Mom, how are you? Isn’t our turn to call?” Tara and Mom worked out an arrangement not long after the wedding. We’d call every two weeks, but Mom knew how much money comes into a sailor’s household, so she quickly insisted that we take turns. Every two weeks, like clock work on Sunday night we’d call or we’d be home to take her call. But then it hit me, it’s Wednesday. Something’s wrong. “Mom, what’s the matter?”

“Oh, Billy.” OK, now I’m getting worried. Mom only calls me Billy when she’s really upset and by the sound of her voice, she’s definitely upset. I think she might even be crying.

“Mom, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me here. Is it Dana? Charlie? You? What’s going on?” I don’t want to play the bully, but there’s this cold fist of dread in my stomach that I can’t shake. She’s sounds almost like she did when she called me to tell me about Missy. And before that when she told me about Dad. And with Dana’s line of work–

“It’s about Dana, yes, but not what you think. I just got off the phone with her. She and Fox have been out in San Diego for a few days on a case. Apparently there was shooting. Fox…” Mom is crying. I can hear it in her voice. She’s stopping to catch her breath. My God, what the hell is going on?

“Mom?”

“Fox s-s-s-stepped in front of the gunman. He was going to shoot D-D-Dana. Fox was hit. Oh, Billy, she was so upset. She was crying so hard I could barely make out the words.”

Dana crying? Over the phone and crying? Impossible! Never! It could not, would not ever happen! I can’t remember the last time I saw my sister cry. Not at Dad’s funeral, not at Missy’s. Oh sure, damp eyes, a touch of the tissue. But crying so hard that she couldn’t be understood? No, it didn’t happen like that, Mom is just exaggerating.

“Mom, what do you want me to do?” At that moment, I knew what was coming. Mom was calling me to go over to sit with her. But it hit me, suddenly. Dana has been in San Diego, possibly for a ‘few days’, and she’s not called once? She was here, with that son of a bitch… and she didn’t think to call me? For that matter, she calls Mom all the way across country instead of me here in the same city when something bad happens. When the hell did I become the pariah of the family? “Do you want me to go to her? Where is she?”

“Now, Billy. Listen to me. I know what you think of Fox. I know you blame him for all sorts of things that he never had anything to do with. But there is a reason Dana didn’t call you and that is it. She’s scared, but she doesn’t want to deal with your anger right now, especially if it’s directed at him. She’s at Mission Hospital, I know you can find her. But if you go over, I want you to keep your opinions to yourself! If you can’t respect Fox Mulder as another human being, at least respect him for what he means to your sister. I will not have you going over there -”

“Mom,” I finally cut into her tirade. “Mom, give me some credit, please! I won’t put my foot in my mouth. I’ll be there for her, I don’t give a shit about this Mulder character. But I don’t want my baby sister sitting in some cold and impersonal hospital all by herself.”

“I know you don’t care about Fox, William, but do all of us a favor and keep that to yourself. And keep your mouth shut, if you can’t think of anything else good to offer.” I recognize that tone. It’s Mom’s ‘I’ll kick your butt from here to next Wednesday if you don’t do as I’m telling you’ tone of voice. It always sent shivers down my spine and still does.

“I’ll be good, Mom. I promise. Now, I better get over there.”

“Just give her all my love, please, Billy. And Fox, too, if you can deliver the message. Oh, and a kiss for Tara and Matty.” I have to sit through the entire litany before she finally lets me go.

“I will, Mom, I will. I’ll call later, if there’s any news.”

“I’m trusting you, Billy. I love you.”

Shit, now I’m going to start crying on the phone. “I love you, too, Mom.” I hang up and turn to find Tara giving me a perplexed look.

“Was that Mom? Why didn’t you let me say hello? And Matty could have said a few words to her, or at least babbled in her ear.” Before she’s through, Tara is staring at me. “Bill, what’s the matter?”

I’m already looking for my keys and my jacket. “I have to get over to Mission Hospital. Mulder got himself shot and Dana’s over there with him. Mom doesn’t want her to be alone.”

“Oh, God, it’s not bad, is it?” Tara’s handing me the keys and my jacket and my wallet, too. I’m heading for the door.

“How good could it be if Mom’s sending me over there?” I throw over my shoulder and before she can answer, I’m in the car and pulling out of the driveway.

For the record, I’m not a bad guy. I’m a likable guy, as a matter of fact. I have the respect of the men below me and the officers I serve under. Tara was not the first woman to fall in love with me, but she is by far the best. And I have plenty of guys I can call up on a moment’s notice for a game of golf or a Sunday afternoon of football or for a quick poker game. So I’m not known for my animosity.

Then came Mulder. Hell, why can’t the asshole just let people call him by his first name? I mean, what’s this ‘Mulder’ shit? I took a little psych in college. I recognize an attempt to distance oneself from others. He’s pushing people away with that shit. Well, I don’t have time for that bullshit.

I didn’t set out to hate Fox Mulder. No, that came with time. Like the time Dad died. I turned around at the luncheon after the funeral, and Dana had disappeared. I looked for her among the mourners, mostly brass and friends that Mom and Dad had picked up over time, but I couldn’t find my little sister. So, I found my wife and asked her. “She had to go to work.” I about flipped out! Work! Her father had just died, for Christ’s sakes, and she had to go to work?! I’m in the service, I know how much leave time you’re allowed for funerals, and it’s longer than four fucking hours!

I lost it. I found Charlie and we were going to fly down to North Carolina or South Carolina or where ever the hell he’d dragged her off to, and kick his sorry ass all the way back to DC! Mom didn’t need that shit. Mom needed us there, all of us. Missy had already blown it off, couldn’t get a flight, bunch of shit. Now, Dana, the ‘reasonable one’ takes a powder right after the services.

Because of him. Because of Mulder.

We were almost out the door when Tara knocked some sense into us. Well, a couple of days later and the case was over, they caught the guy, or rather, Dana caught the guy, and she still didn’t come home. “Mulder got shot.” Like that was supposed to explain why she wasn’t home, comforting her grieving mother. Like that was some sort of absolution for leaving her father’s graveside.

I was still on leave when she finally got home. I went over to her apartment, I was going to give her a piece of my mind. It was after midnight, and I knew her flight had arrived much earlier. She’d been at ‘his’ apartment, ‘settling him in’.

We had a fight. Our first over that sorry son of a bitch. I told her what I thought about her running out at the funeral, she told me to mind my own business. I told her she was my business and she let me have it with both barrels. Lit into me like Hell’s Fury Scorned. And then, in the middle of our fight, or so I thought, she informed me that she was just there to ‘pick up a few things’ because she was spending the night at her partner’s.

I’ve only ‘seen red’ a couple of times in my life, but that night was one of them. I slammed the door, grabbed the ‘few things’ out of her hand and refused to let her out of the apartment.

My baby sister slapped me.

I will never forget it. I was standing there, I outweighed her by 100 lbs, I towered over her, and in a second, this tiny little woman was a ball of self-righteous fury who whipped her right hand back and slapped me for all I was worth.

It hurt my pride more than it hurt my face, but I couldn’t believe she could pack that much whallop. And while I was rubbing my cheek, she got her things and walked out the door.

I tried calling her, at his place, but no one picked up the phone. I didn’t bother to leave a message. I had to leave the next day. It was the first time I ever left town without telling her goodbye.

I started to hate Fox Mulder that day.

And the hatred grew. I couldn’t stand the sight of him at Missy’s funeral. He stood there, God help me, and actually held my mother as she cried. Son of a bitch! Like he was a member of the family. Like he wasn’t the reason Missy was lying cold in that grave!

Like he belonged. And like I didn’t.

Dana sort of half-assed forgave me for the fight way back when. But when I mentioned that I thought the time after the graveside service should be ‘just family’, she got all huffy with me. “Mulder needs to be there, otherwise he’ll think we blame him.”

I was about to tell her that I did blame him, but Mom stepped up, dragging Mr. FBI behind her and told us that she was riding to the house with Fox and Dana and would I stop by the caretaker’s office and tell them they could close the grave.

Sure, that was what I was there for. Making sure my little sister was covered with six feet of mud while the man who put her there was sitting in our house and eating our food.

I really hated him that day.

I didn’t get over it, I just got away from it. I went back to Great Lakes and then to Newport News. I was really happy that I could get home a little more often, but then I was sent out on a cruise and I was gone for six months. When I got back, I found out what he’d done to us lately.

Dana had cancer. She was dying.

I still can’t talk about it. I can see her, standing in that hospital room telling me how she could tell her partner about her illness, but not her brother. I can see her lying in that bed, dying, and holding that bastard’s fucking hand like it was a teether to the earth. I can see her announcing that she was going to put that goddam chip in her neck, in so many words that she trusted him over her doctor, our priest… even me.

I hope the fucker dies tonight. I’ll finally be done with him.

But if that happens, I’ll still have to deal with Dana. That’s OK, I know I can make her see that it’s for the best.

I’m never too sure how to handle these hospital things. When Dana was out here last Christmas, and she found… that kid and she was talking all crazy and then the kid got sick… I mean, how the hell was I supposed to find her at the hospital. “Excuse me, have you seen a seemingly intelligent woman who is acting totally nuts and keeps saying she’s the mother of a three year old she’s never seen before in her life?” I didn’t even know the damn kid’s name at the time. Emily. Her name was Emily.

At least this time, I know who I’m looking for. I walk up to the first nurse I see and ask for directions to admissions. A nice, white haired lady at a desk tells me that Fox Mulder has been taken up to the surgical ward, and that family members can be found in the waiting room up there.

When did she become his ‘family’?

I get directions and find the elevators and get to the right floor and then to the right wing and there she is.

God, I’ve never seen her look this bad.

Lost. And so damned tiny. Fragile. Covered in blood. God help me, if a speck of that is hers… But I can tell she’s not hurt. Not physically, at least.

At least the fucker did something right. He protected her. She’s safe. This time.

I walk down the hallway toward her. She isn’t looking my way, her eyes are glued to a set of double doors with the words ‘surgical suite’ stenciled on them. I call out her name as I get closer and she still doesn’t move, doesn’t react at all. Finally, I’m right next to her and I put my hand on her shoulder.

“Dana?”

She looks up at me and for a moment, there’s no recognition. She doesn’t know me! And then a light comes on in her head.

“Billy?”

She’s up on her feet and she grabs me hangs on with everything in her. She’s not crying, not yet at least. She’s taking in deep gulps of air, and it scares me how much she’s trembling in my arms.

“Here, let’s sit down.” I lower us both to the couch she was sitting on and pull her closer to me, so that her head is now resting on my shoulder. “It’s OK, Danie, it’s OK.” I haven’t called her that since,… gee, since we were kids. Since before I got all tough and couldn’t be bothered with my kid sister and her stupid tagging along all the time. Not for a long time have I called her that. “It’s going to be OK, Danie, I promise.”

Finally, she sits back, and wipes her face on her sleeve. She leaves a streak of dried blood mixed with tears across her cheek and I itch to wipe it off, but I figure I’ll just let her be for now.

“How did you know?”

That hurts. She’s all but admitting that she wouldn’t have told me. “Mom called. She said… that you were here. And you were upset.”

She snorts beside me. “Mom, the great understatesman.” I want to crack a smile at that, but it’s not really that funny.

“How is he, uh, how’s he doing?” I really don’t give two shits how that little twerpy bastard is doing, but I promised Mom and I’ll keep that promise.

She stares off at those shitty double doors again. Finally, she clears her throat. “He was shot in the chest. Close range. Very close range. The exit wound…” She stops and swallows, hard and it hurts me to watch her struggle with this. I start to tell her that I don’t need the play by play, but she’s talking again and I realize she’s not talking to me, she’s talking to him.

“The exit wound was so big. He lost so much blood at the scene. For a minute, I was afraid it hit the aorta, but I could still find a pulse. It took forever for the ambulance to get there. He was just pumping blood out, he was bleeding to death in my arms…”

She takes a deep breath. “I threatened him. I told him that if he died on me, I’d curse his name till the day I died. I told him I’d spit on his grave, I’d never look for Samantha, I’d destroy his apartment and poison his fish. I told him I’d find Ed Jerse again and let him fuck my eyes out this time and the tattoo would read ‘fuck you, Fox Mulder’ and I told him I’d quit the Bureau and I’d become a prostitute and die of AIDS or a drug overdose. I told him I’d do all of that if he left me.”

God, I don’t want to hear this. God in Heaven, I don’t want to hear this. But she won’t stop talking. And now she’s laughing, but not in a happy way. She’s laughing like a mad woman. Like some who has lost their mind. Laughing and talking through it all, but still staring at the door, still more to him than to me. “I think he must have heard me. His pressure dropped and the EMS guys had to defib in the van, but he hung on. I think the Jerse thing was what turned the trick. Have to remember that one.”

“How long have you been here?” I have to get her to connect to me, to quit looking at the damned doors and see that she’s not alone, that I’m here, too.

“I don’t know. Three, four hours? Who the fuck knows?”

That took my breath away. I’ve never heard Dana curse like that before and the way she’s doing it now it seems like second nature.

“It wasn’t supposed to go bad. We were staking out the least likely spot. Neely wasn’t supposed to be there, it was just a possiblity. A remote possiblity. But he was there, and we didn’t have proper back up. We never have proper back up, do we, Mulder?”

She’s letting go of my hand and standing, pacing in front of those doors. She won’t quit staring at them and she’s wringing her hands and I wonder if it’s hurting her to do that as much as it’s hurting me to watch.

And I hate that fucker even more for putting her through this. God, I hope, I really hope he dies on that table.

But I have to take care of her, now. No time for wishful thinking. “Have you had anything to eat?” I glance at my watch and it’s already almost ten o’clock. If she’s been here four hours, she probably didn’t get dinner. I can find something, a vending machine or something.

“I’m not hungry.” Her voice sounds hollow as she says it, like she doesn’t even know what the question was, much less what she answered.

“How about some coffee?” I try again. This time she doesn’t even bother to answer and I take that as a good sign. I go off to find some coffee.

Coffee is a lot easier to find when you know where the hell you’re going. I got lost, not bad lost, but turned around. When I figure out where I am and where I’m supposed to be, there’s some woman in hospital scrubs talking to Dana on the couch. Dana is nodding and her face is this… mask. She looks so impersonal, so cold. She’s holding it all back in front of this woman. I know how much it took for her to let me see that earlier display. And I’m her brother.

I come up to them, quietly, not wanting to disturb them.

“…damage was extensive. But he made it through the surgery. He did flatline on us, but it wasn’t for very long. The hypovolemia is the greatest concern. The lung capacity will be diminished, but with therapy, he should be able to recover. Right now, we just have to wait. And pray.”

“May I see him?” Her face is strong, but her voice is betraying her. I can hear the tremor in her voice all the way from where I’m standing.

The scrubs woman is shaking her head. “Let us get him settled in ICU. I have you listed as next of kin, you’ll have full privileges to visit. I think it would be best to notify any other family members at this time.” She reached out when she started talking and now she squeezes Dana’s shoulder. Like you would a wife you’d just given bad news.

And the look on Dana’s face. She’s losing her whole world. That skinny, limp-wrist, pansy faced asshole is everything to my baby sister. Everything. And nothing or no one will ever replace him in her heart.

I can’t breathe too well. My stomach is a knot and I think back to how many times tonight that I’ve wished that sorry son of a bitch dead. I didn’t mean it, God. Really, I didn’t. I just… hate him sometimes and it’s so much easier to just wish he was gone…

The woman leaves and Dana’s just sitting there, staring into space. I walk up to her and offer her the coffee. She takes it on autopilot, swallows and frowns. “I don’t take sugar,” she says to me.

I almost laugh. No, that’s right. Tara takes sugar. Dana takes… I realize I don’t know how my baby sister takes her coffee. That really bothers me right now. What really eats me is that the asshole who’s dying probably knows how she takes it.

“I’ll get you another cup,” I offer.

“No, that’s OK, I’m not really thirsty, either. I just want…”

I know what she wants.

“I wish you’d try to get to know him, Billy,” she says, her voice all low and raspy as she continues to stare at the doors and the walls and everywhere except my face. “He’s not a bad guy, you know.”

“I know,” I say, automatically. So what if I don’t mean it, she needs to hear it.

She impales me with her eyes. “Liar.”

The way she says it, I feel cursed for all eternity. It makes me hurt. I feel ripped apart by her accusation. I want to hurt back a little. Damn me.

“OK, if he’s so great, why the hell did he let you get in a position where you were getting shot at to begin with?”

She turns on me, pale. Ghostly white. And for a minute I’m afraid I’ve killed her with my words. But then I realize, she’s just building up a head of steam.

“Fuck you,” she seethes, quiet, through those perfect white teeth that once sported big shiney braces. She’s walking down the hall almost before I can breath.

I can’t let her run off this time. Not this time. I take two steps and reach out and grab her arm. “Dana, stop. Please.”

She pulls her arm out of my grasp. “Go home, Bill. You’re not wanted here. You’re not needed here. Just go the hell home.” She stomps off toward the hallway again, leaving me there, staring open mouthed after her.

“Why? Why do you love him more than me?” When I hear the words echoing off the white walls of the waiting room, I don’t recognize my own voice. I know those were my thoughts, but I didn’t think I had the guts… or the stupidity, to say them out loud.

She stops. She doesn’t turn around right away. Her shoulders heave with the effort just to keep standing. When she finally turns toward me, there’s a single tear sliding down her left cheek. I made her cry. Mom, Mom, Billy made Dana cry. I can hear Charlie chanting all the way from the park to our house. Billy made Dana cry.

“I don’t… love him… more,” she chokes out and I’m afraid to listen, afraid of what she’s going to do to me now that she knows what is scaring me. I don’t want to lose her to him. Not the last sister I have. Not to him. Not to that loser.

“I don’t love him more than you, Billy,” she says, through clenched teeth. She stops and draws in enough breath for both of us.

“I love him different than I love you.”

I want to follow her. I want to go after her and catch up to her and pull her in my arms and tell her that I’m sorry, that I’m a bigger ass than Mulder could ever be, but all I can do is stand there. When I can’t see her because she’s turned the corner, I walk over to the couch, sit down, and cry like a baby.

I can’t believe I fell asleep. A nurse comes over and shakes me awake and I don’t remember where I am or what I’m doing here. I blink a few times, and then remember. Dana. Mulder. ICU.

It’s not hard to find the Intensive Care Unit. It’s marked on all the elevators. ICU, 6th floor. I’m now on the sixth floor. It’s a little past one in the morning.

I’ve never been in an Intensive Care Unit. I’ve heard about them, but I’ve never seen one close up. It’s odd. Quiet. Everyone looks so intense. Life and death all in about eight rooms. I start looking in the glass windows trying to find Dana. A nurse walks up to me and taps me on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry, sir, but only members of the immediate family are allowed here.”

“I’m looking for Fox Mulder. Well, really, I’m looking for my sister, Dana Scully. She’s with him. She’s his, uh, next of kin.”

“Mr. Mulder is in room 5. His wife is in there right now.”

I blink at that. Wife? Nah, Mom would have said something. Wouldn’t she? “Ah, that’s probably my sister.”

“Wait here.” The nurse gives me a look as she makes a note on a pad of paper before going off to what I assume is room 5. She’s in there a minute and then back at the desk. “I’m sorry. Mr. Mulder can only have one visitor at a time and your sister,” she looks doubtful as she says it, “says she’s going to stay the night. She said you’re free to go home.”

I don’t want to go home. No, that’s not true. I do want to go home, I want to run to Tara and have her make it all better. I want to rock Matty to sleep and fall asleep with him and have Tara kiss me awake and take me to bed with her. But I’ve hurt my baby sister and I can’t go home. Not till I make it right.

I start to head off to the elevators, but I’m watching the nurse as she goes back to her charts. When I’m sure she’s not looking, I make a dash for room number 5.

I feel like an idiot as I burst into the room. I shut the door behind me and wish it had a lock or something. Instead, I just lean against it.

I look at Mulder. He is the center of attention here, after all. But God, I wish I hadn’t looked. He’s almost transparent. So pale that the sheets have more color than his face. His eyes are sunken in his cheeks and there’s a tube coiling out of his mouth. I see a little black balloon and it fills and collapses in time to the rise and the fall of his chest. From what I can see under the covers, his entire left side is covered in gauze.

There are wires. So many wires. All over his chest, some around his head, too. More tubes than I could ever count. A bag of red stuff and two bags of clear stuff and tubes poked into his chest. A bag of yellow stuff hanging off the bed rail. I don’t want to know where that tube leads. A bunch of machines encircle him, surround him. Beepings and bleepings and infinity signs on digital displays. I didn’t know I’d been holding my breath until I start to feel dizzy.

“Go home, Bill. You’re not -”

“Dana, shut up. I’m not leaving until I have my say.” She stops, now it’s her turn to open her mouth and gap at me.

I wish I had some idea of what the hell I’m going to say to her.

I look down and see her tiny hand, the hand that used to clutch mine so tightly, the hand that used to bring me cookies when I was sick, the hand that used to slap me high fives when she made a basket. It’s entwined in the hand of the man in the bed, lying so still and so very, very quiet. In the depth of my soul, I see her for the first time in a very long time. See her sitting beside this man. I see their clasped hands, and I know this is where she belongs.

My heart breaks a little. I don’t want to let go. I don’t want to admit that any man could have a place in her heart, might even deserve to be there. But I know the truth now. I didn’t stand a chance. If I don’t change my ways fast, I’ll never have a chance with her again.

“I promised Mom I would be here for you,” I say, slowly, trying to find the words. “And on the way over, I’ll admit, I didn’t really give a shit if he… lived or died.”

She purses her lips and I know I better speak fast because my chances are getting awful slim.

“But Dana, I know that was my own selfish pride. I hated Mulder, I used to hate Mulder, because I thought he was taking you from me. I thought he would only get you killed. And that scared me. God, Dana, I was so scared that my baby sister would die.”

I’m having a hard time standing up and so I lean on the bed rail a minute.

“I know this is the path you’ve chosen. You choose it every day, I guess. Just like with Tara and me. Every day, I wake up, and I just want to be with her. I can understand that. I can see that. I can see how you’d feel that way.”

Her eyes are softening up a bit. She’s not looking at me as if she’s looking at a monster anymore.

“He saved your life. I guess that really just sunk in to me. Back when you had the cancer, back when you lost… Emily, today, all those times in between… he’s saved your life. He hasn’t taken you away from me. He’s kept you safe for me. As safe as you’d let him, anyway.”

I get a smile for that one.

“Look, I’m going to go down to the chapel. I’m going to light a candle for him, say a few prayers. Then I’ll be right in the waiting room. If you get tired, or need a break, I’ll… sit with him for you. I’ll make sure he’s safe for you.”

I’m not sure what I expect her to do, but as always, my baby sister does the unexpected. She gets up, not letting go of Mulder’s hand and reaches out to me. She pulls me toward her, one handed, and wraps her free arm around my waist.

“I love you, Billy,” she sighs into my shirt. “I always have and I always will.”

“I love you, too, Danie,” I tell her. I look over at the man who means more than the world to my sister. Maybe there is something there that’s more than I’ve seen before.

“Who knows? With time, I might even love him,” I say, and in some strange way, I really mean that.

“I’ve begun to believe in some extreme possibilities,” she says and smiles at me.

I’m beginning to know what she means.

By Her Side 2: The Awakening

Title: By Her Side 2: The Awakening

Summary: Continuation of By Her Side. Bill takes up watch over
an injured Mulder and tries to reconcile some old feelings.

Category: V, A, Muldertorture

Rating: PG-13 (crisis is over, civility resumes)

Disclaimer: No infringement intended, but I had a great time. I put
everybody back where I found them, too.

Archive: Yes

Author notes: Thanks to Susan and Kathy for beta these two. And
thanks to all of you who have written me during this election. I
love you all 🙂

ALL US CITIZENS OF VOTING AGE: Don’t forget to VOTE
in November. YES it does make a difference.

(Vickie was a candidate in the 1998 election. She bravely tackled questions from journalists about her fanfic :D. Vickie is awesome ♥. I left this message here as it’s no less important to vote and make your voice count a quarter century later. -x-libris)

I’ve been in this elevator so much in these last three days that I know the grooves on the buttons and the graffiti scratched in the paint by heart.

It’s been hell, no doubt about it. But I’m not complaining. I get up in the morning, go to work at the base all day, then drive straight to the hospital. I take up watch, Dana runs back to our house to grab a bite with Tara, play with Matty, take a shower and lay down, if Tara can bully her into it. And then by 11 she’s back here, looking a little better than when she left. I give her a kiss and I’m off to find my way home again.

While Dana’s joining the living, I sit here communing with the comatose. Mulder and I have had a lot to talk about. So far, it’s been the kind of conversation I’ve always wanted to have with Fox Mulder – one sided and me doing all the talking. Just what my heart needed.

But I’ve been good. Well, maybe not ‘good’ but at least I haven’t called him a ‘sorry son of a bitch’ in the last three days. I’ve done my best to give him a piece of my mind for worrying Dana like he is. The docs all said he would wake up as the blood volume was improved. That was two days ago. Then they said it was the pain factor. They’ve had him on some really good shit, from what the nurses tell me. So that shouldn’t be a problem now. To tell the truth, I don’t think they know their asses from a hole in the ground, but there’s no way I’m saying that while Dana is around. I say it plenty to my bud, Mulder.

The doctors are hopeful. Sure they are. We avoided a lot of complications, apparently. He hasn’t developed an infection or pneumonia. The respirator has been turned down a couple of times and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve removed it by now. He’s breathing on his own.

But he ‘died’ twice. His heart stopped pumping. I didn’t go to medical school, but I know that when the heart stops pumping, the blood stops carrying oxygen to the cells in the body. Skin cells, bone cells,… brain cells. And he’d lost so much blood by the time they got to him, that sort of starved the cells a little, too.

No body’s saying it out loud, but I know why they’re all tiptoeing around Dana. The fact that he’s in a coma right now is as good as shouting from the rooftops. Brain damage. There is a chance he might never wake up and it’s getting stronger every day.

Dana told me the other night that she wanted me to get to know him better. Well, I’m getting to know Mulder more than I bet either of us ever wanted. Like his current ‘best’ blood pressure is 115 over 90. And his heart rate stays at a steady 61 beats a minute, which, with the right tone on the machine, is just perfect to drive a person stark raving crazy, when listened to for four solid hours. His ‘resps’, in nurses short hand, seem to be holding at 12 a minute, which is pretty much where they were when the tube was doing the work for him. I could go into his ‘output’ volume, but there are some things even guys don’t discuss in public. Catch me in the locker room sometime, why don’t ya.

He’s a pretty quiet guy in a coma. He doesn’t move, he doesn’t skip a breath, he doesn’t even sigh. He leaves that up to Dana. Sometimes, like tonight, I get up here and just stand in the doorway a minute, watching her watching him. Six breaths, then a sigh. Light caress down the left hand, around the IV needle. Another sigh. If the light is right I can see the tear tracks running along her right cheekbone.

“Hey, sunshine.” I have to break the morbid feeling in this room, it’s bad enough with the silence.

She looks up and for a moment, the old Danie, my baby sister, is smiling up at me. “Hey, Billy? How was your day?”

“Boring. I need a ship,” I answer back, tossing my jacket over the tray table.

Another sigh.

“How’s the man here?”

Silence. She’s cataloging. Trying to decide what would be significant enough to tell me. Knowing that I probably won’t understand all the medicalese and really don’t care for in depth explanations. “A little better. They extubated him this afternoon. I’m glad, that way he won’t wake up fighting the tube. And I think he’s getting some color back.”

Sure, sis. Whatever keeps you going. “Yeah, I think I see that too. Not that I’m that much of an expert on the ‘before’ model.” I’m trying to agree, really I am. And I am glad about that damned respirator tube. It was giving me a sore throat just thinking about it. “Hey, Tara put a lasagna in the oven. You get first dibs, but there better be some left when I get home or I’m coming after you tomorrow.”

She gets up, but not without a quick kiss to the silent man’s forehead. “There’ll be plenty. Unless Matty goes through it like he did the tuna casserole last night. That child is going to eat you out of house and home, Billy.”

Thank you, God. She’s taking an interest in something outside of these four walls! It makes me giddy. I chuckle. “Then I really need a boat.”

“Or get yourself a farm.” She’s smiling again, but not at me. She leans over and whispers something in his ear. I can’t hear and right now, I don’t know that I want to. I can tell it’s just between the two of them. I just hope he’s going to listen to her.

Another quick kiss to his temple and then she’s standing and reaches up to give me a quick peck on the cheek. “I appreciate this a lot, you know. But make sure you call me as soon as there’s any change. I mean, if he wakes up while you’re here…”

She’s trying to be diplomatic, but I catch on. “He’ll think he’s gone straight to hell, right?”

She gives me a smirk, straight out of her teen age years. “Something like that, yeah.”

“I could sit here in a red cape and horns. See what reaction that might get me,” I fire back. It’s fun to joke with her again like this. It’s been too long.

“No, please, he’s had too many cardiac episodes already,” she grins back. “I’ll be back at 9.”

“You’ll be back at 11, and no arguments. Us ‘guys’ have things to talk about.”

She’s reluctant to leave, like always. I know she’s afraid that he’ll wake up when she’s not here. But she more afraid that she’ll go and come back and he’ll still not be awake. A rock and a hard place. I wish I could do more.

I wait until her footsteps are receding down the hall before I sit down. This is her chair. It’s where she’s slept the last three nights, it’s where she eats all of her meals save the one Tara can force down her, it’s where she exists for the 20 hours a day that she’s by his side.

I would really like to punch his lights out for doing this to her.

Oh, I know. It’s not his fault. Intellectually, I know that. Emotionally, I just see the hell he’s putting her through. But then, when it’s just the two of us, I can see the hell he’s going through and I feel like a number one asshole.

“Hey, Mulder. It’s me. Bill. Tara says ‘Hi’. Boy, I tell you, I heard a good one today.”

I ramble. I know he’s not really listening, so I tell him the latest jokes from the commissary, what the top brass are doing to screw the rest of us, the latest on the pennant races. Oh, and where we are in the home run derby. During our first night here, Dana told me he was a sports fan, has been watching the McGwire/Sosa race, has been rooting for Sosa even though he’s a Red Sox fan. Guess she knows as much about him as Tara knows about me.

I’ve been thinking about that, too. I’ve had time to think of it plenty. During the day, sometimes it’s all I can think about. I always knew my baby sister would find somebody someday. I never cared for the creeps she dated in high school. They were all too immature for her, anyway. And in medical school, boy, for a while there, I was scared she might be ‘swinging the other way.’ She never dated. At least, not that any of us knew of. Then she ran off to the FBI. She wasn’t even out of the Academy when she moved in with that Willis jerk. I met him once, hated him on sight.

She got rid of him, finally. Took up with that lobbyist, Minette, for a while. That almost looked serious. And he was an OK guy. Had a good job, treated her like a queen. And she dropped him like a rock the day she got paired with her ‘new’ partner.

Minette called me one night. We’d gone out for beers a couple of times, not like we were best buds, but we talked about Dana and what she needed in her life. Anyway, he calls and wanted to go out, grab some beers. I hadn’t heard about the break up, and he didn’t volunteer the information on the phone, so I said yes.

He wasn’t there to beg for my intervention. He asked me out to warn me. Seems he had some friends in the State Department and then knew all about Fox Mulder, FBI. He was a nut case, according to Minette. Couldn’t work with a partner, they all ended up getting transferred or… something. Slept his way through the clerical staff pretty quickly. And then, he went off the deep end.

Well, I learned early on that the best way to get a black eye in my family was to try and tell my sisters who they should and shouldn’t date. So if Dana broke up with Minette, well, that was her business. But this Mulder character…

But, as I said before, I didn’t go into this thing hating him.

Now, I’ve seen them together. Oh, this isn’t the first time. He came charging out like a knight on a crusade when she found that kid. Emily. Her name was Emily. Gotta remember that. Anyway, out of nowhere, he’s on our doorstep. Tara, big hearted, very pregnant Tara, makes up the couch for him. Like a member of the family. Pissed me off royally, but when your wife is two weeks overdue, you don’t pick fights.

I was a little too mad to give them much consideration at the time. I remember bits and pieces. Seeing them on the couch, watching the Christmas tree. His arm around her shoulders, and I’m pretty sure she was crying, but probably not. And at the funeral. I knew he wanted to stay right by her side, but he left her, went to ‘get the car’ he said. At the time I thought he was being a jerk, but now that I’ve had the luxury of time to pick that moment apart, I can see that he was giving her a gift. He was giving her space to grieve.

Pretty sensitive thing to do for a guy who’s a consummate asshole.

Speaking of which, I guess I’ve redeemed myself after that scene with Dana the other night. Mom called me at work today. She said Dana’s been calling every day with updates, but she wanted to thank me personally. Dana told her that I was really helping, that both of us, Tara and I were Godsends right now.

A Godsend? A little dramatic for my no nonsense little sister, but hey, I’m not complaining. It’s one of the nicer things she’s ever called me. Maybe the nicest.

I admit it, I was a jerk as a kid. But then, who wants a little sister tagging along all the time. Missy used to for a while, then we made her cry one time and she decided she didn’t want anything to do with us. But not Dana. We’d make Dana cry and she run under the porch or behind the garage and cry it out, then come right back for more. And after a while, she stopped crying. No matter what we did. That’s why I was so scared the other night when she cried in front of me. I hadn’t seen her do that since she was 7 or 8. But to this day, it wasn’t me who made her cry the other night.

Mulder made her cry, Mom. Mulder made Dana cry.

This circular logic is starting to get me dizzy. One minute, I’m thinking he ain’t such a bad guy and the next minute I want strangle the asshole myself!

If he’d just wake up, I think it would be all right. But until he does, I’m here for the evening. Even brought some work to catch up on.

Paperwork. You get some stripes on your sleeve and suddenly, they drown you in paperwork. I once thought learning to tie and untie knots was just as waste of time. We’re the Nuclear Navy! If it doesn’t have a computer chip somewhere in it, we don’t use it! But now I know what they were preparing us for. We were learning to untangle paperwork.

I’ve been sitting here, trying to catch up on this shit while Sleepy, the sixth dwarf, takes up space on that hospital bed. Somehow, I get the feeling that he’s hiding under all those machines. Dana says they have paperwork, out the yahay, it would seem. And he’s always ducking out of it, making her do it. OK, I can’t really fault the guy for that. Women are better suited for sitting in front piles of forms and computer screens. It’s their center of gravity, the reason they can pick up chairs from a bent over position and we can’t.

Or something like that.

I glance over at Mulder from my little ‘tower’ of bureaucracy and stop.

He moved.

Nah, it has to be my imagination. The guy has been laying in whatever position the nurses put him in and I’ve gotten lazy. I didn’t notice the nurse come in and move him. That’s all. It would be great, but it’s not time to call out the troops…

Shit! Damn! He moved again!

No, I swear to God, he moved this time. I was looking right at him and he sort of turned his head and I know I saw him swallow. Plus, his face looks animated, not still. Not dead, like it did look.

I hit the nurse’s button, and a voice come over the intercom. “Yes, Mr. Scully. Can I help you?”

It’s Patsy. I really like her, she’s very gentle. Tammy is younger and tends to be more rough with him. It amazes me that stuff like that is bothering me, considering who we’re dealing with here. But I brush all that aside. “Mulder’s… ah, geez… he moved! Get the doctor, I’ll call Dana, he moved! He’s waking up!”

Boy, that was a real ‘command’ voice there. My voice hasn’t cracked like that since high school. But I look down and shit, I’m looking at eyes looking back at me.

And he moans.

It sounds almost like a word. I lean forward a little and listen harder.

He says it again.

“Hell?”

I can’t help it. I burst out laughing. Just like Dana thought, he thinks he’s died and gone to hell when he sees me in the room with him. When I finally get hold of myself, I can see that he’s still giving me this look, like he’s waiting to be told if this is eternity or not. I can’t do it to the guy. I have to fess up.

“No, Mulder, but I bet this could be a new definition of hell for you, huh? You’re in the hospital. Mission Hospital in San Diego.”

He swallows and looks relieved. Then he jerks his head to look around the room. “Scully?”

At first I assume he’s asking me a question. “What?”

He clears his throat. All sounds are coming out a whisper and I can tell it’s hurting him a lot to talk. “Dana?”

There’s fear in his eyes. Then it dawns on me. Doh! He doesn’t know that she’s all right. He’s wondering where she is. He doesn’t know that he took the bullet and kept her safe.

“She’s all right, Mulder. She’s fine. She’s at home with Tara and Matty. I’m going to call her now. She’ll be here in ten, twenty minutes, tops. If you’re good, she might even sneak you up some of Tara’s lasagna.”

He relaxes back into the pillows, tries to swallow again, and grimaces.

“No… tomatoes. Not… right now.”

The door flies open and Patsy comes in with Dr. Nelson quick on her heels. I met Nelson two nights ago, when he stopped by for late rounds. He did the surgery on Mulder and has been keeping tabs on him since then. A nice guy, a bit young, but he’s doing a good job.

“Hi, Bill, isn’t? Now, what have we here? Well, well, well, hello Agent Mulder. Welcome back to the land of the living!”

Mulder gives the guy a look that I can well relate to. He’d love to jam his fist down the asshole’s throat at this moment. That much perky, nobody needs when they just woke up thinking they’re in hell, and their throat feels like some body used a sand blaster on it. The rest of him probably hurts, too, but the throat seems to be getting the best of him.

“His throat seems to be hurting him a lot. Is there something you can do for that?”

Three pairs of eyes turn to me, and one pair of hazel eyes looks totally amazed. Nelson nods to Patsy, Patsy goes out the door and Mulder is still looking at me like I’ve grown a second head. Which would probably be easier for him to believe than that I’ve just done something nice for him.

It embarrasses the hell out of me and I grab for the phone. “I almost forgot to call Danie. She’s gonna kill me for waiting this long.”

The phone rings three times before Tara picks up. “Hello?”

“Baby cakes, get Danie, quick. There’s somebody here who wants to hear from her.” I didn’t think I could get breathless just standing and talking on the phone.

“Oh, God! Oh, please! Billy, is he awake? Ohmigod, I’ll get Dana. She’s up giving Matty a bath.” I hear a muffled scream for Dana. Thank God, Tara put her hand to the receiver. Her voice gets kinda shrill sometimes. Not that I mind it, most of the time. Sometimes I have to work for that scream. But over the phone, well, it would have deafened me.

Tromping down the steps, I can hear every footfall.

“Bill! What is it?”

“He’s awake, Danie. He’s awake and he sure seems OK to me. Nelson’s here, but Mulder wanted to make sure you’re all right. Hang on, I’ll put him on.”

I hold the phone over to his ear and Mulder’s eyes get really bright and a smile replaces all the pain lines I’ve seen on his face. “Scully?”

I can’t really hear what she’s saying, but I take it that it’s all good stuff from the look on his face. He nods once or twice. Then he closes his eyes. He looks wiped out. Nelson touches my hand and I take the receiver back.

“Danie, I think we just wore him out. He’s asleep again. Why don’t you take your time, don’t kill yourself getting here. Here, talk to the Doc for a minute.” I hand phone to Nelson.

“Dr. Scully? Yes, I just examined him. Neuros look great, considering the pain factor.”

I would have listened in better, but Patsy came back with a good sized needle and I was watching her real close until she stuck it in the IV instead of his backside. I mean, the guy just got to sleep, for Pete’s sakes. Patsy looks up at me and winks.

“Dr. Scully was right. He does have ‘to die for eyes’.”

“I never really noticed.” Well, it’s the truth. I never noticed that she seemed to think like that, either. Nelson hands the phone back to me.

“Billy, I’m going to change real quick and be right back up there. He should sleep for a while, they just gave him a dose of Demerol. But I can take it from here.”

“Did you get a chance to sleep? Danie, you don’t need to rush back, he’s not going anywhere. Stay there, rest up. I’ll watch him.”

There was a long silence on the phone. “Well, he is more of a handful when he’s awake,” she admits with a chuckle. “OK, here’s the deal. I’ll lay down for a few minutes on the couch, but I doubt I’ll be able to sleep. Then I’ll come up. You need some time with Tara, you know. We can’t go neglecting the ones we love.”

I smile at that. “No, you’re absolutely right, Danie. We can’t go on doing that. I’ll see you in a few hours, then?”

“Yeah, about nine or so. And Bill, thank you. You don’t know how much this has meant to me.”

“Hey, what are big brothers for?” I hang up on her goodbye. I don’t really trust my voice at this moment.

I look over at the guy in the bed. He’s just sleeping now. I can tell because I see his eyes shift under his lids. His face looks more alive, too, even though the medicine seems to be keeping the pain at bay.

He’s a sorry son of a bitch, that’s still true. But if he can give me my little sister back, can he really be all that bad?

the end.

Next up: Mulder gets released from the hospital and he and Bill finally get to have ‘that talk’.

By Her Side 3: Talk of Changes by Vickie Moseley

Title: By Her Side 3: Talk of Changes

(By Her Side Series)

Author: Vickie Moseley

Summary: Bill and Mulder talk about Mulder’s relationship with
Dana. And a six pack of beer gets involved.

Spoilers: I’ve been haunted by ‘Never Again’ and ‘Emily’ so I sort
of explain them, maybe. No movie or sixth season stuff (since it
hasn’t started yet 😉

Rating: R (they’re drinking, their inhibitions are lost in the fog)

Category: V, H, UST

Disclaimer: I still don’t own any of these characters. I know, it’s
unbelievable, but it’s true. So, until I can buy 10-13 Productions
(I’d keep CC on, honest I would), I won’t infringe on their
copyright.

Archives: Yes

Note: This is the third in the series and it would help a lot if you
read the other two. It pretty much finishes Bill’s side of the story.
I’m toying with seeing how Tara sees things. If that interests you,
let me know. [email protected]

It all came up so sudden. After all the running back and forth to the hospital, and then when Mulder woke up, all that stopped. Our lives, well, Tara, mine and Matty’s, all went back to normal. Dana stayed at the hospital, then gradually, started working out of the San Diego Bureau office. She’s been coming to our place to sleep, and since she’s up and gone at daybreak, we really haven’t seen her that much. Until last night.

She came home early last night, all a flush. Dr. Nelson had decided that Mulder can be released. I think it’s sort of nuts, I mean, the guy was in a coma three days ago. Managed care, my ass. Anyway, Dana came in and was starting to pack, trying to call the airlines and get a flight. She hoped to get something direct to DC, and they’d have to go first class, since Mulder was still pretty bad off and would need the extra seat room.

I watched her for a minute and then felt my wife’s danty size seven and a half shoe come down firmly on my instep.

“Tell her they can stay here a day or two.” Tara doesn’t ‘hiss’ very often, but it was as close to a ‘hiss’ as I’d ever heard.

OK, confession time. Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I actually believed that Mulder and my sister would go straight to the airport from the hospital and I wouldn’t have to face him again.

I don’t hate him any more. I want that in the record. But that doesn’t mean I like him. And it sure doesn’t mean I want to have to wait on him hand and foot. Or worse yet, have my wife waiting on him hand a foot. I let him have my sister, I’ll be damned if he’s getting his hands on Tara, or my house!

Pretty stupid feelings, I know, but they’re mine and I’m sticking with them.

Tara had other plans.

“Tara, where will we put him?” Good question, and even a practical one since the bedrooms in this house are all upstairs, and that’s probably not on his ‘to do’ list yet.

“The bathroom is up there, too. We get him up the steps once and we’re set. He can eat his meals up there, and we can move the TV from our bedroom into the guest room.”

Guest room. Or, my study, as I more commonly refer to it.

“Then where is Dana gonna sleep?”

“In Matty’s room. Or I could set the cot up in the guest room for her.”

Matty’s room. Definitely Matty’s room. I’m only allowing this new found approval go so far.

“She probably wants to go home, Tara. They’ve been here almost two weeks as it is.”

And at that exact moment, God looked down at our happy little home… and spit in my eye.

“DAMN IT!” The slam of the receiver almost sent the phone to the floor. Tara ran in to see what the matter was, I sat with Matty on the sofa and tried not to look like we were cowering.

“Of all the times for a damned airlines to go on STRIKE!”

Oh yeah. The airlines strike. We’d been joking about it in the commissary. Can you say ‘Gotcha’?

So here I am, sitting in our minivan at the hospital entrance, waiting patiently while Dana and Tara bring Mulder down in a wheelchair. Matty is gurgling, chewing one of those teething cracker things that cover everything with goo that hardens immediately into concrete. The air is on full blast because it’s about 9,000 degrees outside. And I’ve had to cancel out on a meeting with BuPers about an assignment on a ship.

My life sucks and it’s getting worse by the minute.

Finally, they are here. Dana is pushing the wheelchair and she’s shaking her head. Even though she’s trying to look ‘tough’, she’s glowing. She’s just happy to be bringing him home in one piece, I can tell. She points to the minivan and Mulder nods, then sighs. I know how you feel, pal.

He’s not looking that much different than when we last saw each other. He’s still pale, still way too thin. He has to have help getting up out of the wheelchair and I can tell it’s hurting him to move that little bit. Getting into the car will be torture. I can’t stand it anymore, and put on the parking brake, then get out of the car.

“Let me give you a hand.” I move in front of him, get my arms around him and hear him moan into my shirt. “Sorry,” I remember too late not to touch the left side of his body more than necessary. After some unique dance steps, I ease him into the middle seat in the car. Dana shoots me a wink, Tara is looking at me like I might get very lucky tonight and I run around to get this show on the road.

Getting Mulder out of the car is a little more tricky than getting him in there. For one thing, Matty has managed to pretty much encase his left arm with teething mortar, but Mulder doesn’t seem to mind. He looks relieved just to be away from people with sharp objects. I take point, again, and together, we ease him out on to the curb. I can tell he wants to get to the front door by himself, but after a step, he’s more pale than he was a minute ago, and Dana makes a grab for him.

Surprisingly enough, that’s all the support he needs to get the rest of the way in the door. I get Matty out, only getting a smudge of the cookie goop on my sleeve and Tara takes him while I get the bags out of the back.

Mulder didn’t have that much of his own luggage at the hospital. Dana brought him his shaving kit and a change of clothes. The suit he’d been wearing at the time of the shooting was either evidence or garbage, so it no longer belonged to him. The rest of the stuff is medicine and all that crap that they send you home with, even if you just end up staying over night.

As I enter the front door, I see my sister, desperately clinging to a very tall person who is about to go over my staircase railing, head first.

“Let me up there, Danie,” I yell before the railing breaks and they both die from the fall. I grab Mulder, this time careful of his left side, and all but carry him the rest of the way up.

“You should have waited,” I tell her when she makes it to the top after us.

“I thought I could make it,” Mulder tells me with an embarrassed shrug. “I think I need to lie down, now.” He’s almost a dead weight in my arms.

“Sure thing. We made up the guest room for you.” Tara in control, with Matty on her hip, pushes past us and opens the guest room door.

I get him to the bed, Tara has the sheets pulled back and I help him lie back. He’s rigid until he settles, then he sort of collapses against the pillows. Tara fusses with the covers a little, then straightens.

“I’ll have lunch ready in about half an hour. Mulder, would you like something to drink, anything?”

He looks like he needs to go back to the hospital, if you ask me. But he shakes his head. “I’m fine, Tara. Thank you. I think I’ll just rest until lunch.”

I take that as our cue to leave. I put my arm around Tara and Matty and guide them out into the hallway. I say nothing as I pull the door shut behind us.

Tara is a whiz at cooking. She loves being in the kitchen, and I love just watching her work. Today, since we have ‘company’, she’s knocked herself out. She started minestrone before I left for work, but that’s for tonight’s dinner. For lunch, she’s made chicken salad sandwiches and I make sure she doesn’t notice when I sneak a chunk for myself and a little for Matty in his high chair.

Matty is a good baby. Especially when in a ‘covert operation’, like stealing a popscicle when we know ‘Mom’ isn’t looking. Tara has this thing about food and one year olds. It comes from reading too many baby magazines. Mom, my Mom, used to let us eat anything. I’ve watched Charlie finish off a bag of barbeque potato chips at the ripe old age of 2. So Matty and I have become quite the operatives in the kitchen.

Today, however, in all the excitement, Matty slipped up. While I was reaching for another forkful of the bowl of chicken, he figured he’d help me along by grabbing the napkin it was sitting on and pulling it toward us.

Chicken salad a la lap. My clean blue uniform lap.

I’m not happy running up the stairs to get a clean suit. I have meetings this afternoon, and I don’t need this shit. As I pass the ‘guest room’ door, I can’t help but over hear them talking.

“I hate imposing, Scully. You know how Bill feels about me. I don’t know why we couldn’t just go to the motel.”

Ungrateful little shit.

“I know, Mulder, I know. But Bill has been trying so hard this last week. He was with me all night the first night. And he was there everynight you were in the coma.”

That’s my Danie, sticking up for me.

“Besides, it serves him right to have to put up with us. He has been a shit to you in the past, and it’s time to rub his nose in it a little.”

Two ungrateful little shits.

I’m about to knock on the door and let them both have a piece of my mind when I hear Tara calling us down for lunch. I beat it into our bedroom and change before Dana comes out into the hall.

Maybe they’re right. Maybe I have been shitty to Mulder. I’ve gone over my reasons. Mom was always telling me I was too hard on the guy. It was pretty unreasonable to assume that he was personally to blame for all the tragedy that has befallen our family in the last five years. But I have to point out that if Dana had never joined the FBI in the first place, none of this would have happened. And if she’d joined, but hadn’t stayed partnered with Mulder, maybe a lot of the horrible things could have been avoided, too.

Why am I such a creep for wanting to protect my family?

When I get back down to the kitchen, our little munch mouth is chomping down on his chicken salad. Dana is right about one thing, this kid can eat! Dana looks at the iced tea in front of her like she’s wishing it was a vodka martini, and she’s yapping it up with Tara over Mulder’s stubbornness.

“He’s like a little kid, sometimes, Tara. I mean, he needs to eat and he absolutely needs to rest. But the minute my back is turned, he’ll be sneaking down those stairs, trying to figure out a way to get back home so he can go to work three weeks early. There have been times I’ve just wanted to…”

“Shoot him?” my gentle wife teases.

Dana gets a funny look on her face. “Nah, been there, done that. I just want him to do what he’s told for change. I just don’t want to have to worry about him having a relapse or injuring himself until he’s well enough to handle it.”

I grab a sandwich and hit the door. I’m late for the office, and he last thing I want to hear is how my baby sister intends to keep Mulder in bed for the next three weeks.

The afternoon drags by, mostly because I’m writing reports, kissing ass, and trying to get that ship assignment out of BuPers. By 5:30, I’m ready to call it quits.

I pull into the driveway, and I’m met at the door by my wife. A nice little homecoming, except she’s carrying the baby in one arm and the diaper bag in the other.

“Dana needs to get out a while. She’s absolutely obsessing and I think Mulder is ready to duct tape her and throw her in the closet. Mind if you guys have the house to yourselves while we take ShortStuff to Mickey D’s?” She doesn’t even wait for an answer, just reaches up and kisses my cheek. “I owe you big time, Billy. And if you’re real good, you can collect tonight.” That is thrown over her shoulder in a decidedly ‘Mae West-Lana Turner-Lauren Bacall’ sort of smoky voice.

Geez, she would use sex to get her way. It always works.

“What are we having for dinner?” I really don’t whine, but Tara is always accusing me of it. I think she’s probably going to do it again.

“The minestrone is in the crock pot, there’s Italian bread sticks in the oven. And I made a salad, it’s in the frig. Beers in the garage, Mulder does not get one, he’s still on painkillers. Dana made him some iced tea, it’s next to the salad. We’ll be home in a couple of hours. I love you.” Another kiss, this time blown at me through the air, and she’s piling Matty in the car.

The screen door slams and Dana is beside me. “Tara just needs a little time out. I volunteered to take her and Matty to McDonald’s and the mall for a little bit. Now, Mulder needs to take his antibiotic one hour before he eats, so make sure he does before you feed him anything. And absolutely no alcohol for him. For that matter, don’t even drink it in front of him, he’ll only try to talk you out of a beer if he sees you with one. And he’ll need to take his painkiller an hour after he eats. I’ve written it all out, it’s on the frig. And I left my cell phone number. Mulder knows it, but in case he can’t speak or is in too much pain…” She’s getting this look and turning to stare at the door a little too long.

I grab her arm. “Hey, I think it’s really great that you girls are getting out for a while. Tara needs to get a dress for a Halloween party we’re invited to, why don’t you see if you can find one.”

That drags her attention back for a moment, but she’s still wavering.

“Danie, he’ll be fine. I will make sure he’s fine. Believe me, if anything goes wrong, I will call you first and 911 second. It will be all right. Go. Have a good time and relax for Cripes sakes.”

“Is that an order, Commander?” She has a smart-aleck grin plastered on her face and she always was a mouthy kid.

“Yes, that’s an order. Now, get going. You know how much trouble you can get into standing between Matty and a meal.” I give her a swat on the backside for good measure.

And they are gone. I’m still standing on my front porch, wondering how in the hell I just ended up alone with my sister’s partner for the evening. Not that daunting a challenge, I’ve done it a couple of times just recently.

Trouble is, this time the son of a bitch is conscious.

I open the door and go upstairs, changing into shorts and a tee shirt. I think about going down to get a beer, but decide to check on my charge first. I walk down the hall and knock on the partially closed door.

“Is she gone?”

Interesting greeting.

I push the rest of the way into the room. “Yeah, they’re gone. I think I got rid of them for a couple of hours. Told ’em to find Tara a dress.”

“Remind me to pay you, generously.” It’s a relieved smile that he gives me.

“So, my sister’s driving you crazy?” I didn’t mean it to sound so much like an accusation, but I guess it came out that way.

“Bill, please understand. She’s only trying to look out for me. I know that. It’s just that she gets a little… forceful, when she’s in ‘doctor mode’ and I just get to the point where I can’t handle it anymore. Usually, by this time, I’m home and I can call your mom. This time, I had to ask Tara. Scully means well, I know she does, but…”

He looks sort of pathetic, sitting on a bunch of pillows. He’s not wearing a hospital gown anymore, just jeans and a loose shirt. He doesn’t look at death’s door any longer, but he doesn’t look up to playing a quick game of 21, either. I’m sure if it was me in that bed, I’d be climbing the walls, too.

“She always was too bossy for her own good,” I tell him. “And if you think you’ve got it bad, you should have seen her when she was a kid. If you tried to hide something from Mom or Dad -”

“She’d nark you out, right? I knew it from the first time I met her. But she’s not that bad anymore. Sometimes, she even…” He stops and just stares at the blankets on the bed.

I take that as an opportunity to break for the kitchen. I’m at the door when I remember. “Um, did you take your antibiotic?”

He sighs, not a happy camper. “Yes, I took my antibiotic. Exactly 47 minutes ago, according to my watch. That means I can offically eat in 13 minutes.”

Sheez, what a pain. “Well, it’s gonna take me at least that long to find the salad dressing,” I tell him and the poor sap grins at me.

I take my time in the kitchen, just in case Mulder will burst into flame if he eats two minutes before the hour is up. I take the time to down a beer, find both bottles of salad dressing – white and red, and fill two glasses with iced tea. Then I dig in the cabinet above the stove for the fancy wooden bed tray that Tara’s sister got us for a wedding present and we’ve yet to use. It’s been getting a work out these days, thanks to our houseguest. There is barely enough room for the two soup bowls, the bread from the oven, the two salad bowls and the iced tea. I stick the salad dressings and table ware in my pants pockets and head back up the stairs.

He’s got the tv on, watching sports. Cubs and Braves. And I thought it would be the end of the world before the Cubs would make it to post season play. Mulder looks up and then checks his watch.

“I can start chewing, but I have to wait 45 seconds before I can swallow,” he informs me, reaching for the tray.

“Not much to chew, it’s soup. So swallow real slow,” I warn him with a smile. God, I’d really hate to be laid up like he is. It has to be a monumental pain in the ass.

We eat in silence, both watching the game. He’s wincing and I would get concerned, but then I notice it’s just the runs being racked up by Atlanta.

“God, I hate seeing Ted Turner win,” he tells me, chugging down half the iced tea. He holds the glass out and gives it a hard look. “And I’d kill for a beer.”

“Dana would kill me if I gave you one. And Tara would help.”

He sighs again, but nods his head in agreement.

The soup goes down pretty well, I clear the dishes and put them on the tray to take down later. The game has become such a blow out that it’s gotten painful to watch.

And I just gotta ask.

“So, Mulder, you humpin’ my sister?”

Poor guy, I’m sure it’s not good for him to cough like that. How am I supposed to know that questions like that make him choke, and on iced tea for God’s sakes! I know better than to pound on his back, he’s got a shit load of stitches there and plenty more inside and on his chest. So I just sort of stand there and hope he recovers because Dana will have my balls on a platter if I killed him asking him a simple question.

“Jesus H. Christ, Bill!” he finally chokes out. “You trying to kill me here?”

“It’s a valid question, Mulder.” At least, I sure think it is.

“Well, the answer to your valid question is NO!” He leans back on his little pile of pillows and I think he may be needing the pain pill sooner than one hour after dinner.

“Why not? Are you gay?”

That gets me a look that could cook my liver.

“No, Bill, I’m not gay,” Mulder says through clenched teeth. Same look Dana gave me that first night. Like I just crawled out from under a rock.

“Is she gay?”

“Christ, Bill, if you have questions about your sister’s fucking sexuality, you fucking need to direct them to her!”

“So neither of you are gay?”

He’s staring holes in me. Too bad you don’t have ‘x-ray- eyes, Mr. FBI, or I would be dead. Cooked liver, cooked goose.

“No, Bill. To the best of my knowledge, and where it concerns your sister, that is limited, neither of us are gay.”

“Then how the hell did you have a kid?”

He closes his eyes and sighs again. I would almost feel sorry for the bastard, but I’ve been dying to know this for months.

“Emily wasn’t… she wasn’t ‘ours’. She was Scully’s child.” He chews on his lip for a moment and then swallows again. “And if you want any more information, you need to ask your sister.”

“So who is the bastard? Or have you already taken care of him.” This last I say with no malice. I’ve seen them together now, I have no doubt that if some fucker raped my sister and she had a baby because of religion or something, Mulder would put a bullet right between the guy’s eyes. The only real problem with that scenario is that she didn’t remember any of it, if it happened. And when she was gone, she was only gone for a month. I might not know a lot of obstestrics, but Matty taught me, babies take forever to come out. It’s not something you forget and somebody would have noticed.

“They didn’t… Bill, it’s more complicated than that.” But from the look in his eyes, he’d do anything he could to ‘take care of’ the bastard.

“More complicated than rape?” Yeah, Mulder, tell me how it can get more complicated than rape. Then it dawns on me. Maybe she loved the guy once. Oh shit. That would explain why Mulder hasn’t killed him. But why can’t she remember? Or is that a lie to protect the son of a bitch?

“She didn’t love the bastard, did she? This isn’t some weird ass ‘repression memory’ shit that is going to come back in ten years and she’ll end up in some nut house?”

“It’s not something I want to talk about, Bill. And please, respect your sister and don’t go asking her. It’s… it’s still a very sore subject. But believe me, I’m working on it. And when I get the opportunity, regardless of what it costs me personally, I will ‘take care’ of it.”

I believe him. I look at his eyes and boy, I’d sure hate to be the asshole who did that to Dana. His days are numbered. That’s a relief. I turn my attention back to the game. Seven to nothing, Braves. Shit.

“So, back to my original question. Why aren’t you humpin’ my sister?”

“Bill, go get me a beer.”

Part two

“Bill, go get me a beer,” he repeats.

I must look a little nervous because Mulder’s sighing sort of impatiently at me. “I haven’t taken my after dinner medicine. And if I’m gonna have to sit through this kind of interrogation, I need something to insulate me from the discomfort.”

How can you argue with that kind of logic?

“Better bring back a six pack,” he tosses out to me as I head for the door. “And grab a couple for yourself, too.”

OK, I gotta say it. I’m starting to like the guy.

I decide to limit our consumption to one six pack between the two of us, and in a jiffy, I’m back with six Miller Genuine Drafts. I hand him one out of the ring, he pops the top and chugs down a good mouthful.

“To the patron saint of brewers,” he says, looking at me and holding his can aloft.

“Salute!” I respond and join him in another good belt. Ahhh, that’s nice.

“So, back to the question, why aren’t you two doin’ it like rabbits? Isn’t my baby sister good enough for you?”

He blows a breath out through his mouth. “It isn’t like that. She’s too good for me, if you want to know the truth.”

“She loves you. I can see that everytime she even mentions your name. You should have seen her the other night, man. She was losing it big time when you were in surgery.” I see a guilty look cross his face and if it were anyone else, I’d probably regret bringing up the subject.

“I know that. I feel the same about her. We’re… we’re beyond close.”

“But no sex?”

“No sex.” He chugs again to drive home his point.

“So what do you do? Cat around on her?”

“NO!” He swigs at the beer again, and I realize he’s beaten me to the bottom. He reaches out a hand and I give him the rest of the ring. Popping another one, he stares glumly at the rugby game he found to replace the sad performance of Chicago. “No, I do not cat around on her. I don’t do anything. Period. Besides, Bill, truth be told, our line of work doesn’t give us much time for that sort of thing.”

I ponder that for a moment. I’ve been at sea, I know what being faithful is like. But six years? And I knew that when the cruise ended, Tara and I would be under the covers for a couple of days without food or water. It just doesn’t seem healthy at all to keep that much ‘tension’ going for that long. Then, a name pops into my head.

“So who is Ed Jerse?”

I can tell I’m hitting all the right buttons, now. He turns purple and I’m sure I’m gonna be calling 911 in about three seconds.

“Where in the hell did you hear that name?!” I have a feeling that if he could, he’d reach out and grab for my neck to wring the answer out of me.

“Dana mentioned it. The other night. When you were… when they had you in surgery. She said she threatened you by telling you that if you died on her, she’d find this Jerse asshole and, quote, let him fuck my eyes out this time, end quote and that this time her tattoo would read ‘fuck you, Fox Mulder’. She scared the shit out of me telling me fucking shit like that.”

“She was losing it,” he mutters and chews on his lower lip. “I thought all that was a dream.”

“So, who is this bastard?”

“Nobody,” he says a little too quickly.

“I’m not buying that. She’s my sister, I deserve to know.”

He’s getting red in the face now and I don’t really give a shit. It’s the truth. She is my sister, and I do deserve to know what she’s been getting herself into. Maybe this ‘beyond love’ thing is making her do stupid stuff, like run off and jump into bed with every two bit asshole who looks twice at her. I remember when Missy went through a period like that right after high school. I don’t want Dana going through that. It’s too fucking dangerous.

“She’s a grown woman, Bill.”

Shit, can this guy read minds?

“Ed Jerse… Jerse was a nobody. A mistake. We don’t talk about it. And for Christ’s sake, don’t say a word to Maggie! It’s was before… before we knew about the cancer. It was a shitty time, and neither one of us want to remember it. I’m surprised she mentioned it to you. She hasn’t brought the subject up since it happened. She must have been really at the end of her rope to let it slip like that.”

“It’s not like she meant for me to hear, really. She was just talking, she was scared to death. I don’t think she even knew she was saying it out loud.”

Mulder stops talking, just looks at the screen. I never could understand the rules to this stupid ass game.

“It was over a desk.”

I sputter my beer across the room.

“No, not like that,” he says kinda disgusted. “Not on a desk, ‘about’ a desk.”

I’m NOT saying a word.

“She’d never had a desk. In my office. I mean, she had a desk, a nice desk, in an office upstairs. And a filing cabinet. She used to keep my birthday present and her medical journals up there. But most of the time, we’re down in my office, our office, really. And I just sort of figured if she didn’t like something, she’d do something about it. I mean, for Christ’s sakes, she orders the pencils, she orders the printer paper, she orders the file folder tabs. She could damn well have ordered a desk if she wanted one. You’d think that would be obvious, right?”

I grab for another beer. This is certainly turning out to be more than I’d bargained for.

“And I really didn’t want to go on that fucking vacation. I just wanted to work. How the hell was I to know that she had cancer? She didn’t even know she had it yet. She goes out, stays the night at the guy’s apartment, gets a fucking snake on her ass, and then tells me it’s not about me! It’s not about the desk at all. What the hell is a guy supposed to think?”

I am real confused now, but I’m still not saying a word.

“A week later, I’m called to the hospital and she tells me she has cancer. It felt like somebody had shot me in the gut. I couldn’t breath, I couldn’t think. I didn’t want to believe it. She told me before she called her mom. And she was trying to be so brave, I saw that. She’s the strongest person I know, but she was working so hard to put up this stone front. She was gonna work. She wasn’t going to give up. She was gonna beat it.” He stops again, and grabs for another beer, his third to my second. “Those fucking bastards. I will see them dead. Someday, we’re gonna dance on their graves.”

“That’s what that chip was all about? How did you get it? Did they give it to you?” I’ve been wondering about that for almost a year.

“I stole it out of the Pentagon,” he says, like it’s something he does every day. “But if you want to know what I really think, I think they let me steal it. I think it was part of their plan. They didn’t want her to die, they just wanted me to know that they can take her at any time. Which is why we aren’t fucking like bunnies, Bill,” he sort of slurs with a smile. “It would be expected. And it would just give them one more thing to use against us.”

“Wait a minute, there, Mulder. The Pentagon? The Pentagon? Are you telling me…”

“I’m not telling you anything, Billy Boy,” he grins. “Just forget you heard that. It’s the MGD talkin’, that’s all.”

Now, I’m really confused. “I don’t see how caring about each other, giving each other some comfort, could possibly be used against you.”

Mulder shakes his head with a smart assed smile. “You don’t know what we’re up against. And you know what?”

I look over at him.

“I’m gonna keep it that way.” He belches a good one and downs the third beer.

“If she’s in danger, if the military or the government is involved, I want to know, goddammit!”

He’s shaking his head again. “Leave it alone, Billy. Leave it to the professionals.” He finds that comment extremely funny but not for long. “Christ, that hurts worse than choking,” he winces and grabs for his chest.

“You all right?”

“Nothing another beer won’t fix.” He reaches for a fourth and I hold on to the can for a second. “Scully, I might not look it, but I can whip your ass,” he glares at me.

“HAH! You and what army?” I belt right back.

“I’ll get your sister to hold you while I beat the shit out of you, swabbie.”

I’d respond to that, but I figure he’s probably right. I let go of the beer. “Are you sure you should be drinking that many, Mulder? I mean, you just got out of the hospital today.”

“So?”

“So, I don’t want you getting hurt. I don’t want to mess up your medicine.”

“Like you give a shit what happens to me,” he huffs and drains half the can in one gulp.

“Dana does. So I do.”

He stares at me. But by now, I figure he ain’t seeing that good. I’m probably the guy in the middle.

“You mean that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Cos, if my sister were around and she got mixed up with a pathetic loser like me, I’d want the guy dead. I’d figure I could help her over the grief, but she’d be better off in the long run.”

Well, that feels like a kick in the stomach to me. Nothing like having your own thoughts recited back to you to really humilate the hell out of a guy.

“Yeah, well, I’m just a more ‘sensitive’ kind of guy,” I tell him with a smirk.

“Yeah. I could tell that about you when you were telling me not to ‘bring work’ into Scully’s hospital room. Something about letting her die with dignity. That was real sensitive of you.”

Ouch. OK, maybe I deserved that.

“I didn’t know you then. I thought you were there to… Hell, Mulder, I was scared shitless that I was losing my only living sister. You can’t hold me responsible for that and you know it!”

“I’d never hurt her, Bill. You gotta believe me, I’d never hurt her.” His voice has gotten so damned tight it makes my throat hurt listening to him. I think the son of a bitch is gonna start crying. But I believe him. I fucking believe him.

“I know you wouldn’t, Mulder. Not if you could help it. But damn it, why did you step in front of that goddam bullet the other day? Couldn’t you just shove her out of range? You both could have walked away!”

“I didn’t think of myself. I just was not going to let her get hurt. It just happened.” He winces and rubs his left side. I can see the bandages under the tee shirt he’s wearing. “Pain and I are old buddies. I don’t mind it. As long as she’s all right.”

“You know, I was right. You are a sorry son of a bitch!”

He stares at me, surprised by my outburst, but damn it, he’s making me mad!

“Look, you fucking idiot, my sister loves you. That is a gift, goddam it. Do you honestly think she’d waste her life tagging after you if she didn’t love you with her whole heart? I may not like it, I might not want to watch it, but it’s her life and she deserves better than a black dress and a grave to visit! If I hear that you’ve put yourself in the line like this again, I’ll fucking walk all the way to DC and yank you out of that grave and fucking kick your dead ass all the way across the country and back!”

He’s silent. His face doesn’t show any emotion at all. Then, he tips back the beer, drains it and belches once more.

“Shit, Bill. I didn’t know you cared that much.”

“Bastard,” I say with a grin.

“Asshole,” he replies.

We’re even. I reach for another, but Mulder drank the last one. He’s looking pretty bleary eyed.

“Give sex a chance, Mulder. Women need to be held, too.”

“Voice of experience talking?”

“You’ve seen Tara. You think she’s smilin’ because of all the laundry she has to do?”

“You are a fucking prick, Bill Scully. You are telling me to fuck your sister.”

“No. I’m telling you to love my sister. And you already do that. I’m just telling you, if you keep her satisfied, she won’t go looking for any fucking ‘Ed Jerses’ anymore.”

“I might take that under advisement,” he says, and sort of slumps against the pillows. “I’m gonna really hate myself in the morning,” he says, and he’s out like a light.

I sit back and watch the last of the rugby game, then the soccer game after that. Mulder is quietly sawing the rainforests next to me.

I hear Tara when she hits the door. I realize with a start that I’ve missed her. This house just seems empty when I can’t hear her voice. Even when she’s mad.

Like now.

“Where in the hell did all these beer cans come from” Tara is tapping her foot, but with Matty trying to shove his teething cracker down her blouse, it really loses the impact.

Dana, on the other hand, is in rare form. “You better come up with something very fast, William Dennis Scully.”

She can’t be too mad. She forgot to use my Confirmation name.

“William Dennis Andrew Scully, did you drink all six of those beers?” Dana demands as she stands up with the evidence in her fists.

“Uhhhhh.” Rock and a hard place. Yup, that’s right where I am. Between a rock and a hard place.

“Bill Scully, you answer your sister, or you will be spending the night alone.”

Shit, there goes my evening. Sorry, Mulder, I’m narking you out.

“Mulder had four of them.”

“FOUR of them! My god, he could have lapsed into a coma with that much alcohol in his system!” Dana has pried open an eyelid and is shining a little flashlight into his eye. That would really hurt, if the poor bastard could feel anything.

“Go ‘WAY,” he moans and swats at the flashlight. Well, at least he’s not in a coma.

“He’s drunk!” Dana declares, like it’s some Supreme Court decision and spins on her heel toward me. “I told you specifically no alcohol!”

“Look, Danie, he didn’t take his after dinner pain killer. So he had a couple of beers! Give the guy a fucking break!”

Matty takes the opportunity to shout “Bucking Break!” and grin like a cheshire cat.

“Good work, Bill! I can’t wait till he tells that to your mother next time she calls!”

Mulder puts his finger up to his lips. “SHHHHHHHHhhhhh,” he hisses, finally running out of breath. “Can’t you see when a guy needs to rest?”

Dana is ready to blow a gasket. She glares at me, and I’m suddenly aware that although Mulder and I are getting along fine now, I’m back on my sister’s very short shit list.

“Tara, I’m going to have to sleep in here tonight. With all that alcohol, he might have an adverse reaction. I need to be close.”

She’s looking at me like I might have some objection to that.

“I’ll go get you another pillow.” I catch their shocked faces as I head to the hall closet.

It probably won’t happen tonight. Mulder is in no condition to perform up to standards. But that doesn’t mean that down the line…

Danie was right. He probably isn’t that bad a guy. For a loser.

By Her Side 4: Tara’s Tale by Vickie Moseley

By Her Side: Tara’s Story

(By Her Side Series)

by Vickie Moseley

Summary: Continuation of By Her Side, this time with Tara Scully giving her thoughts on the matter

Category: S MSR (discussions, not actions) Muldertorture, ScullyAngst
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: Die, Fowley, Die! Now, with that out of the way, I don’t own these characters or this show, because if I did, Mimi Rogers would still be in the unemployment line. However, since Mr. Carter has never been that good at writing season openers (Redux as a perfect example), I will calmly wait until the REAL season starts next week and in the meantime, not infringe on the copyright held.

Archive: Yes you may
Comments: Love some, thank you. Send them to me at [email protected].

Dedication: to Susan and Kathy and Donna and Windsinger and Sally and Katrina and Kronos and Esther and Luvmulder everyone who sent me their best wishes before and after the election. The 99th district’s loss is Fan Fiction’s gain… <VEG> besides, the people around here deserve what they got.
(Clearly Vickie didn’t place Muldertorture For Everyone high enough on her platform – x-libris.)

Note: This is a series and should be read as follows: Bill’s story, Tara’s story, Mulder’s story, Scully’s story and Bill again in the epilogue. The rest of it can be found at my wonderful website: https://vickiemoseley.mimicsmusings.com. Come on over for a visit 🙂

I’m not a light sleeper, usually. There have been times when I’ve slept through thunderstorms and hurricanes and once I slept through a car wreak right out side my window. But since Matty was born, I just sleep with my ears open, I guess.

Which isn’t all that easy when you have a buzz saw like Bill Scully sleeping next you. He wasn’t this bad before we got married. On the nights when he’d come to my apartment, when my roommate was visiting her boyfriend, he slept like an angel. He’d curl up and snuggle and looked like a little boy. Like Matty does now.

Marriage changes a lot of things. Now, Bill hogs the bed, hogs the covers, and snores to wake the dead. More so when he’s been drinking. Like tonight.

Oh, I can’t fault him two beers. I mean, geez, the guy works hard and he deserves to relax when he gets home.

Poisoning his sister’s partner. That I can fault him for! And believe me, he got an ear full before I finally let him fall asleep. He knows he screwed up, royally.

But it sounds like trouble might still be coming. See, while Bill Scully, Lt. Commander USN, sleeps the sleep of the dead, poor Mulder is in the bathroom, throwing up his insteps.

Poor Mulder. Poor Dana! She’s the one down there, holding his sides and rubbing his back. Pressing a wet cloth to the back of his neck in the hopes of easing the rolling in his stomach. She put a call into the doctor a few minutes ago, but from what I overheard, it’s damned hard to find a good medicine to use for a hangover. Especially when the guy wasn’t supposed to be drinking to begin with.

Mulder is not a quiet drunk. At least not when he’s retching. And I’m grateful that Matty sleeps like me or he’d be up squaling his eyes out from the noises coming out of the bathroom down the hall.

I have to do something. Since Attila the Lug here isn’t going to give me back my half of the mattress anytime soon, I might as well be helpful.

I go downstairs and consider my options. After scrounging around my cabinets, I finally come up with the chamomile tea. It used to help me when I was having morning sickness and didn’t want to take any drugs. It might help Mulder. I make up a pot and take it back upstairs.

Dana must have gotten him back to bed. I notice the bathroom is now empty and the door to their room is closed. I almost think twice about this little plan, and then I hear a low moan. A masculine moan. It sounds a lot like the wounded elephant they showed on the Discovery channel a few nights back. That’s all I need to push forward.

“Dana, I’ve got some tea, maybe that will help.”

Dana comes to the door, looking a little like death warmed over herself. She’s wearing her blue pajama’s but the sleeve is wet and looks like she wrung it out. He must have missed the bucket somewhere along the line. I try not to think about it while she lets me in.

“How’re you doing?” I direct the question at Mulder, but Dana answers.

“He’s miserable. But then, part of me is having a real hard time working up any sympathy.” That’s a bald faced lie, but I’m not going to cross her on it.

“It’s chamomile. I drank tons of it when I was in my first trimester. It’s great for settling the stomach.” I hand the cup to Mulder and get a chance to look at him. He’s positively green. And he’s clutching his stomach with one hand and his head with the other. If he had a third hand, he’d be holding his chest, too, I suspect. I can’t imagine that much pain.

Dana takes the cup from my hand and sits on the edge of the bed. She holds it before him and puts her hand behind his head, bringing it forward. “Just sip it, it’s hot.”

“What, think a burned tongue would really make a difference?” he rasps. But he does as he’s told. Slowly, he drinks about half the cup. She helps him settle back against the pillows.

“Better?” she asks him.

He thinks about it for a minute. “Yeah. A little. Wish you had something for my head.”

“Tylenol. The normal stuff, not the good stuff you should be on,” she tells him. Her voice is almost harsh, but her eyes are tearing up.

“I’ll take it,” he answered and closed his eyes. She reached over and took a small pill bottle out of the bag on the nightstand and shook out two capsules.

“You want water or can you take a sip of the tea?” she asked, handing him the pills. He opens his eyes, looks down and then nods toward the tea cup. He swallows back the pills and closes his eyes again.

“Great house you got here, Tara, but could you get it to stop spinning?”

I pat his leg and smile. “Just try to sleep, Mulder. Hopefully, it will be stationary in the morning.”

In a couple of minutes, he’s breathing more evenly and even letting out a gentle snore or two. Geez, and they aren’t even married yet! Or maybe you just don’t notice it when you aren’t married.

Dana stands up and stretches. “I think he’ll sleep for a while.” She starts to hand me back the tea cup. “Mmmm, that smells wonderful. Is there any left?”

I smile and nod. “Plenty more in the kitchen. C’mon, I’ll make you a whole pot.”

“Oh, Tara, you don’t have to. I’ll go get it myself. No sense both of us losing sleep.”

“Hey, I’m up, and I’m kinda thirsty, too. I drank so much of this stuff for a while, I haven’t been able to stomach it since then. But it does smell pretty good right now. … Unless you want to be alone?”

She shook her head. Since Missy died, I kind of get the feeling that I’ve stepped into the role of ‘big sister’. Missy and I were the same age, and I’ve got four brothers so I have some experience with siblings. But even at that, it’s often like pulling teeth to get Dana to open up. Getting the chance to talk to her twice in one night is almost unheard of.

We’d had a good time at McDonalds. Matty can easily down the chicken McNuggets and fries in his little Happy Meal, and helped Dana clean up her fries as well. Then he was off playing with the ‘ball pit’ and we were left to ourselves.

We talked about a lot of things. How quickly Matty is growing, when Bill might be going out to sea again. The next time we’ll be able to get home and see Mom.

And then the topic came around to Mulder.

“He’s still so weak. I hope he feels up to going home by the end of the week,” Dana told me.

“He just looked happy to be out of the hospital,” I’d told her. Truth of the matter, he looked about ready to climb the walls when we got there to pick him up this morning. But the look on his face when he saw Dana… I’ve seen that look before. I’ve seen that look on my very own Billy when he’s walking off the gangplank after a six month cruise.

But there was no way I could say that to Dana.

Oh, I know how they look at each other. I wasn’t so occupied with my labor and delivery to miss the silent conversations they kept having when he came out to be with her last Christmas. She’d told me over the phone that she was glad to be getting away for a few days. Then, the minute the trouble started, he was the first person she called.

I’m not a matchmaker. I believe everyone should come to those realizations by themselves. But it does drive me to distraction to see two healthy, strong individuals so perfectly suited for each other and they don’t have a clue about it.

Makes me want to tear my hair out.

But right now, I’m busy making a fresh pot of tea.

“I can’t believe he can be so monumentally stupid! I mean, the man has a degree from Oxford, for God’s sakes,” she was muttering, half to me and half to the walls.

“Obviously not in biology,” I murmur to myself, but flash her a smile as I pour her a cup of the hot tea. The fragrance is bringing back lots of memories. Finding out that I didn’t have the flu after all. That the years of waiting, of wanting a child had finally come to an end. The joy of telling Billy. Oh, and the frequent trips to the john to flush down my latest meal. But all in all, they were good memories.

“I love this tea,” Dana says with a soft smile as she takes another sip. “I remember Mom used to make it for us when we’d get the flu.”

I smile. That sounds like Mom. Mom, the tea maker. Mom, the blanket tucker. I wish my own Mom was still around, but since she died, I have Maggie.

“It’s a mother thing. I bet Mulder’s mom made it for him, too.”

Dana gets a funny look on her face. Not quite angry, but more than wistful. “I don’t know. Maybe, when he was little. When he was older… I kind of doubt it.”

“Well, then you can make it for him,” I quickly point out.

She smiles. “I do. I end up being quite proficient at ‘tea and sympathy’. When we’re stuck in quarantine, it’s often all I can get down him. He hates being confined, makes him claustrophobic. Then he won’t eat and that just makes the doctors crazy because they’re looking for abberant behavior and here he is, not eating, pacing the floor, not sleeping like a normal person. I end up almost force feeding him just to keep the doctor’s happy and then he gets mad at me for fussing after him.”

“Oh, I don’t think he minds it as much as he lets on,” I tell her. At least, not from what I’ve seen.

“But take tonight for example. I know he didn’t plan it, but how does it look? The minute I’m out of the house, the minute my back is turned, he’s shooting a six pack with my brother! And that alone is enough to make a person suspicious. You and I both know the two of them are hardly ‘best friend’ material.”

Personally, I was happy to find them both alive and relatively intact. I was certain that Billy was ready to kill Mulder last Christmas. Getting him drunk seems sort of tame by comparison.

“I’ve never understood what Bill sees in Mulder that makes him hate him,” Dana says, sipping her tea.

Ah, the dilemma. To keep the secret or show her the light. Decisions, decisions. But sometimes, the opportunity to reveal is greater than the need to conceal.

“Dana, hating boyfriends is the number one job of a big brother,” I finally let slip.

“He’s not my ‘boyfriend’, Tara. He’s my partner. We work together.”

Yeah, right.

“Dana, face it. You two are joined at the hip. When I talk to Mom and I ask her what you’re up to, the conversation never fails to include the name ‘Fox’ at least three or four times. Bill sees that, too. It’s a guy thing.”

“So why did Billy get him drunk? To poison him?”

I shake my head. I might be pissed at Billy, but I know he’d never intentionally hurt Mulder when he was under our care. No, something else was going on between the two of them, and it was deeper than a six pack of beer. Billy wouldn’t tell me what they talked about, just said they were watching the game, but his whole attitude toward Mulder has changed over the last week. I think he’s finally seeing Mulder as a person, and not just a threat to his sister’s safety. That’s a small miracle, in itself.

“I just think they were, you know, bonding.”

“Well, they can jolly well wait until Mulder is healed before they do any more ‘bonding’,” Dana declared and reached for the tea pot again.

We both jump out of our seats when we hear the shout.

“Dana, get the hell up here! QUICK!”

Dana runs a lot, I can tell. She broke a few speed records, taking those steps two at a time to get to the bathroom door ahead of me. Once I’m in view, I can see why my husband’s voice was so panicked.

Mulder is lying in Billy’s lap, eyes closed, a spattering of blood across his lips. Then he’s wracked with coughs and more blood sprays out of his mouth.

“oh my god!” I’ve never seen so much blood. I’ve never seen someone who’s bleeding internally like that. I never wanted to see it and especially not in my bathroom.

“I’ll call the ambulance,” I tell them, but Dana grabs my hand.

“There’s not enough time. We’re only a few blocks from the base hospital, we’ll take him there. Tara, get the car started. Bill, help me get him downstairs.”

I look at her in amazement. I would be hysterical if it was me. Hell, I’ve been hysterical, when Matty started to choke on a hot dog when he was 10 months old. I went beserk. I ran outside with Matty in my arms going blue and probably because I was shaking so hard, the hot dog popped out of his mouth and he started to cry. But I am not the person to be around in emergencies.

Dana is that person. She’s talking to Mulder softly, pulling him into a standing position. I realize that he’s awake, he’s just in a lot of pain. With that thought in mind, I race down the stairs, stumble at the bottom, turn my ankle, right myself after knocking into the phone table with my hip. I’m outside before I remember that my purse and car keys are in the hall closet. I run back in, grab my purse and I’m out the door, but as I look up I see Bill and Dana almost carrying Mulder down the steps. He looks awfully pale, and I hope it’s just the horrible lighting on the stairs.

I want to pull the car up on the grass, anything to get closer to the door so that they don’t have as far to go, but Dana lets go of Mulder’s right arm and is yanking open the back door before I have a chance to move. Billy helps him into the backseat, and Dana runs around and gets in the other side.

Bill starts to get in the front seat, but then I remember one small detail. Matty is asleep upstairs in his crib. “Billy, you can’t go. Someone has to stay with Matty!”

“Shit, I completely forgot,” he answers. He looks torn, but I’m already in the driver’s seat. “Call me the minute you get there.”

“I will,” I promise.

“Hang in there, Mulder,” he says and swallows. I don’t remember him looking that scared before. He’s still standing in the driveway as we pull out onto the street and I speed off down the road.

“What happened?” I finally have the courage to ask.

Dana is positioning Mulder on her lap, keeping him elevated. “I think it was the vomiting. Bill heard him in the bathroom, he must have gotten there himself. When Bill got to him, he was coughing up blood. That’s when he called us.”

“Is that normal? I mean, he’s going to be OK, right. He’s not going to…” I’m too scared to think of the word, much less say it.

“He’s not going to die, Tara. He’s going to be fine.” She’s staring at me in the rear view mirror and I can tell that she’s convincing herself of that fact as much as she means to convince me.

“Not going anywhere,” Mulder says, with a half smile, then coughs a little more. He grimaces and clenches his eyes shut. “Hurts, Scully.” God, he sounds so weak. I press on the gas.

“I know, Mulder. I know it does. We’ll get you to the hospital and they’ll see what’s going on. I imagine you popped some stitches inside, and that’s where the blood is coming from. Maybe next time you’ll listen when I tell you not to drink and take pain killers.”

Mulder moans a little, but I get the feeling it’s not from the pain he’s in. “Scully, I’m not in the mood to have you bust my chops right now.” This was said around a number of impressive hacks and coughs.

“Shhh! Quiet now. Just relax, take it easy. I can see the hospital, we’re almost there. And I’m saving up this ‘chop busting’ for when you feel better and it’s more effective.” I can almost hear the grin in her voice. It puts me at ease, but I still pull up to the emergency entrance.

The guard starts out to tell me that I can’t park here. I resist the urge to flip him off and instead jerk my thumb toward the backseat. “I have an emergency. FBI agent, staying at my home. He’s just out of the hospital today and now he’s coughing up blood.”

He looks in the back and his eyes get wide. “I’ll get the orderlies,” he says, running for the double sliding doors. In seconds, he’s back with a whole contingent of orderlies and nurses and they’re pushing a gurney. Mulder is loaded and through the doors in a split second. I start to go after him when the guard grabs my sleeve.

“Sorry, ma’am, but you still can’t park here. Visitors parking is in the front lot. Sorry, but I’ll have to ask you to move the car.”

“But Mulder… I have to go with my sister-in-law,” I try to tell him, but he’s shaking his head.

“We have to have room for the ambulances, ma’am. I’m sorry. It’ll only take a minute and you can stop at the desk and tell them that your brother’s in the ER.”

For a second, I’m ready to tell him that my brothers aren’t here, and then I figure out he means Mulder. And I also realize that unless I move the car and get my ass in the hospital, I’m not going to find either Mulder or Dana for a very long time. I put the car in reverse, pull out and try not to ride on two wheels around the corner to park in the visitor’s lot.

It takes forever to get through the lobby and into the ER. I’ve never understood why they insist on building hospitals like perverted bee hives. I can get to the ER from the back, but not the front and the only floor I’m really sure of is maternity. I’m sure we aren’t going there tonight. Ten minutes after we arrived, I’m find Dana.

“Where’s Mulder?” I’m trying not to be frantic, but I couldn’t help but notice how the medical staff rushed around him, moving like ants over him. You don’t do that unless there is a big problem.

“He’s getting an x ray. He’ll be back soon. They started him on oxygen.” She’s staring out the curtained area and toward a door at the far end of the busy ER.

There’s only one chair, and I’m not going to sit in it if Dana’s not sitting in it. I look her over. She’s exhausted. She’s been running back and forth from our house to the hospital. Even after Mulder was out of ICU, she still would stay at his room until he’d fallen asleep and then come back to our place only to be gone before we were even up in the morning. If she’s gotten 7 hours of sleep a night, it’s a miracle.

The worry is wearing her down, too. I could absolutely kick the crap out of my idiot husband for bringing the six pack of beer up to the guest room. I know how he is with ball games on TV. A beer is a requisite. But this time, his little idiosyncracy might have caused us more trouble than it was worth.

For a moment, I think that it’s just because I’m thinking of him that I see Billy walking into the ER. Then, I realize that he’s really here, and coming toward us.

I can’t be angry when I see him. He’s almost as pale as Mulder was when we first got here. He’s sweating a little, and he’s pulled at the collar of the tee shirt he threw on when he got out of bed. I bet if I looked at his hand, I’d see the telltale dots of blood on his cuticles. If he didn’t bite his nails all the way over here in the car, I’ll eat my hat.

He tries to smile when he sees me and I smile back and go to him. He really is a good man. I wouldn’t love a complete loser. Sure, he makes me mad sometimes, but he has a heart as good as gold. I know he didn’t mean for any of this to happen to Mulder. It’s not in him. He talks a good line, but he’s not a vengeful man, really. Right now, he’s scared and feeling more than a little guilty. I reach my arms around him and hug that heart for all it’s worth.

“How’s Mulder doing?”

“Where’s Matty?”

We both mutter apologies and he answers me first.

“Gloria saw the lights and then watched us get Mulder in the car. She came over right after you drove off and offered to stay with Matty while I came up here.”

Gloria Tanner is the wife of a Chief Petty Officer and our next door neighbor. They have two children, 14 and 11. I’m always teasing her that I wish I had even one that old.

“That was sweet of her. Mulder’s been taken to x ray. We should know more in a minute.”

Bill nods and looks over at Dana. So far, she hasn’t said a word of acknowledgement. He frowns a little. “Danie? How’s he…”

“Don’t ask how he is, Bill. We all know your feelings on this,” Dana snaps.

Ouch! I can see Bill’s face fall. I know Dana’s hurting, she’s scared right now. After being scared for most of the week, and thinking that things were finally going to be ok. But this is uncalled for.

“Dana, Bill didn’t mean any -”

“I’m going to see what’s taking them so long,” she announces, ignoring me completely. She doesn’t even look at Bill as she takes off down the hall.

I look over at Bill and his eyes are closed. He’s shaking a little, but I’m probably the only person who would notice. I put my hand on his arm and reach up to give him a kiss on the corner of his mouth.

“She’s upset, Billy. She didn’t mean to go off on you. She’s just scared and you were the easiest target,” I reason with him.

He shakes his head slowly, eyes still closed. “No, she’s right. She left me in charge, left him in my care. This is my fault.”

OK, this has gone on long enough. “Sweetheart, we don’t know that this has anything to do with the beer he drank.”

He’s still shaking his head. “I was there, Tara. I saw him throwing up. It was… bad, ugly. I’m sure something tore. He wouldn’t have been throwing up at all if I hadn’t gotten him drunk.”

Bill has always had an overgrown sense of responsibility. I suppose it goes with the territory when you’re the oldest boy in a Navy family. For our part, my dad was never farther from us than the back forty. He was a farmer, and he was always home. I know it was hard on Bill when his dad would leave for sea. He was just a little boy, but so much was expected of him. Even so, he’s way off the mark this time.

I push him, eyes still clenched shut, over and make him sit down in the chair. The man is entirely too tall some times. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I like it when he can reach the top cabinet. But right now, I want to be face to face. I have to settle for face to chest, since there’s only one chair and I’m still standing.

“William Dennis Scully. Look at me,” I say in my best ‘yes, I am a mother’ voice.

He looks up and a ghost of a smile forms on his lips. He knows this voice. He’s the one who made me a mother.

Now that I have his attention, I can talk to him. “Billy, this is not your fault. You gave Mulder a couple of beers -”

“Four,” he corrects me.

“OK, four,” I agree. “But I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that Mulder probably has had four beers before in his life. I mean, that just stands to reason! But Billy, look at this for a minute. He’s just out of the hospital. They gave him all kinds of medicine that he’d been getting through his IV but now it’s in pill form. Isn’t it just possible that one of those caused the trouble?”

He’s not buying it. But he loves me for trying. He reaches out and wraps his arms around me, burying his head in my chest. I wish more than anything to be home, in bed, holding him instead of here in the middle of an emergency room.

I look up and see Dana coming back. She doesn’t look happy. On instinct, I pull away from Billy. I can see his shoulders tense as he stands.

“What’s wrong?” we both ask.

She glares over at Bill and directs the answer to me. “They found the source of the bleeding. There was a tear in one of the arteries that they’d stitched up. He’s being taken to surgery right now. I need to get my purse and go up to the surgical ward lounge to wait for word.” She looks over at Bill for just a second, and I can see she wants to say something, but she doesn’t. Finally, she looks back at me. “You two don’t have to stay here. Mulder’s here for the night. I’ll stay with him.” She gives me a hug. “Thanks for getting us here so fast and in one piece.” She doesn’t even say goodbye to Billy, just walks right past him.

Billy looks like someone just knifed him in the stomach. I reach out for him, but he shrugs out of my arms. “I gotta get back home. Gloria will need to get the kids up for school. She said she’d watch Matty tomorrow if we needed her.” He turns away from me, and I know it’s because there are tears on his cheeks. “Stay with her for me, please, sweetheart. I don’t want her to be alone up here. Call me if you hear anything.” He starts walking down the hall.

“Billy,” I call after him and he turns, wiping at his face. “I love you.”

He nods slowly, sadly, and turns and walks away.

I love Dana Scully with all my heart. Growing up with four brothers, I would have killed for a sister. I loved Missy, too, but she was pretty much of a flake, God rest her soul. With Dana, well, we could always talk.

But at this moment, standing here watching my crestfallen husband, I’d calmly wring her neck, if I could.

She’s looking for someone to blame. I know that. I can understand that. When Missy was killed, I spent hours with Billy as he looked for someone to blame. Of course, most of the blame fell on Mulder.

At the time, I didn’t know the man, I’d just heard about him from Mom and Dana. I didn’t know if they were sleeping together, or just knew each other from work, but his name popped up in conversations quite a bit. It was actually pretty easy to blame him for whatever came up and Missy’s death was just as good a reason as any. But it didn’t take me long to figure out that blaming Mulder wouldn’t bring Missy back.

I think it’s time to let Dana know that blaming Billy isn’t going to help Mulder get any better, either.

Part two

She’s in the surgical waiting room when I find her.

I really hate hospitals. They smell funny, the lighting is awful and the chairs feel like they were packed with cement instead of batting. How anyone would want to work in one is beyond me.

Dana is sitting close to the double doors. I can see the tear tracks that form two faint white lines down her face. For a moment, I’m afraid she’s heard something about Mulder. Then I realize that this pain is all too familiar. I just saw it in my husband. She’s feeling guilty, too.

“You were pretty hard on Billy, don’t you think?” I ask, taking the chair next to hers.

“You married a prick, Tara. It’s about time you figured that out,” she growls, but the tiger has lost her bite. She’s just barely keeping those tears back from her lashes now.

“Does it run in the family?” OK, so that was below the belt. But damn it, she’s making me mad.

She looks at me, and I’d hoped she’d at least be offended. Instead, she nods her head. “I guess I’d have to say it does.”

That hurt. It hurts because I love them both so much and I hate seeing them hurt each other. It hurts because it’s not even about the stupid beers anymore, it’s about growing up and still hanging on to the preconcieved notions of childhood. It’s about a big brother who just wants the best for his baby sister, and a woman who just wants to be allowed to live her own life. When did it all get this complicated?

“Dana, Billy did not poison Mulder, and you know it.” I feel it’s necessary to say the words, even if I’m speaking to the walls.

She sighs heavily. “I know that. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mulder would have gone down to the kitchen and got the damned beer himself. If he’s in a mood, there’s no stopping him.” She sniffed and went back to staring the door. “But Billy didn’t have to help him.”

“Point taken. But you still didn’t have to be so hard on him,” I circle back to my original point. I wasn’t star of the O’Fallon High School debating team for nothing.

“I’ll buy him a bundt cake,” she says and a faint smile forms on her lips. I can tell an inside joke when I hear one.

“Want to let me in on that one?”

She shrugs and shakes her head. “Just something another prick told me one time.”

“Ah, a Mulder quote,” I reply. She shoots me a grin. “Hey, at least I’ve made an honest man out of my prick,” I tell her.

“Mine was an honest man when I found him,” she volleys back.

“Yeah, well, mine was a diamond in the rough,” I can’t resist.

We fall silent. I reach out to place a hand on her knee. “Why haven’t you told him?”

She looks at me in total shock. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she tells me, but she’s lying and she knows I can see that.

“Mulder. Why haven’t you told him that you love him?”

Dana stands abruptly and starts pacing by the doors. “What the hell is taking so long? It’s a simple stitch up job!”

I check my watch. It’s about an hour and half since we got here. “They’re probably taking their time, doing it right.”

She shoots me a look of pure disbelief. Hey, I let these people bring my baby into the world. Denial is all I have.

“We don’t talk about it,” she says to the doors.

“Talk about what?”

“Us. Our… relationship. It’s as if talking about it would make it disappear. You know, when you’re little and you make a wish on your birthday candles and you don’t tell anyone because if you tell your wish, it won’t come true?”

Yeah, I know that. But when did we start talking about wishes? Finally, the dawn comes. Wishes.

“So if you tell him that you love him, your wish won’t come true?”

“Pretty stupid, huh? But I tell him in other ways. I mean, I try to. I stand up for him, I’ve lied for him. I go after him when no sane person would follow. And he does things for me, too. Everyday, in the way he respects me, asks for my opinion. In the way he looks at me.” She stops talking and I realize she’s crying for real now.

I can’t sit here and watch her hurting like this. I get up and wrap her in my arms, her back against my chest. “Then I’m sure he knows. He’d be blind not to see it.”

“I need to apologize to Billy,” she sobs.

“Later. There’ll be plenty of time. I’ll remind you, OK?”

“Tara, I’m so scared,” she sobs into my shoulder. I could have guess, she’d like a piece of cold steel in my arms. Her shoulders are tight and tense and they’ve got to hurt. She wound tighter than a two dollar watch, as my dad used to say.

“I know, I know you are. But it’s all going to be all right. I promise, it will all be all right.” I truly believe that. I have my reasons, but I can never tell Dana.

Mom… Maggie, and I talk a lot. She talks to Billy and says hi to Matty and then it’s our time. And she tells me things. Last year, when there was so much craziness over that bombing in Dallas and Dana and Mulder were somehow involved, she called me one day when Billy was still at work. She’d had a dream.

It had started out scary, with Dana in some dark place, surrounded with ice. But then, Mulder showed up and he broke through the ice and got her out and carried her to safety. But that wasn’t the end of the dream.

The dreamscape changed and they were together. Standing together, but they were much older. Mom said they were standing in a cemetery and she was watching over them from somewhere above. Mulder, or Fox as Mom always calls him, leaned over and put flowers on a grave. She described him exactly. He had grey hair at his temples and laugh lines near his eyes. There were tears in his eyes, but he was smiling.

And Dana’s hair had gray in it, too. It was longer and pulled back. Mom pointed out that she wasn’t as ‘stick thin’ any more, and only a mother would think that a good thing. But Mom said she looked softer, not chiseled in stone like she tries to make us think she is. And off in the distance, Mom heard kids playing and shouting. One of them called out ‘Daddy’ and Mulder looked up and Dana smiled and that was the end of her dream.

Mom had a few ideas as to what the dream meant. I’m more likely to believe her theories than to make up any of my own. But one thing is certain: there is no way I can tell the dream or any hint of it to Dana. She gets nuts about dreams, especially Maggie’s.

So, here I am with all this good information, and I can’t tell her any of it, except to keep saying ‘it’ll be all right’. Which just makes me feel more helpless.

“It will be all right.” She pushes back and walks over to the chairs to sit down. “He won’t leave me,” she says defiantly. “Not after everything. I wouldn’t leave him, he won’t leave me.” Then, in a whisper, I hear her add, “I’m his one in five billion.”

How do I possibly answer that. I know she’s right, I can see it in his eyes every time she walks into the room. But she never meant me to hear in in the first place.

Now, I’m staring at the stupid doors. When the hell are they going to tell us something?

“Mom thinks I’m crazy.”

“No she doesn’t,” I respond automatically. That’s more lie than truth. Maggie and I have had this discussion, too and yes, she does think Dana is a little ‘around the bend’ for her lifestyle, her job, the friends she keeps. Oh, Maggie adores Fox, but she’d adore him a lot more if Dana had a normal job, didn’t end up in the hospital quite so often and would settle down and marry the guy.

Dana knows all this, too, apparently. She gives me a raised eyebrow look. “Yes, she does and you know it, Tara.”

Caught. Time for the truth. “She wants you to be happy.”

“I am happy.”

“The first time I’ve seen you smile in the last two times you’ve been here was when we went to pick Mulder up yesterday morning.”

She blushes hard. God, I’m glad I’m not a red head.

“It’s not like that, Tara. You’re making too much out of it.”

Dropping the subject has never been my strong point. If it had, I’d still be single. “For that matter, it’s probably the first real smile I’ve ever seen on Mulder.”

Dana sighs. I know that sigh. It’s her ‘just drop it, all right’ sigh and I’m not letting her get by with it.

“Of course, like you say, I’m sure he knows how you feel.”

She flinches. Not just a little sigh, like before, she actually recoils at my words. And turns her head to wipe at her face.

“No, he doesn’t.” I watch her as she gets up and starts to pace, still staring at the door. “He has no clue as to how I really feel.”

“Dana, I didn’t mean to pry…”

She turns a cold smile at me. “Yes, you did, Tara, and you know it. Face it, the whole family is dying to hear what the hell is wrong with us. We act like we’re two halves of a walnut and yet we’ve never said the words, never really told each other how we really feel. We act more married than most people I know and yet, we’ve never even…” She stops herself just short of giving me too much information and stands, staring at the door.

“Sometimes, you need to hear the words, Tara. Sometimes, actions don’t speak loud enough.”

“Do you need to hear the words, Dana?” I’m not asking that to upset her, I’m just getting a little confused here.

She shakes her head and the sound that comes out of her throat is almost a laugh, but more of a sob. “No, I’ve heard the words. More times than I could count. ‘You are my one in five billion.’ ‘You make me a whole person.’ ‘You are the only one I trust.’ And the list goes on and on.”

“But never just a simple ‘I love you’?”

She turns a sad smile at me. “I think he’s afraid of that one. I did shoot him once, you know.”

I can’t help but grin at that. But the look in her eyes tells me there’s a lot more to that story that I’m not likely to ever hear.

“And you’re telling me you’ve never told him those same sentiments?”

The sad smile disappears and her whole face grows angry. I realize after a second that the anger is directly inward, not at me. “He asked me to marry him once. I knew it was a joke, he was trying to distract me. But my response, it was so typical of our entire life together. Mulder opens up to me all the time and I take every opportunity to shove him away. Do you know what I told him when he ‘proposed’?” She doesn’t even wait for an answer. “I told him ‘I was hoping for something a little more useful.’ Just like that. So what if it was a joke? With Mulder, that’s how he deals with the most painful parts of his life. He makes them a joke. It’s his defense mechanism. I know that. And I use it. All the time. To make sure I never have to move. That it’s always him, moving closer to me, never the other way around.” She sits down. I don’t blame her. Her little tirade left me tired just watching.

“So move. Move closer to him. You can do it. You can do anything.” It’s what I’ve always believed of her.

She looks at me like I’ve just grown a second set of eyes. “I can’t. Don’t think it hasn’t been on my mind, but I can’t. I can’t tell him. All I can do… I tried to tell him once. I ended up kissing his forehead. And then he was going to kiss me back, and… that damned bee…” She’s pacing again. I’m trying to follow her train of logic, but I got lost a while back. “Why bees? Why a stupid insect?” She glares at me, like the least I could do is give her the answer to that one. I shrug. She shakes her head and goes back to pacing. “Aw, hell. If it wasn’t a bee, it would be some other damned thing. The water, fried chicken batter, hell, the air we breathe!” She’s working herself up again and we’ve strayed pretty far off course.

“Dana. Stop a minute.” I get up and stand in front of her so she can’t pace past me. She tries to move past me and I reach out and grab her arms. “Dana. Stop.”

Her lip trembles and she refuses to look at me, but she doesn’t try to break my grasp.

“Dana. You still have a chance to make it right. You still have a chance to tell him.”

She’s shaking her head and the look on her face is more painful than any I’ve ever seen. I’m watching her heart break right before my eyes.

“I can’t.”

I squeeze her arms, drawing her attention back to me and away from that stupid door. “The Dana Scully I know isn’t afraid of anything. Least of all is she afraid of the man she loves.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” she tells me and I believe her. “I’m afraid of me.”

Before I have a chance to ask her what she’s talking about the double doors open.

“Agent Scully. The surgery is over. You’re partner is going to be fine.”

the end.

Yes there is more–Mulder’s take on the next part. Vickie

By Her Side 5: Mulder Speaks by Vickie Moseley

By Her Side, Mulder’s story

(By Her Side Series)

by Vickie Moseley

Summary: By popular demand, Mulder gives his thoughts as he recovers from a gun shot wound to the chest. Same disclaimer as the other parts of the series

By Her Side: Mulder Speaks by Vickie Moseley

There’s a noise.

It’s not my alarm clock. It’s too slow. It’s steady and sort of loud right by my ear and I remember that I distinctly despise that sound and what it represents.

Skinner’s voice on the phone?

No, that’s not it.

My head feels really fuzzy. Like I’ve finished off that bottle of Old Overholt that’s been collecting dust in the back of my kitchen cupboard.

No, that’s not right, either.

Like… like when I wake up after…

Shit.

Now I remember that sound. It’s a heart monitor.

Goddammit all to hell.

I thought I got out of the hospital!

Shit. I wish I could think. I wish I could remember how I managed to get back in the hospital. I remember being here before. I remember waking up and seeing none other than Bill Scully, Jr. standing over me with this really shit eating grin on his face.

I remember thinking hell was supposed to be a lot hotter. And not so many bright lights.

But that was a long time ago. I got better. I remember that, too. I even got so I could walk a few steps without keeling over and I made the doctors mad enough that they agreed to send me home.

Oh, shit.

Now it’s coming back to me. I didn’t get to ‘go home’. I got to go to Scully’s brother’s house. Bill and Tara.

There’s something about ‘beer’ in here somewhere.

Fuck it. I’m too tired to think about it right now. I think I’ll sort of lie here and fall back into that nice little dreamless buzz world that is mine to inhabit when ever I really do myself damage.

Except, there’s that other noise.

This one is not mechanical. It’s entirely organic. Actually, it’s human.

It’s a sigh.

Scully’s sigh.

I might not have all my faculties about me yet, but I do remember Scully was royally pissed at me the last time I was awake.

It had something to do with that beer I mentioned earlier. And somehow, Bill Scully was involved. I’m not really good on the details at the moment, but I have a pretty good idea that Scully is still pissed at me. Whatever I did, I probably deserve her wrath. I almost always do.

I could just go back to sleep. But that’s the coward’s way out. Not that I haven’t taken it before. Plenty of times. I did it the first time after Ellen’s Airbase. Just sort of fazed out on her in the car. I wasn’t really unconscious, but it sure seemed like a nice place to be. And she left me alone. Well, until she found a hospital and emergency room and there were all those nice, sterile needles going to waste.

But I’m getting too old for that game.

Of course, opening my eyes is always the greatest challenge at a time like this.

After a few tries, and considerable internal straining on my part, my eyelids come unglued and I blink into the way too bright light coming from the window next to my bed.

Hey, I’m not in ICU!

What a nice surprise. But all the effort with my eyelids proved to be futile, since I’m facing away from where those sighs are coming.

Turn the head. Just… a… bit… and There! Made it.

C’mon, Scully. Look at me. I would love to call out to you, but I’m a little tuckered out at the moment.

I stare at her a little while. Finally, she turns her head just a fraction and she sees me.

“Hey.”

The smile. I live for that smile. I do, seriously. There have been lots of times when the darkness was a lot more inviting than the cold, bright light of living that I knew I’d have to face. But that smile. I knew I’d miss the smile Scully gives me every single time I wake up like this.

“H-h-hey-y-y,” I crackle back. Ouch. I really detest what drugs and pain do to my voice. From the soreness in my throat, I think I just missed experiencing my favorite torture device: the respirator. Thank you, whoever is listening for letting me sleep through that.

“Here, just a sip.” Scully’s holding a styrofoam cup with a straw to my mouth. Water. Will wonders never cease. This must be just for observation, first no ICU, now water. I might get out of here by tonight, if I piss off the right people.

The water is doing wonders, but Scully yanks the straw away too fast.

“Not so much, Mulder. We don’t want a repeat of Bethesda, now do we?”

Why does she always have to remind me of that? One lousy time, I wake up puking after I was dying on an abandoned and rusting USS Ardent in the North Sea. I don’t know what the hell those Navy docs were pumping into me, but I was puking my guts up for days. So now, no matter what the circumstances, Scully takes the opportunity to remind me. It never fails to make my stomach do at least a three-quarter turn. I give her a sour look, but when I swallow this time, it doesn’t feel like my throat is rubbing against itself.

“Where am I?”

“San Diego Naval Base Hospital. We brought you here last night. You were coughing up blood in Bill and Tara’s bathroom.”

Oh, yeah. Now I remember. Yuck.

“You had popped some stitches when you were throwing up.”

Oh shit. Now the beer is becoming all too clear to the picture. Four of them. Not Rolling Rock. I think it was Bud Light, and I usually don’t bother if that’s all that’s being served, but for some reason I did. Probably not the best idea I’ve had.

“Scully, about the beer…”

She holds up her hand to stop me. “As much as I’d love to blame the beer, that wasn’t the problem. You had a reaction to the antibiotic they send home with you. Not that the alcohol in your system helped matters…”

“Would it make you feel better if I told you about my headache and I swear never to do that again?” When in doubt, go for the sympathy vote.

She tries so hard to hide those little smiles, but I can see them in her eyes. “No, Mulder, it wouldn’t make me feel better. But you are never to do that again. It masked the symptoms of the reaction, for one. And it made it pretty dicey when they had to put you under again to stitch you back up.”

She’s rubbing my hand. Right under where the IV needle is taped down. That always gets sore, that little patch of skin, and Scully instinctively knows how to make it feel better. She’s always known how to make me feel better.

“So, what on earth caused you to consume four beers in two hours? And don’t tell me it was the game, I heard the sports reporters snoring while we were in the car coming home.”

Geez. Two ‘Scully Investigations’ in one night? Or at least one twenty-four hour period, since I’m pretty sure it’s not night any more. I don’t know if I can handle it. I think it’s time to feign some exhaustion, which isn’t that far of a stretch right now.

“I’m really tired, Scully. Can I sleep? Please?”

If I work at it, I can get a really sleepy look to my eyes. But then, with ‘good’ drugs in my veins, I really don’t even have to try. It just comes naturally. And I’m pretty sure it’s working, by the look Scully’s giving me.

“I know you are. You’ve had a rough week. Why don’t you take a nap. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Oh. And she’ll have had all that time to come up with new and better methods of interrogation. Maybe this isn’t the best approach. Maybe I should just tough it out now and if the road gets too rocky, I’ll really need that nap.

“Bill and I were just talking. I asked him for a beer and he got me one. He tried to talk me out of it, by the way, but I sort of forced the issue. I mean, it’s not his fault, all of this. Really.”

I wonder if she notices that I’m actually defending her asshole brother who would like nothing better on most occasions than to tear me limb from limb. The drugs might be working against me at this point.

A raised eyebrow. Pursed lips. Oh, shit, she notices. I’m dead.

“So you and Bill were just talking. Just a couple of guys and a ball game and a few beers, huh? Gee, Mulder, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you two were old pals.”

Scully, please, I’m in pain here. I’m on drugs here. Don’t do this. Not that it would stop her. I mean, if I were really in danger, she would never press the point. But it’s all too obvious that I’m out of the woods, so to speak and now she wants what’s coming to her: an explanation.

“The game was boring. You said so yourself.”

“So… what? You decided to have a beer chugging contest to while away the hours?”

She crosses her arms. I’m in deep.

“What were you talking about that required you to be ‘anesthstized’, Mulder? What on earth did he ask you?”

I have a big confession to make. I can’t lie to Scully. I haven’t been able to for a long time, probably all the time I’ve known her. I can hide things from her, distract her, sometimes I can even lead her away from topics of conversation if I think they’re going to be dangerous. But I just can’t lie. Especially not when I’m on the good stuff and she’s got my hand and she’s rubbing that little patch of skin…

“He wanted to know if we were, ah,… you know. Doing ‘it’.”

“Sleeping together?”

Duh! “Yeah.”

“And you told him…?”

“The truth! What do you think, Scully? I’m gonna tell the guy that we’re screwin’ like bunnies when we’ve never laid a hand on each other? Give me a break!”

“And that made Bill happy? I mean, he was satisfied with that answer?”

“Sort of.” The words just slip out of my mouth. Stupid drugs!

“He wasn’t entirely satisfied with the answer?” When you don’t get the answer you want, rephrase the question. Shit, and to think Ii> taught her how to do that.

“Well, he wanted to know… if I’m gay.”

To my joy and her credit, Scully smirks at that. “I’m surprised he didn’t ask if I was gay, too.”

“He did.” Oh, shit. I really didn’t mean to say that.

Narrowed eyes, the little ridge between her nose is more pronounced. Is there any way I can warn Bill off before he steps into this minefield? Hey, this guy has spent a long time making my life hell. Why should I warn him?

“He asked if I’m gay.”

Not a question mark in sight. I am sleepy, I am really, really sleepy. Just pass out right now and it will all go away. But I can’t. Now, I’m too nervous to sleep.

“So, Mulder. What did you say?”

When did life get so complicated? “I told him to ask you.”

A look passes on her face and for a moment, I think that maybe she’s a little hurt that I didn’t defend her sexual honor or something. Then, Scully the Warrior Princess comes forward and decides I can live. I felt the wind from that one.

“Anything else? Any other little tours through our private lives you’d like to tell me about?”

“He wanted to know…” I stop myself just before I enter into the whole discussion of Emily. Don’t go there, don’t ever go there. So I quickly come up with something else. “He wanted to know who Ed Jerse was and if he should go beat the shit out of him.”

Score one for the home team! Now it’s her turn to look flustered. Time to press the advantage.

“Where did he hear about Jerse from, Scully? I know I sure as hell never mentioned him.”

OK, this is mean. But dammit, she’s been picking on me. I know full well that she mentioned Jerse in a fit of… something. That she said it to convince me not to die in her lap. But it’s sort of interesting to me that she would use him in that manner. This is a little explanation I think she owes me.

She’s getting that flush to her cheeks and she won’t look me in the eye.

“Scully.”

“You need your rest, Mulder. Take a nap.”

“Running away, Scully? It’s not like I can come after you or anything.”

Continued in Scully’s story
Vickie

By Her Side 6: Scully’s two cents by Vickie Moseley

“You need your rest, Mulder. Take a nap.”

I didn’t mean anything by it. I am NOT ducking the question. The man just woke up after the second surgery in 7 days and he doesn’t need to be overtaxing himself. He’s in the hospital, for cripes sakes!

“Running away, Scully? It’s not like I can come after you or anything.”

Why is he the most hateful when he’s also the most vulnerable. I can’t hit him, I can’t even yell at him. He’s this lump in a hospital bed and if I so much as raise my voice it will appear that I’m browbeating him. I hate when he does this! OK, Mr. MachoMan. Mr. Testosterone. I’ll tell you why Bill knows about Ed Jerse.

“You were dying on me, Mulder, and I knew I had to use something drastic to get you to stay with me.”

He looks a little hurt at that statement. Well, actually, that is the reaction I was hoping for.

“I’d never leave you, Scully. Not if I could help it.”

Goddammit! He just keeps doing that! And I sit here after he’s offered me the perfect opportunity to tell him what he means to me and once again, I’m going to let it slip by.

“I know that, Mulder.”

I do know that. I’ve seen it, a thousand times. Everytime he’s come to look for me, everytime he’s been there for me, everytime he’s beaten the odds when he should have been dead. For a long time, maybe a year, I thought it was the search. I thought he was staying alive simply so he could find Samantha. I was almost positive that was the reason he didn’t go ‘sour’ in the ambulance ride from the docks in Raleigh. He’d lost so much blood, his B/P was dropping like a rock and yet he hung in there, he didn’t leave. I was certain it was the search.

I’m not so sure when that changed or even when I noticed the change. After Alaska, maybe. After seeing him flatline. I know I have no reason to believe this, but I felt that it was my touch that brought him back. Oh, yeah, and the defibrillator. But basically, I touched him, I remember my hand on his forehead. I’m not thinking I’m some ‘miracle worker’ here. I just think my hand, my touch made a connection to him and guided him back to me. I do know that’s what I was praying for all the time I was applying the paddles. That he would know it was me and that he wouldn’t leave me.

Like I didn’t leave him. Twice now.

So why the hell can’t I tell him that?

“Mulder, I…”

“Why Jerse, Scully? I mean, you didn’t…”

Shit! The man can be so infuriating. I was about to tell him… I have no idea what I was about to tell him and he brings that idiot Tattoo Boy back into it? And I didn’t ‘what’ with Jerse? Sleep with him? Not that again!

“Mulder, Jerse,… Ed,… there was nothing to that. Honest. And I don’t know why I brought it up to Bill or to you. Maybe because we’ve never talked about it and I knew you were upset by the whole incident. I wanted shock value, Mulder. Don’t try to make it more than that, OK?”

He swallows and nods. I really hate when he does that. It’s meant to be agreement with my statement. But when I look in his eyes, I know he’s just placating me. Letting me think he’s agreeing when really he’s busy analysing my motives, trying to ‘profile’ me on the fly, so to speak. I could punch his lights out for that, if he wasn’t already in a hospital bed.

“Mulder, really, it wasn’t about…”

“Me. Yeah, you told me that.”

He’s supposed to be doped up, that was pretty forceful. Maybe the drugs are wearing off. But the pain on his face has nothing to do with his physical condition.

“No, I wasn’t going to say ‘you’. I was going to say, ah, it was stupid and reckless and I still don’t know why I did it, but it wasn’t about… I mean, I held no feelings for him, you know. Can you understand that it wasn’t about…”

Love, stupid. It wasn’t about love. I didn’t love Ed Jerse. It’s so easy to think those words but so impossible to say them. If I say I didn’t love Ed Jerse, then it begs the larger question: Do I love Mulder. And yes, God in heaven, yes I do. But to tell him that, I can’t do it. I’m not that strong.

I look up from my inspection of my cuticles and notice that Mulder is nodding again. This time, I think he’s received the message. Maybe Tara is right, maybe he does know.

I’m such a fucking coward.

I need to get out of here. I get up to leave, but I feel his hand on mine.

“Please, Scully. Don’t go. Not yet. Not till I fall asleep. Please.”

In a few words he conveys a thousand messages. Pleading, fear, pain,… forgiveness. I know that if I sit back down, we’ll talk of other things, of going home and getting him back to work. I’ll start the conversation with my usual admonishment that he has to rest this time, that chest wounds are nothing to mess around with. That he’ll be staying at my place for several days, and he can just get used to it. That thought should terrify me after our most recent brush with ‘the topic’ but oddly enough, I feel safer with Mulder in my apartment than I do when I’m alone and just allowing myself to think about him.

But maybe I don’t want to let the opportunity pass us by this time.

“Why did Ed Jerse bother you so much, Mulder?” If he can play this game, so can I.

He’s silent for a moment. My hand has slipped into his again, and I’m rubbing the spot right under the tape from the IV. He scratches at it all the time, it’s his way of rebelling against the needles and the tubes. If I hold his hand and rub it, he can’t get his nails there and do more damage.

“It was dangerous.”

“A given. And I’ve already admitted that.”

“It was… It hurt to watch, Scully. It just hurt.”

“Mulder, I didn’t mean…”

He cuts me off. “No, I know. It wasn’t about me. It was about you. And the way you were feeling. You felt like you were trapped. And the cancer, the scare you got from Betts, I understand all that. For God’s sakes, Scully, I did graduate with highest honors in psychology, after all. I didn’t just play rugby for six years!”

I have to smile at that, even though he didn’t mean it as a joke.

“But you don’t seem to understand. It hurt me to watch you hurt yourself. Or try to hurt yourself. It hurt me because I didn’t want you to do something that reckless, that stupid, that dangerous,…”

He stops and stares away from me, somewhere toward the little closet at the foot of the bed.

“… unless it was with me.”

Now, he’s studying the patterns the crisp cotton blanket makes on his lean thighs. “Maybe it would be best if you go. I’ll get to sleep. I promise.”

The large lump in my throat can only be my heart. I know it’s a pretty tight fit up there, and it makes taking in air a bit difficult.

“Mulder, Ed Jerse will never happen again.”

He quick shifts his eyes up to face me. “Don’t make promises, Scully. You might not be able to keep them.”

“It’s not a promise. It was a one time thing. I did it, it’s over, I won’t do it again. I don’t need to do it again and I never will, that I know.”

“Scully, sooner or later, you’ll get tired of all of this. The work, the Bureau,… me. You’ve got to. People change, we grow. We grow together or we grow apart. Jerse wasn’t a problem as much as he was a symptom. A symptom of your own restlessness. Don’t hate yourself for being restless. God knows I don’t hate you for that.”

“Do you love me, Mulder?”

I wanted to stop his little ‘couch session’ and boy have I been successful. Get the defibrillator, guys, we may have need of it again. Mulder is looking at me with a slack jaw and a ‘Mom, I just saw an alien ship land on the front yard’ look on his face. It would be well worth a picture, if I had a camera, which I don’t.

I know what he’s trying to tell me. I can see it a mile away. It’s the old ‘go be a doctor’ speech, with a slight variation in theme. ‘Go be a prostitute, Scully, as long as it’s away from me.’ As long as you’re safe from Fox Mulder, it doesn’t matter what you do with your life. I really hate this little tactic of his.

And maybe now it’s just sinking in what I’ve said. I just asked my partner if he loves me. Saying words we’ve skirted since… well longer than I can remember. But even in the words, I’ve hidden myself. I’m asking what he feels, not what I’m feeling.

Mulder’s face finally takes on some animation. Good thing, too. I was ready to call in a crash cart. He’s looking at me with a sort of shocked look that turns into a sly half grin. I think I’m about to know how the canary feels when the cat figures out the latch to the birdcage.

“You want to know what we really talked about, Scully? Me and Bill? We talked about us. You and I. You’re brother…” He stops for a moment, and blushes. Mulder. Blushing. Maybe it’s an early sign of cardiac infarction, but I think it’s more psychological than physiological. Something is embarrassing him.

“Bill thinks I’ve been an idiot for not ‘humping’ your brains out.” There. He looks almost satisfied with himself that he actually said the words. “That is his term, by the way. Humping. I would have used ‘boffing’ in the same context, but hey, we grew up on separate coast, there’s no accounting for regional speech patterns.”

I’ve been taking in his rambling, but I’m not processing the information. I’m still stuck on the image of my brother telling my partner to screw me. In the biblical sense. Or whatever. And Mulder is still speaking.

“So you asked me if I love you, Scully. But if I answer that question, I’m going to require an answer to a question of my own. Can you handle that?”

My stomach, which hasn’t been in the best shape for a week, is now somewhere in my upper chest, just below my throat. My heart is a little squished, since my stomach seems to be pushing it further up my throat. My hands are sweating and I feel faint. Where the hell is the crash cart? Maybe I should call for one before he answers me, just in case I need it.

My voice is tiny, weak. Amost not there. “Yeah. Sure. I can handle that.” I swallow, but there’s nothing in my mouth. It’s the Sahara in there.

“Yes, Scully. I love you.” He says it surely. Confidently. Like he’s the one who brought the whole subject up. “I’ve loved you for a long time. I have tried, on repeated occasions, to tell you how I feel. I’ve never used the word ‘love’, of course. I didn’t want you keeling over in a dead faint on me.”

He reaches out with his other hand, the hand not punctured with an IV tube and rests in on top of my hand. “I talked to Bill. About a lot of stuff. And I’ve watched you. These last few days. Scully, I’m not leaving you. I know I’ve made you crazy and I’m sorry. But you don’t have to use Ed Jerse or quitting the FBI or even… well, we won’t go into the part about the prostitution and the drug overdose. Just know that you are the reason I will always come back. Always. I love you, Scully. Just being with me, you save my life. I can’t leave you. It’s impossible. You’re stuck with me. Always.”

With my free hand I wipe at the snot running down my lip. Water is coming from my eyes, too. So that’s where all the moisture went! I take my hand and put it on top of his. “I’m glad, Mulder. Because I love you. With every breath I take.”

I’m soaring. I’ve never felt this free. Never felt this unrestrained and light and… unbound. Yet bound. Very bound. To this man I’m holding hands with. Bound with silken threads that are stronger than kevlar, stronger than titanium. Impossible to break. Impossible.

I’m smiling at him now. I’m pretty pleased with myself. I answered his question before he could ask it. I have no fear anymore.

Until I see the look in his eyes. I’ve come to know it as ‘the evil Mulder look’. It’s pure six-year-old-with-a-frog-in-his-pocket mischief and it’s directly squarely at me.

“Scully, I’m very glad you love me. And very happy that you’ve told me. But you still have to answer a question. Remember?”

Hey, I can take whatever he dishes out. I hope.

“OK.” Where in the hell is that tiny voice coming from. “What’s the question?”

“Scully, why haven’t we ‘boffed’ each other’s brains out?”

Oh, yes. This one I can handle. Very well, as a matter of fact.

“Well, Mulder. I guess we just haven’t acted on our emotions yet. But if you would hurry up, get well enough to travel and come with me back to my apartment, we might be able to rectify that situation in about, oh, two weeks.”

Now, it’s my turn to play with that canary in the cage.

By Her Side 7: Epilogue by Bill by Vickie Moseley

Another beautiful day.

It finally cooled off, at least for San Diego, and the breeze off the ocean is just calling my name. Two more weeks and I ship out to Honolulu. If I play my cards right, after our cruise is back from the Phillipines, I can request some leave time at Pearl, tell Tara to pack that bikini she’s finally fitting into, and we’ll see if we can make the magic happen again.

Matty was conceived on a beach in Hawaii.

Maybe, this time we can pull a little girl.

Oh, maybe my good mood has a little more to it. We are all in the minivan again, but this time, we’re heading for the airport. After three more days in the hospital, Dana is finally taking her partner back to DC to finish his recovery.

There is a God and he answers prayers!

Don’t get me wrong. I have changed my opinion of the jerk, to some extent. Oh, I’ll be the first to admit that he’s a complete and pompous asshole. I’d be the first in line to break his jaw if I ever find out that he’s treating my sister with anything other than the upmost respect and devotion. And I’ll probably continue to make his life miserable, whenever possible. But I’ve also come to a conclusion.

He’s really not that bad for her.

That sounds like ‘any old screwball’ is OK for my sister, and there can be nothing further from the truth. In truth, I’m still battling that small voice within me that wants to tear the little shit limb from limb. Drawn and quarter, hanging from the yardarm, walking the plank and a few other mixed tortures I could come up with given more time.

But all this has been a learning experience for me. For us all.

I learned, to my utter surprise, that my baby sister really couldn’t give two shits what I think of the men in her life. That hurt.

But I also found out that she still loves me.

I discovered that the guy who has given me the impression that he’s systematically destroying my family isn’t really a monster after all. That he worships the ground my sister walks on and would give his life in a second to save her. Just like he did a couple of weeks ago.

But he’s still fucked in the head.

And it came as a complete surprise that when I let my ‘sensitive side’ show a little, and just give people a break, it’s an incredible turn on for my wife.

Almost made me wish for a longer stint on land. Almost.

So, here we are, at the airport. I park at the ten minute spot, close to the door to their terminal. Mulder still walks slow, he’s using a cane for support. The doctor assured Dana that he’s healing properly, or she was prepared to barricade the hospital door to keep them from kicking him out too early. Mulder just looks happy to be going home. He’s not as pale this time and he’s smiling easier than I’ve ever seen. Of course, he probably just can’t wait to get away from me.

It’s been kind of nice, really. On the way here, Tara wanted them to hear how Matty has learned the ‘e, i, e, i, oh’ part to Old MacDonald. Dana started singing the verses, Mulder started coming up with some pretty weird possibilities for the barnyard (werewolf here, werewolf there, here a wolf, there a wolf, everywhere a wolf, wolf) that had Matty in giggles and Tara and I in stitches. I haven’t laughed that hard in ages, and it wasn’t easy to do while keeping the car going straight.

Mulder still needed a hand getting out of the car. Dana obviously wanted to, but she was first in the car, so unless she wanted to crawl over him, she’d have to wait for him to get out. I don’t know why it seemed like such a big deal to her, but it did. I ended up getting to the door and helping him out.

I’m not a total creep, regardless of what my sister thinks.

Anyway, Mulder accepted my offer of help without a word and together we got him on the sidewalk. He really is doing better than the last time they let him out of the hospital. Stupid ass doctors, if they’d let him stay long enough to heal, he wouldn’t have scared us all to death coughing up blood like he did the other night. But all that is over. I hope.

We decide to say our goodbyes at the security check point. Matty is too wired to let him down in this crowd. He’d be off like a shot. So we stand for a couple of minutes, making sure they have everything. Finally, it’s time for them to go.

“Tara, next time we’ll skip the hospital part,” Dana says, giving my wife a big hug. Like a flash, it occurs to me. My sister has always accepted my wife. Even when we first started coming home, Dana and Tara always hit it off. It seemed so effortless on Dana’s part. Tara was just glad my family liked her. It never occured to me that maybe Dana might have seen it some other way. That she might not have accepted Tara at all, might have done everything in her power to keep us apart.

Sort of like what I’ve done to her and her partner.

Well, if the ground wants to cooperate and split open to swallow me right now, I wouldn’t bat an eye.

Dana is looking at me hard, like I’m a bug under a microscope. “You feeling all right, big bro?”

No, frankly, right now I feel like ten thousand kinds of heel, but I don’t think she’d understand.

“You look a little piqued. You better not come down with something before the ship leaves.”

“Must have been the hot mustard at lunch,” I lie. I take hold of her shoulders and give her the tightest hug I can manage. It takes a bit of shifting, but I lean over and whisper in her ear. “He’s a good man, Danie. Treat him right.”

She pulls back and stares at me like I just suggested the President is from outer space.

“Of course, if you tell him I said so, I’ll deny everything.” There, that’s better. She’s smiling again. She puts her arms around me one more time.

“I love you, Billy. I always will.”

I’m not gonna cry in a crowded airport. But damn the dust in these places.

Mulder and Tara are watching us and Tara looks like she’s gonna ask me how I am. I don’t really feel like lying to her so I reach out and take Mulder’s hand to shake it firmly.

“Try to make it all the way home without a major medical emergency,” I tease.

He smiles at me. He can take a joke, apparently. “That’s why they assigned me a doctor for a partner. Saves on insurance.”

Tara steps in and gives Mulder a hug. “Next time, let us know you’re in town before you go into surgery, huh, you big lug!”

Mulder laughs and Dana rolls her eyes. “I promise.” He reaches up and shakes Matty’s hand. “Keep ’em on their toes, little guy,” he tells my son. OK, so I wouldn’t pick him out of a crowd to be my kid’s uncle, but we could do a whole lot worse.

And they’re gone. Guns checked, bags x-rayed, and a wave over their shoulders and we turn to leave. Just for a second, I catch a glimpse of my baby sister, her partner by her side. I know it’s right. I know it’s where she needs him to be.

Tara puts her arm around my waist. “Six months,” my wife says as we head toward the car.

“Two weeks,” I reply.

“Two weeks! You think they’ll be in bed together in two weeks! That’s insane. They’ve taken six years to get this far!”

“Tara, you don’t know my baby sister when she gets her heart set on something. He’ll be lucky if he’s healed before she tackles him.”

Poor bastard. I almost feel sorry for him. Almost.

By Her Side 8: That Voice by Vickie Moseley

Title: By Her Side: That Voice

Summary: Bill Scully stumbles onto something he never wanted to see and now must learn to keep a secret… from his mother.

Category: S H MSR warning, but nothing graphic on the screen
Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: All characters mentioned were dreamed up by the big surfer dude and are now the property of 10-13 Productions. But they are sooo much fun to play with, so I did. But I put them back on the shelf where I found them. Besides, I think Pat Skipper would love my ideas <g> No infringement of copyrights, old, new or future.

Archive: Yes, please
Comments: This is dedicated to Brandon Ray and his patient little ‘reminders’. He gave me the idea for this one and now he has to take at least a little of the blame.<g>

By Her Side: That Voice
Part one

In my travels around the world, I’ve discovered something. No matter how old you get, your mother will treat you like you are sixteen years old.

It’s a great truth. I’ve noted it from San Diego to Singapore, from Baltimore to Budapest.

And it never had a truer expression than in my relationship to my mother.

What’s even a little harder to understand is why I invariably revert to the mind of a sixteen year old when my mother gets a certain tone to her voice. It never fails. I can only hope that my own beloved little Matty has the same problem with my wife, Tara. If that is the case, the little squirt doesn’t stand a chance. And I can sleep peacefully at night. He can never lie, cheat, cause trouble or get arrested if he knows he’ll have to face that voice.

But sometimes, that can be a problem in itself.

I was a little disappointed to find that the cruise I was to take was delayed for two weeks. Plugged toilets. Not something you want to deal with on the high seas. A disabled head is worse than a disabled captain. You can always let the XO steer the ship, but when you gotta go…

So, since my Captain was getting tired of having me pace a hole in his office, and the head of the plumbing crew was threatening mutiny if I called him one more time, I was sent packing to deliver a report before one of the subcommittees of the Joint Chiefs. Hey, at least it meant a trip to see Mom, if only for a couple of days.

I had no sooner walked in the door to her house when Mom had an errand for me to run. A kiss, a hug, and ‘Bill, do you think you could do me a favor’. It was only a matter of time, but I’d hoped I’d at least get a cup of coffee.

“Bill, your sister’s been out of town for a few days and I promised I would water her plants. I completely forgot about it until this morning. Since you’re right in the area on your way to your meeting…”

My Mom has a unique sense of distance. Sure, Georgetown is located in the Piedmont area of the Eastern Coast of the United States, but it’s not ‘right in the area’ of the Pentagon. It’s a full hour out of my way, counting on Washington ‘sludge’ traffic. And I know the area where her new apartment is located. There is no parking around there, none, nadda, zero, zip, zilch. Add more time, finding a parking space where my rental wouldn’t be towed.

But Mom was using that voice, and so I just smiled through gritted teeth and grabbed my briefcase. If I hurried, I wouldn’t be late for my meeting.

It wasn’t a horrible ride. It was sunny and not even that cold, though I knew the winter would be coming. I rolled the window down, turned the radio up and let the BW Parkway glide beneath my tires. I was almost surprised at how quickly I arrived outside my little sis’ apartment. I was shocked when I found a parking space within a block.

She’s moved to a nicer neighborhood, and I’m happy about that. No more apartments on the first floor. I wonder how much of her new sense of self preservation is due to her partner. Mulder would consider such things, I’m certain of it. Of course, he probably wouldn’t bother to consider the price range…

It’s not that I’m slipping in my opinion of Fox Mulder. I’ve decided that if my sister is going to work in the FBI, I would rather have him by her side than about 90 percent of the guys I could name. He’s laid down his life for her, I appreciate that in a prick. Even a prick like Mulder. Doesn’t mean I can’t see his faults, though.

Anyway, Dana’s place a nice little brownstone, with a couple of willows in a courtyard. Tara would get all gushy and call it ‘quaint’ and start rambling on about antique door knockers and walnut stair railings. Tara, the farm girl who loves to watch ‘This Old House’. I decided that if I got a chance, I should get some pictures to take home to her.

Mom had given me the key, so I didn’t bother with the ancient buzzer system. Besides, Danie wasn’t supposed to be home. I climbed the two flights of stairs, ignoring the old elevator, and found her door right around the corner. I let myself in.

And nearly dropped dead when a very naked Fox Mulder confronted me in the living room.

Looking back, it was one of those moments that you just want to remember. Or forget for the rest of your life. I was standing there, key in hand, not bothering to close the door.

Mulder was standing there in all his glory, wearing nothing by the Smith and Wesson pistol in his hand.

I think we both screamed.

Mulder made a dash for a couch cushion, and I have to admit that he did a good job of not dropping the gun on the way. I remember thinking that he was moving a lot better than he had the last time I’d seen him, two weeks ago.

I just stood there. My mouth was probably open, which would account for Dana’s greeting.

“For God’s sakes, Bill, close the door and your mouth!”

I did as I was told, more from shock than any desire to please my sister. Looking at her wasn’t much better than looking at Mulder, sitting on the couch with one of those foo-foo couch pillows on his lap. Dana, my little sister Dana, was standing in the arch to the hallway, wearing a man’s white button down shirt. It was buttoned in just a couple of places, mostly with the wrong holes, and left nothing to the imagination. She was even barefoot.

What she did next really threw me for a loop. She hurried over to the couch and sat down next to her partner and put her hand on his face. “Mulder, are you all right?”

Was he all right? I was the one in cardiac arrest!

I was in rapt attention, watching them. Mulder had his eyes closed, was breathing a little heavy. Finally, he opened them, looked at her and nodded. “I’m fine, really, Scully. Just moved a little fast, that’s all.”

I’m sure it wasn’t the first time that morning that he’d ‘moved a little fast’, but I was trying to push that picture out of my mind.

“Well, you shouldn’t be running!” I would have giggled if the circumstances hadn’t been so dire. The man was naked, sitting on her couch, and she was telling him he shouldn’t be running? He probably shouldn’t have been walking, if I was right in my suspicions. He was still on medical leave, and if I wasn’t mistaken, he’d been an active participant in some pretty strenuous exercise.

“Uh, Scully,… maybe Bill wouldn’t mind making some coffee and you could, uh, get me some clothes?”

Ordinarily, I would have told the prick where to stick the coffee, but I wanted out of that room as much as he wanted some privacy, so I trudged off to find where my sister hides the ‘good’ coffee. And a shot of Irish Whiskey which I knew was in the cabinet above the refrigerator. All Scully’s keep the Wild Irish Rose there, it’s tradition.

When I returned, with three steaming mugs, mine steaming more than theirs, order reigned. Mulder was sitting in the same spot on the couch, except now he was wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and a matching FBI Academy sweatshirt. My sister sat next to him, wearing a tight pair of jeans and a pink Angora sweater and had managed to stick a pair of sneakers on her feet. For some reason, I felt better when I saw that she had shoes on. I know it’s stupid, but it’s me.

“So, Bill, when did you get in?” Dana asked, trying for all the world not to sound like a woman just caught flagrante indelecto.

“This morning,” I supplied. Confession time. Now that I’d had a couple of minutes to calm down, the whole situation was striking me as damned funny.

“And you just happened to stop by, unannounced, with my key?” Dana continued, sipping her coffee and giving me a look I haven’t seen on her face in years. I’m certain if I said the wrong thing, I would have been torn limb from limb.

“I went to Mom’s first. She said you were out of town and she forgot to water your plants.” Aha! The tables were now turned.

Dana coughed, but I think it was to hide her surprise. “I forgot to tell Mom when I got in last night.”

I looked square at Mulder. “You probably had other things on your mind.” Score one for the Swabbie.

Mulder’s damned fun to watch when he’s squirming, but I had found that out before. “Bill, I know you think you know what you walked in on…”

“You mean you weren’t giving my sister a bare skin massage?” I asked innocently. Geez, the guy can blush like a choir boy!

“Bill,” Dana said in a threatening voice. “What we do on our on time, in my home…”

I couldn’t help it, I broke out laughing. They both looked at me like I was out of my mind and that just made it funnier. Finally, I had to say something. “Look, you guys, fair is fair. Danie, you’re absolutely right, it is your house. I broke in, it was my fault. And to be honest, I really don’t think it’s my place to cast judgement here. For the record, there are worse things you two could be doing,” I added with a wink to Mulder, who blushed even redder.

“You aren’t mad?” Dana asked, her voice getting that real high range it does when she’s confused.

“Not mad. As a matter of fact, I’d like to think I had a hand in this.” They both looked shocked for a moment. “I mean, I did suggest it, after all. Of course, if you ever do anything to upset my sister, Mulder, I’ll be honor bound to kick the shit out of you and feed you to the sharks,” I said casually.

Mulder grinned. “Of course. I would expect nothing less, Bill.”

“Good. Boy, talk about stopping my heart. You would have drilled me a couple times before I could have let out a yell, Mulder! So, what does Mom say about all this? The least she could have done was warn me.”

The room was completely silent but there was a hell of a lot of talking going on. Two sets of eyes, my sister’s blue, Mulder’s brown, seemed to be arguing full tilt. Finally, Dana broke her eyes away and looked over to me. “Mom doesn’t know, Bill. And I want to keep it that way.”

“Scully, I don’t like…”

Dana put up her hand and Mulder stopped like she’d pulled a plug out of a socket. “Mulder, we’ve talked about this. If we tell my Mom, I think we should tell your Mom. And then we won’t know who they tell and it could get back to the Bureau and we both know what a mess that will cause. It’s just too dangerous. Bill, you have to swear that you won’t breath a word of this to anyone. Not Tara, not Charlie and especially, not Mom.”

I could understand not telling Charlie. I mean we used to have an expression: ‘Tell a phone, tell a graph, tell a Charlie’. The kid couldn’t keep his mouth shut to save his soul. How he ended up in Naval Intelligence is something I still have nightmares about. But Tara? I mean, I won the bet, after all. She said six months, I said two weeks. I don’t win that many bets with Tara! I was all set to collect. That was going to be hard. But maybe if I just let it slip… I’d work on that one. The worst, by far was Mom.

I looked over at Mulder, who shrugged back. “She has a point, Bill. If the Bureau found out, well, they wouldn’t do anything to me, but it would screw Dana’s career chances. It’s not like there’s a written policy on it, but it’s still an ‘old boys club’ over there and they really look down on the woman of the pair when there’s a sexual relationship. I don’t want that to happen. Your sister’s too good at her job to have to put up with that kind of shit.”

When put that way, I could see their point. I was just going to have to keep their secret.

“That doesn’t mean I like sneaking around, mind you. I would tell your Mom in a minute, if Scully’d let me. But it’s her call. I hope you understand.”

I did, really I did. Hell, I’d been there myself. Tara and I started sleeping together before her senior year in college. We got engaged shortly after that, but we knew the wedding was a year off. That meant a year of keeping it quiet, not letting my family or her five brothers, in on the secret. God, I remember praying every second week of the month, even though I knew she was on the pill.

“How long are you planning on keeping this a secret?” I asked. I had to know. I needed a date when I could let the cat out of the bag.

Mulder shrugged and deferred to Dana again. She shrugged back. “We don’t know. We’re working on it. Believe me, Bill, I don’t like this either. But Mulder’s right. It would really mess up our professional relationship. We work so well together, we can’t have them using this as an excuse to bench us or whatever. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

I glanced down at my watch. “Shit, I have to get to a meeting. Look, your secret is safe with me, but don’t expect it to stay that way. Mom has her sources and I’m not the only one.” I remember Mom confronting me one weekend when I got shore leave about two months before our wedding. One little motel room receipt, somehow forgotten in my shirt pocket, and the jig was up. Mom was the one they needed in Naval Intelligence.

“We know,” Dana said, getting up to see me to the door. When she opened it, she pulled me aside. “You’re really OK with this?” she asked. For a minute, we were back in time, my baby sister asking if she could borrow my bike to ride to the beach.

I smiled at her. “More than OK. I told you, Danie, he’s a good man. Now, I better get going or I’ll be facing a firing squad.” I leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Better feed him, Dana. He’s gonna need his strength.” She socked me in the arm, but it felt good. I grinned all the way to the car.

The meeting went well. As I was leaving, I took the opportunity to find a phone and called the head of the plumbing crew back home, just to check on things. Need parts, another three days, at least. Before I was out of the building, my CO was calling to inform me that my stay was now a ‘shore leave’ and I was to ‘take some time to visit with my family, away from any phones.’ Well, that was clear enough.

I got back to Mom’s all set to take her out to a nice quiet dinner. Mom, of course, had other plans.

“They were dead, weren’t they?” I’m sure I looked pretty confused. “The plants at Dana’s apartment, they were dead, right?”

The plants? Oh yeah, the damned plants. Geez, I hadn’t even bothered to look at the damned plants. Dana was there, she could water them. If she could pry her hands off Mulder.

“Mom, Dana got back last night. The plants are in good hands,” I told her. “Hey, I’m taking you out to dinner. Name your pleasure, Italian, Chinese, Thai…”

“Bill, how sweet. Hey, since Dana’s back in town, let’s see if she and Fox can join us? Fox has been cooped up in his apartment for two weeks and I know he’d appreciate a little time out. And Dana’s been so worried about him. She deserves a break, too. Besides, Tara tells me you and Fox are getting along better now, and you were such a help when he was in the hospital.”

How fast could I drive back to San Diego? And my wife’s big mouth? The last thing I wanted to do was spend the evening with a couple of love birds. Especially when I knew they were love birds, but the other member of our party, our Mother, wasn’t supposed to know.

“Oh, Mom, I’m sure Dana’s tired after the trip. And Mulder probably has a special diet, still. He’s not that good about following doctor’s orders all the time.”

“Oh nonsense. Unless there’s some other reason you don’t want them to go, William.”

There is was. That tone of voice. That ‘what are you really up to William Dennis Scully’ tone of voice. I had to tread lightly here. Besides, with the two of them right there at the table, maybe they would act as a distraction for Mom. And Mom would never ask any questions about them with the two of them sitting there.

“No other reason, Mom. You’re right, it would be a nice break for them. Why don’t I call Dana and she can call Mulder and set it up?” It sounded like a rational plan. I mean, it would work. So why was my stomach churning?

Part two

Antonio’s Italian Restaurant, Bethesda. Nice place. Dana’s idea. And it allowed us to ‘meet in the middle’ instead of us picking them up. I was lulled into a false sense of security from the outset.

Mom loves Italian food. And not just spaghetti, which I figure she saw way too much of while we were growing up. Grilled chicken alfredo. I decided the lasagna looked good. Dana went for the baked mostaccoli and Mulder opted for a Tuscan steak, even though I distinctly felt my sister kicking him under the table. He took the kick, but still ordered the steak. I was actually beginning to like the guy.

“So, Fox, how have you been occupying your time while you’re on medical leave?” Mom asked after our salads had been served. I knew what he’d been up to, so I tried hard not to choke, and ended up sputtering lettuce across my breadsticks.

“I’ve been watching a lot of videos,” Mulder replied and Dana sputtered water across her breadsticks. I just knew I was in for an entertaining evening.

“Well, I have a nice collection of John Wayne movies, if you’re interested,” Mom said, giving both Dana and I looks that would have chilled our hearts as children. Come to think of it, that look still chills my heart.

“That might be fun. Westerns or war movies?”

And so we entered into a lively discussion of how John Wayne did some great Westerns and some passable war movies, but his by far greatest role was the ex-boxer turned Irish country gentleman in ‘The Quiet Man’. Mom’s always been a sucker for that movie. I remember having to sit through it every St. Paddy’s Day, even if it meant staying up past our bedtimes.

Dinner came and we dug into our food. I noticed Mulder had a little difficulty with his steak, or more specifically, his knife. Then, I remembered, hey, this guy had major surgery on his chest just a couple of weeks ago. I watched him for a few minutes and couldn’t stop myself. I started to reach over to give him a hand when a sharp pain struck my shin. I looked over at Dana but she was busy putting romano cheese on a breadstick. I reached out once more and the pain struck again. I realized it was Mom.

Mom looked at me and slowly shook her head. I didn’t know what she meant, I was just trying to help the guy. Then she looked at me, then to Mulder and finally to Dana. I was still pretty confused, but decided if I was getting out of the restaurant without major bone damage, I better just let it be.

In a minute, Dana looked over at Mulder. He was trying hard not to grimace as he pushed the knife across the piece of meat and it was making my chest muscles hurt just looking at him. She rolled her eyes and tapped his hand.

An amazing thing happened. I don’t consider Mulder a pansy. I mean, sure, he’s a prick, but I’ve seen him mad and he’s not what I would call ‘limp wristed’. But when Dana raised one eyebrow, he sighed and handed her the steak knife and fork. She smiled and quickly cut the steak into nice, almost perfectly equal little bite sized pieces. Then she handed the utensils back to Mulder and returned to putting romano on anything that didn’t move on her plate.

He let her cut his meat. In public. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d let Tara do that. No, on second thought, I’ve never let Tara do that. But then, I’ve never been shot in the chest, either.

My mouth was hanging open I think, because Mom took the opportunity to ‘call’ on me. “So, Bill, why is your ship still in port?”

“Uh, plumbing problems,” I said, not going into details over dinner.

She screwed up her face. “The worst. You can always let the XO handle the helm…” That’s my Mom. She should be an admiral by now.

“Plumbing problems on a ship?” Mulder broke in. Oh, shit, he was really going to ask. “What kind? A leak?”

Dana bit her lip, she’d already figured out what was wrong with the ship. Mom was trying hard to look nonchalant, since it was obvious Mulder had no clue as to the table discussion he was entering into. I swallowed and answered.

“Bathroom problems.”

Mulder thought about that for a moment, then the light dawned. “Ohhh, uh, yeah. I can see where that would be a problem.” He went back to spearing steak pieces and the only sound was that of mastication.

Again, I was congratulating myself on how well the evening was going. Here we were, the four of us, and so far, Mom hadn’t caught on that Mulder and Dana were ‘doing the nasty’, and I hadn’t made Dana mad, or had Mom yell at me for my table manners. I was beginning to feel like I was 38 years old after all.

The dinner plates were cleared and I’d actually convinced Mom to indulge in some black tie cheesecake, which Dana offered to sample, when the other shoe finally hit the deck.

“Fox, I know it’s not my place, but I’ve been so worried about you, rattling around that apartment by yourself. I really wish you’d take me up on the offer to come stay in Baltimore for a few days. At least until you’re fully back on your feet.” The look in her eyes, that ‘I’m a mother and I’m worried about you’ look, was enough to make me mist over. Mulder looked like she’d just knifed him in the heart.

“Umm, Mrs. Scully, umm, it’s a… well, it’s an incredibly generous offer. But I’m getting along fine, really. And I still have all those frozen dinners you brought over when I got back,” he said with a depreciating smile that I wish I had perfected as a teenager.

“That’s not what I mean, Fox. I saw how much using that knife hurt you. What if you fell in the bathroom? With Dana all the way in Georgetown… and what if you couldn’t get to a phone?” She was getting very adamant and it was really hard to watch. I mean, she was truly worried.

Now, a few months ago, I would have been ready to blow my top. I mean, she’s our mother, not his. But in the last couple of weeks, I’ve realized that, like it or not, Fox Mulder is now a part of our family. Well, as much as Charlie’s wife, and my Tara are part of the family. And if I want my wife treated with love and respect, I have to treat my little sister’s… ‘partner’ with that same… whatever.

So, I was feeling rather good about the fact that my blood pressure was almost level and I had the good sense to try and ease my mother’s worry. “Mom, don’t worry. He’s not alone. Dana’s right there…”

THUMP

That one resulted in a definite bruise and I knew I wouldn’t be running for a few days. My little sister wears shoes that should be listed as lethal weapons.

“What Bill means, is that I stop by over there every night after work, Mom. To check up on him. You know, Mulder never takes his medicine unless I’m standing over him. So it’s not like he’s there, all by himself, 24 hours a day,” Dana interrupted my sentence. Good thing, too. I was in too much pain to continue.

“And it doesn’t take that long to get from your place to mine, either,” Mulder chimed in and for a moment, I was afraid he was going to need crutches. Fortunately for him, Dana let it ride.

Mom was watching the three of us like a hawk. Or better, like a chickenhawk, staring down on the chicken coop. She could smell it. There was something going on and she wasn’t on the information pipeline. But, by God, she would be before the evening was over.

“Mulder. Hey, care to go to the men’s room?” I asked quickly, before Mom could come up with a line of interrogation.

Dana’s mouth dropped to the table. Mulder looked at me like he’d decided I really was the crazy bastard of the family, and he wouldn’t be caught dead in a room with me alone. Mom just raised an eyebrow in my direction.

“I mean, uh, I know you need some help walking sometimes, and uh, I…”

A really weird thing happened at that moment. I was staring at Mulder, praying that he would at least go along with me, and all of a sudden, it was like he understood what I was trying to say. It wasn’t the same ‘total communion’ kind of silent conversations he has with my sister, but it was enough for the moment.

“You know, Bill, that’s a very considerate offer. Yes, I think I would like to go to the men’s room.” And he started to rise, but put on quite a few winces and groans to make it appear that my offer was not out of line.

By this time, Dana was ready to go into orbit. She was trying to figure out a way to excuse herself and come with us, but of course, that would have been totally inappropriate. So she had to be content with squirming in her seat, sending invisible smoke signals to her partner from across the table.

We were in the little hall outside the men’s room when Mulder let me have it.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Bill? Guys don’t go to the bathroom in twos! That’s a ‘woman’s thing!”

“Shut up and listen. Mom’s on the trail of something. Now, it’s not exactly common knowledge, but if any of us have any investigative skills, it comes from Mom’s side of the family. Dad couldn’t find the way to the bathroom in the morning without a sextant and a computer chart. If you think Dana’s good at sniffing out the dirt, you’ve never met Mom on a good day.”

The light bulb went off in his beady little brain. “Oh, shit…”

“Oh, shit is right,” I agreed wholeheartedly. “We might not be sunk yet, but we’re listing pretty badly to starboard and our port engines are about gone.”

“What can we do?” he demanded. I have to say this much about him, when he senses danger, he is a man of action.

“You’re sick,” I told him.

“No, I’m not,” he argued.

“No, dumbass, we tell Mom you’re sick,” I explained in my best ‘I’m trying not to kill you but you are so damned stupid’ voice I used to use with Charlie on a daily basis.

He went a little pale and shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t, Bill. I can’t lie to your Mom. Not to her face.”

I narrowed my eyes and glared at him. “I could punch you in the chest. Then you wouldn’t be lying,” I sneered.

“I’ll fake it,” he answered quickly enough that he must have thought I was serious.

“What about Scully, uh, Dana?” he said after a moment’s consideration.

“OK, here’s the plan. You stay here and get your coat. I’ll go back in and tell Dana that you started feeling bad and you really need to get back home. She’ll come back here and you two can head back to her apartment. And for God’s sakes, don’t do anything in the parking lot, OK? Wait till you get in the door,” I said with a leer and a wink.

He gave me a look that told me he would shot first next time and I laughed and thumped him on the back. Bad move, because the pained expression told me that it had to hurt.

“Sorry,” I muttered and went off to rescue my sister. I could hear Mom and Dana talking as I walked up and realized I got there not a moment too soon.

“No, Mom, you’re being silly. We are not hiding anything from you. Mulder is fine. Really. The doctor thinks he can go back to work in a couple of weeks. He’s really being good this time, listening to the doctor and taking it easy.” Dana looked up and when she spotted me it was like I was Wayne Newton at Vegas. “Bill, you’re back,” she announced with delight. Then she noticed I was alone. “Where’s Mulder?”

“Dana, I’m really sorry, I hate to ruin your evening, but Mulder’s not feeling well. I left him on one of the chairs out by the door. He said he just got really tired all of a sudden. Maybe you should get him back to his place.”

Mother shot a look over to Dana like her worst suspicions had just be confirmed and got up from the table. “I knew something was wrong,” she declared and marched off the way I’d just come.

“What did you do to him?” Dana demanded, grabbing my sleeve as she headed off after Mom. I held my place and put my hand on her shoulder, holding her back.

“I didn’t touch him. He’s fine, really. I just knew Mom was going to spend the rest of the evening on a fishing expedition and I wanted you two to make your getaway before things got out of hand,” I assured her.

“Well, if you hadn’t opened your big mouth,” Dana accused, “she wouldn’t be suspicious! Besides, she’s way off course. She thinks Mulder injury was more serious than we let her know. She’s afraid he’s pushing himself too hard to get back to work and he’s going to have a relapse. She isn’t anywhere near thinking that we’re sleeping together,” Dana hissed as she shook off my hand. “And now that he’s acting sick, she thinks I really have been lying to her!”

I said the only thing I could think of. “Opps?”

“Damn it, Billy. I just wish you’d learn to keep your mouth shut,” she growled.

“Hey, you’re the one with the deep, dark, secret, here, Short Stuff!” I hissed back. “If you’d just tell Mom that you and Mulder are screwin’ around…”

She balled up her fist and for a moment, I swear, I was sure my sister was gonna let me have it right in the middle of the restaurant. But she’s a lady. At least, that’s what Mom has always told her.

“Just you wait, Bill Scully. It’s gonna come someday, and when it does, it’s not going to be pretty,” she promised through perfectly straight clenched teeth. Great. My sister has a hit out on me and I was just trying to help.

I was one step behind her when we caught up to Mom and Mulder. Poor Mulder, I really did feel sorry for him. I knew it was the stress of ‘playing sick’ around Mom, but he was white as a sheet and I think his hands were trembling. For all the world, he did look like he was going to pass out right then and there. Mom was all over him like wax on a kitchen floor.

“Fox, I won’t hear another word. We’re taking you passed the emergency room and if they don’t keep you, you’re coming back to my house where I can make sure you’re getting the rest you need. You are not a teenager anymore, you know. Getting shot in the chest…” She stopped and one of the tears that had been clinging to her lashes took a nosedive and raced down her face. I felt about two inches tall when I realized that my little game was making my mother cry.

Apparently, it had the same affect on Mulder. “Mrs. Scully, Maggie,” he said, grabbing her hand in both of his. “Please. There’s nothing to be so upset about. I just… I just pushed it a little too hard tonight. I just wanted to have a nice evening with you and Dana and…” I’m pretty sure he choked on this one, “Bill. You’re right, though. Maybe I do need someone to look after me.” He stared hard at Dana.

The moment of truth. Oh my God, I thought the asshole was agnostic. Here he was, sitting on an overstuffed chair in the lobby of Antonio’s and he was about to go to confession. He couldn’t lie to my mother, either. My God, did the voice work on everyone?

Dana saw it too and was trying all the non-verbal voo doo looks she could muster to seal his mouth shut. All to no avail, he was looking only at my mother.

“I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have looking out for me for a couple of days… then you,” he said, giving her hand a light kiss. “I would really like to come to Baltimore. Maybe just till the weekend.”

I’ll be damned if the little shit didn’t get us all out of hot water. Dana started breathing again. I figured I was safe, at least until I got back to San Diego and then I’d just make sure I didn’t talk to Mom too long when we made our bi-monthly phone calls home. Everything was going to be all right.

“That’s wonderful, Fox,” Mom said, pulling him up and into a hug. He hugged her back and when it started to get embarrassing, he pulled back and handed his coat to Dana, who helped him put it on. The rest of us got our coats and headed out the door. I was thinking things couldn’t have been better.

“Fox, it will be good for you,” Mom was saying as I held open the door for her. “You’ll get the rest you need, I’ll put a little meat on those bones. You and Bill can share the boys room. You can sleep in Charlie’s old bed.”

Well, it would have been too much to hope for, everything turning out all right.

By Her Side 9: The Edict by Vickie Moseley

Title: By Her Side 9: The Edict (six parts)
Author: Vickie Moseley

Summary: Continuation of the By Her Side series. Bill put his foot in his mouth and Mulder has to stay at Maggie’s house, sharing a room with him.

Category: S H MRS

Spoilers: Not many, just general knowledge

Rating: PG, only used the really bad word once

Disclaimer: I don’t own them, Fox, Dana, Maggie, Bill or Charlie. I do claim the tree, since CC didn’t think of that one. And neither of us own God. So I won’t infringe on CC’s or God’s copyrights.

Archives: Anywhere the series is and any where else you want, just ask 🙂

Comments: Back at gunpoint <g> er, I mean by popular demand, Bill Scully, the reformed jerk. And one of these days, Maggie gets to have her say, but not this time 🙂

By Her Side: The Edict
Part one

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been… aw, I know I went to Confession sometime before the wedding…

Face it, God, this isn’t really a formal Confession. I’m saving that for when I finally get this whole mess untangled in my mind. I refuse to have a sit down with Father McCue listening in until I know exactly what I’m charged with. I know that I’m being punished for a whole slew of sins, but to be honest, I’m running down the ‘big Ten’ and I’m having a hard time putting some of my infractions in categories.

The big one is obvious. ‘Thou shalt not lie.’ OK, I realize I’ve broken that one. Hell, I’ve run over that one with a steam roller! But God, and I’m not trying to get ‘Jesuit’ on you or anything with a bunch of what ifs, but is it really a sin if you are telling the lie to protect someone you love? Someone or someones who really need your protection?

Remember, in The Sound of Music when the old nuns are standing there while Maria and the Captain and all those kids are hiding in among the graves and the one old nun tells the Nazis that the Von Trapps aren’t there? Now, give it to me straight, God. Was that really a sin?

Not that Mulder and my baby sister are in any way to be compared to Maria and Captain Von Trapp. Or even that snot nosed kid Kirk or what ever the hell his name was. Now Dana, she might be compared to Lisle or Leslie or what’s her face. She gets all dewy eyed sometimes lately and to tell the truth, it’s been kind of fun to watch. But Mulder… well, I’m at a complete loss. Maybe Max, the dumbass producer. Hell, I don’t know. And I would never, God, never in a million years compare my mother to the SS. Well, maybe in efficiency and ability to get the truth out of an informant/prisoner. But just because she’s so good at it, God. Not because she’s ruthless or evil or… where the hell was I?

Oh, yeah, so did I really break that Commandment? I mean, my soul’s waiting for an answer here, God, so give me a handle on this, please.

It seemed like a punishment without a crime from the start. I felt that through the evening I had done a stellar job of ‘honoring my mother’. I was the one who suggested we go out to dinner and I didn’t even balk too much when Mom decided to have Dana and her appendage, ur, I mean ‘partner’, come along. I even did a pretty fair job of ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ assuming anybody would consider Mulder to be my neighbor. I have become privy to a secret. A really big secret that means a lot to my sister and her partner. I found out, and am completely OK with it, that my sister is in love with her partner. And they are actively… well, God, that’s really for Dana to confess, but I’m sure you get the picture.

Now, all that is fine and dandy, most of the time. Dana doesn’t live at home, she’s not really breaking that ‘first rule of dating’ edict that Dad handed out to each of us when we were 14. Mine and Charlie’s went something like ‘you don’t screw around until you’re married. But if you do, you don’t do it in this house!’ Missy told me, after her little talk, that the girls received a much shorter version. ‘You don’t screw around until you’re married!’ She broke that one the next week. Dana, on the other hand, St. Dana was never a worry to Dad in that department. I guess, technically, Dana’s breaking that edict now because she and Mulder aren’t married, but I think Dad would see the ‘joined at the hip’ action the two of them have as being as much like a marriage as you can get without registering for china.

But what remains is that second half of the edict and so help me, if I can’t have sex with my wife when I come to my mother’s house, then my sister shouldn’t be doing it, either!

So why the hell did I help?

Before I get in a whole lot of trouble with that statement, I don’t mean ‘help’ as in participate. All I did was ‘allow’ the ‘incident’ to occur. I was not personally involved in any of it. I intend to keep it that way.

But along the way, there were a whole lot of little infractions that I knew I’m gonna be paying for in the afterlife. And I would really like to do my penance and get on with my life here and now.

Mom was the one who decided that Mulder looked tired and really needed to be watched over more closely. The fact that Mulder looked tired because he and my sister had been ‘humpin’ like bunnies for the entire afternoon didn’t cross my mother’s mind. And since that was the deep, dark secret that was being kept from her by the three of us, it didn’t cross my mind to point out to her that any man who’d gone ten rounds with a red head was likely to look like shit. I dated a red head in my first year at Annapolis. I married a blond, but she’s a red where it counts. From where I’m standing, Mulder must have the stamina of a horse.

But Mom, dear, sweet, ‘take in any stray cat’ Mom, just had to take care of Mulder. At her house. Where I was staying, as well.

My dad bought a four bedroom house. He and Mom got the master bedroom, meaning it had more closet space. Charlie and I got the attic dormer room, which was hotter than hell in the summer and colder than a witches you know what in the winter, but it was all ours. Dana and Missy each had their own rooms because for the longest time, they fought like cats and dogs and Mom was afraid she’d wake up one morning and find both of them dead by each others hands.

The dormer room, our ‘old’ room, has since been converted to storage. Fine, you live in a house for twenty years and you accumulate ‘stuff’. Besides, I think all my high school yearbooks are up there somewhere and I’m not about to jeopardize their resting place by suggesting that we all chip in and clean out the attic.

That leaves three bedrooms available. OK, three people in the house, three bedrooms, that seems like a great solution to me. Except Mom has decided that with all the grand kids (Matty) now coming along, she wanted to ‘fix’ up what was once Dana’s room and make it a nursery/play room. Currently, the room sits completely empty, with Mom’s rocker in the middle of it, until she pressures me into putting up the old crib or youth bed when we’re out visiting sometime.

Two rooms available. Three people. I haven’t slept in the same room as my Mommy since I was two, so that’s out. There is no way I’m staying in the same house if Mom and Mulder share a room and I think Mulder himself would have some problems there, so that’s out. My, oh gosh, look at the sleeping arrangements.

But there is a catch and a big one. In what was once Missy’s old room and then somehow in Mom’s mind got turned into mine and Charlie’s room (I think Charlie slept there in his junior and senior years of high school and I only slept there when I was home on breaks or leave) there is a nice, relatively comfy double bed.

One bed.

Two guys, both of whom have standing relationships with significant others now forced into one room with one bed.

That was my first punishment without a crime.

Mulder took one look at the bed and turned white as a ghost. I know I wasn’t looking that much better. Mulder eyed Mom and then me and said in a close to squeaky voice “I’ll be fine on the sofa, Mrs. Scully.”

Mom laughed it off. “Oh don’t be silly, Fox. And don’t worry, you two guys are too big to both fit on that double bed. Bill, go up to the attic and bring down the sleeper bed.”

The sleeper bed. The sofa in the den was looking much better in my mind. I remember Charlie sleeping on that sleeper bed when he went through his ‘bedwetting’ period shortly after we first moved to Maryland. I was trying desperately to remember if Mom and Dad had replaced the mattress as I dragged the rusty old thing down the attic steps.

Mom opened it up and sure enough, they hadn’t gotten around to buying a new mattress. Mom looked a little contrite and patted my arm. “I have a mattress pad, Sweetheart.” As she started into the hall she turned and added “and I think I have one of those vinyl mattress bags, too.”

I just smiled and nodded and tried not to break any molars in the back of my mouth.

“I’ll take the sleeper, Bill. No sense you being put out, it’s your house, after all.” This from Mulder, who was looking at the sleeper bed like it was a bed of nails. No, I think he probably would have preferred the bed of nails at that point.

“No, no, Mulder. That’s all right. Not a problem,” I told him, hoping to convince both of us. “I’ll be fine. Besides, Mom would never agree to you sleeping on the sleeper bed. You need the rest, remember.”

I didn’t mean for that to sound so sarcastic, God, it just came out that way. At least he had the good grace to look a little on the contrite side, too.

The mattress pad was one of those upside down eggshell things that, with a flannel sheet on top of it, didn’t really feel that bad. As a matter of fact, it was pretty comfortable, if I didn’t stop to think about Charlie for more than a second.

We’d brought Mulder home directly from the restaurant, which meant he had no clothes to speak of. Mom found some old sweats Charlie had left behind in a drawer and although they were kind of ratty, they fit Mulder. At least he wouldn’t have to sleep in his skivvies, something I didn’t really want to witness. Finally, we were ready for bed.

Mom came in after we’d climbed into our respective beds and stood at the doorway, looking a little unsure of herself. I think this was more than the ‘slumber party’ she’d envisioned when she’d first suggested it. To be honest, she was probably wondering if I’d been play acting for the evening and was going to wait until her back was turned before I smothered Mulder with his own pillow. Whatever she was thinking, she finally broke the silence.

“Fox, are you still on any medicine? If so, I want to keep it down in the kitchen so I can make sure you’re taking it.”

He got a sort of ‘why me’ look on his face and sighed. “I’m off the antibiotics, Mrs. Scully. I have some pain pills, but I really only take them if the pain is too much to sleep through.”

Mom considered that a moment. “Are you sure you don’t want to take one now?”

He shook his head. Poor guy, I would have sunk through the floor at this point. Or blown my top. He’s a grown man, for Cripes sakes, why the third degree?

“I’m fine, really, Mrs. Scully. Thanks for taking care of me, but all I really need to do right now is sleep.”

Mom smiled at him when she told us both good night, the same smile I remember from my own childhood. Whoa, wait a minute. It’s bad enough I was giving this guy my sister, now I was handing over my own Mother, as well! Un hun, no way, time to regroup!

But then, I remembered. Mom gave Tara that same look at the hospital the first night after Matty was born. Dad told me something the day of my wedding to Tara. Mom doesn’t replace her children, she just collects new ones to go with the old. Like that gawdawful Girl Scout song Missy used to sing 24/7. Make new friends, but keep the old… I fell asleep listening to my other kid sister, singing that song in my head.

And woke up to the sound of my own name, being repeated in a harsh, panicked voice over and over again.

I hit the deck feet first, shouting “Battle stations” as loud as I could and then realized, there was carpet under my toes. No ship I’ve ever served on has had carpeting on the deck. It’s sort of impractical. That one thought brought me to full wakefulness.

It was dark. It was Missy’s old room in Mom’s house. The voice was coming from my sister’s partner.

In the darkness, only the light from a streetlight to go by, I could see Mulder, sitting straight up in bed, panting and wild eyed. He was still talking, but now it was low and hard to hear.

“Scully, put the gun down… Don’t listen to her, Scully, God, don’t listen to her! Scully, you don’t want to do this, you’re stronger than this! God Scully!”

Then he jerked and he half-screamed out my name again, which I now realized was actually my sister’s name, and fell forward, sobbing.

I was shaking like a leaf, just watching him. I walked around the sleeper bed and came to sit on the edge of the double bed. I put my hand out to touch his shoulder. “Mulder. C’mon, man, it’s just a dream.” Dream, my ass, it was a whopper of a nightmare, but I didn’t think I needed to point that out to him. “Mulder, wake up.”

Slowly, with tears still streaming down his face, he sat up and looked at me. He got a really scared look and then it slowly just faded to confusion. “Bill?” he asked, his voice shuddering a little.

I smiled at him, just to reassure the guy. “Yeah, Mulder. It’s Bill. We’re at my Mom’s. Remember?”

He wiped at his nose with the back of his hand and took a deep breath. “Your Mom’s? Yeah, I remember now. I’m at your Mom’s.”

“Right,” I said nodding my head like an idiot. “You’re safe, you’re at Mom’s.”

He got a wide eyed look again. “Scully,” he said and threw the covers off to rush over to his pants on the floor. He fumbled around for a moment and cussed a blue streak then looked up at me. “Phone, where the hell is the phone?”

“Uh, Mom has one in her room. And there’s the one in the kitchen…” I was talking to thin air. The man can move, when he’s on the warpath.

I know it was an intrusion, but I followed him down to the kitchen. I got there right when Danie must have answered. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. OK, God, yeah, I did mean to eavesdrop, but I had been jolted out of a perfectly contented sleep, damn it and I deserved an explanation. I was pretty sure listening in was the only way I’d get one.

“Scully,” he said, sort of breathless. He closed his eyes for a second, then searched around the room, finally staring at the microwave. “Um, 2:45.” My sister obviously wanted to know the time. I could have lived without that knowledge, myself.

“No, no, it’s not that. I’m fine, really. I just…” His voice trailed off and I could see him pacing the length of the kitchen. He couldn’t see me in the dining room, or he really didn’t give a shit, I don’t know which.

“Yeah, you could say it was bad,” he sort of snorted. “Linda Bowman paid me a visit in my dreams.” More pacing. “Yeah, I know, it didn’t happen, but Scully, every time I have that dream I just relive what I saw. I mean, my God, I saw you… whether it was real or not, I saw you blow your brains out right in front of me and I couldn’t do a fucking thing to prevent it.” His voice was catching as he rushed the last words out and I felt like the world’s biggest heel for standing there listening in on a private conversation.

“God, I miss you,” he sighed and wiped at his face. “I just want to hold you tonight. I don’t even want to…” he trailed off and sort of chuckled at something she must have said. “No, I’m not ‘tired of you’, Scully. Not by a long shot. I just need you so bad.” The guy was gonna throw up from the roller coaster his emotions were on.

“I know. Yeah, well, I don’t mind, really. Your Mom is sweet to worry about me. If this makes her feel better, I don’t mind. God knows I’ve caused her enough pain…”

In another time, I would have agreed with him. But now, I could see what that guilt was doing to him. For Danie’s sake, I wish he’d just get over it and move on.

“Bill’s on the sleeper bed…” That got my attention. “Hey, I offered to sleep on the sofa and then the sleeper and he refused. Said your mom would never stand for it.” I crept closer to hear if my name would be further mentioned in vain at this point.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into him, either, but I’m not complaining. He’s not a bad guy, I guess. Still, I think I got the pick of the litter.”

I had to agree with that statement, too.

“I love you, too. Yeah, that does sound nice to hear, doesn’t it?”

I took that as my cue to beat it up the stairs. By the time he made it up to the room, I was under the covers and doing a pretty good imitation of ‘dead to the world’ if I do say so myself. I heard him shift under the covers and punch the pillows a couple of times. Then he sighed once or twice and the room grew quiet.

I hugged my pillow and missed my wife until morning came.

« ♦ »

Part two

When I woke up, and really it was more like a light doze I’d been in, it was full morning and I was alone in the room. I tossed off the covers, hit the showers and felt almost human by the time I made it down to the kitchen for breakfast.

Mom was standing at the stove, a spatula in her hand, staring at some eggs on the griddle. She looked up and smiled at me when I walked in.

“Good morning, Sweetheart! Coffee’s on the counter. How do you want your eggs?”

“Over easy. Two of them, please. I’ll make the toast.” I reached in the bread drawer and discovered Mom had rearranged the kitchen again. I found the bread on the second try.

“Toss in a couple for Fox, he’s in the den watching the morning news,” Mom advised me. Thank heavens she hadn’t decided to trade in her four slice toaster. I made four slices, medium brown and buttered them before placing them on plates near Mom. “Thanks, sweetie,” she said with a wink. “Go call Fox, the eggs are almost done.”

I walked into the den and found Mulder stretched out on the sofa, remote in his hand, sound asleep. I kicked at his foot and his eyes dragged open.

“Wake up, barnacle. Breakfast is ready,” I told him. He nodded and sort of rolled forward to a sitting position. He looked like death warmed over, definitely not like a guy who’d just gotten 9 hours of sleep.

“Be there in a minute,” he said and hauled himself to his feet. He swayed a little and I grabbed his arm, sitting him back down again.

“Are you OK, Mulder?” It wasn’t a question, it was more of a demand for information. He sighed and shrugged.

“I’m fine.”

“Bullshit,” I told him. “You looked like something the cat hacked up.”

His eyes lit into a grin. “So that’s where Scully gets that expression.”

I glared him down. “Don’t try to change the subject.”

He shook his head. “Genetics, it’s a bitch,” he sighed. “I’m OK, Bill, really. I just didn’t sleep that well last night.”

“After the nightmare?” I asked him.

He got a look on his face like I’d just revealed I had evidence that his father was a cross dresser. “I was hoping you forgot about it,” he muttered.

“When somebody yells my name for five minutes just three feet from my ear, I tend to remember,” I told him with as blank an expression as I could get.

“Boys,” we heard from the kitchen. “Boys, your eggs are getting cold.”

I groaned. ‘Boys’? We’re both over thirty-five, for Cripes sakes.

Mulder perked up at her voice. “Saved by the Mom,” he said and started off to the kitchen. “Right there, Mrs. Scully.”

I stood and stared at his back a moment. I was not going to let him deflect this. I knew I just couldn’t watch him kill himself and still look myself in the mirror. Besides, Danie would think I’d done it to him.

After breakfast, Mom had a couple of things she needed help with, so I didn’t really see much of Mulder. I do know that the one time I saw him, he was on the phone, talking to guess who? It’s really unnerving to have a guy talking on the phone, whispering sweet nothings to you when you’re standing right behind him. He keeps forgetting, my name is ‘Scully’, too.

It’s amazing. Tara can have a job jar that I barely look at, but when I’m at Mom’s house, suddenly I’m putting up shelves, tightening the spring the screen door and putting a new curtain rod up in the ‘nursery’, as if it’s ever going to have furniture. After the nightmare of the previous night, I was seriously thinking of dragging down my Boy Scout sleeping bag and ‘camping out’ in there for the night. It was worth a thought, at least.

By the time lunch was ready, I was ready. More than ready. I pulled up to that table and downed a full sandwich and a bowl of soup before I realized Mom was staring at Mulder.

“Fox, please. Just another half a sandwich? You’re skin and bones!”

He was shaking his head, an indulgent smile on his face. “Mrs. Scully, I can’t afford new suits. Please, I’m full. It was wonderful. Thank you.” He sighed again and I noticed the dark circles under his eyes.

Mom noticed too, apparently. “Well, why don’t you lie down upstairs, try to get some rest. I have to go out this afternoon. The Altar Society has organized a quilting circle and they invited me to join them weeks ago. Will you be all right here?”

“Mom, it’s not like you’re leaving the guy on the streets. I’m here,” I pointed out. It’s a testament to how far I’ve come that I, one, suggested that arrangement, two, didn’t gag on the statement, and three, that Mom took me seriously.

“You’re absolutely right, dear. Where was my head. You two boys will be fine,” she declared. Mulder didn’t look too sure of that statement, but picked up his plate and carried it to the sink.

Mulder sort of retreated to the den again, pulling out one of Mom’s movies to pop in the VCR. After cleaning up the tools from the curtain rod, I decided to join him.

“McClintock,” I commented as I sat down in the big easy chair. Mulder had again commandeered the couch, but from the way he was looking, he needed to be lying down.

“Yeah. Gotta love that mud fight scene,” he said with a smile and we settled into silence, watching the movie.

“So, you have those kinds of dreams a lot?” I asked.

He groaned and threw his arm up over his eyes. “Bill, I don’t think your Mom has enough beer in the refrigerator for us to have another ‘conversation’ like the one we had at your house,” he told me from behind his arm.

I laughed. “C’mon, Mulder. I asked all the hard questions last time. This is the easy stuff. Besides,… I’m a little worried about you. You look like shit today. You looked a lot better yesterday,” I told him.

He dragged the arm down and gave me a sigh. “I had more sleep yesterday,” he said and from his expression, I knew he was being up front with me.

“So we dragged you away from Dana’s apartment because you need rest and now you aren’t getting any rest. Damn, that was a great idea,” I said and meant every inch of the sarcasm I tossed on.

He laughed a little. “No big deal. I’ll be home in, what, three days.” He sighed. Three days must have seemed like a life sentence to him.

“You miss Dana,” I said out loud, even though I had just had the thought.

“I just talked to her,” he told me, but by the look in his eyes, I’d hit the nail on the head.

“Geez, you two are pathetic,” I said, shaking my head.

That caused a bristle out of my companion. “Look, it’s not the sex, Bill. We’ve had sex twice since we came back from San Diego. We aren’t exactly breaking land speed records here!” He closed his eyes and sighed again, this time in disgust. “Besides, it’s the holding that helps me sleep.”

“Spooning?” I asked. He shot me a look that showed how little he knew about this ‘couples’ stuff and I explained. “You lie on your side, she’s ‘spooned’ up against your back. Or vice versa.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes. Mostly, I’m on my back, I sleep better that way, and she’s curled up on my side with her head right here.” He pointed to his ‘good’ shoulder, the one that wasn’t mostly stitches. “I can move my head just a little and smell her perfume,” he was almost tearing up when he said it.

“Tara buys her shampoo from some store at the mall…”

“Bath and Body Works?” he interrupted.

“Something like that,” I told him. “It costs 6 bucks a bottle, but God, that smell.” I close my eyes, trying to bring that smell to me. “It’s like flowers blooming out your window in the summer. I love that smell.”

“A couple of years ago, Scully changed perfumes. I almost lost it. Actually, she almost killed me. She came back from this autopsy and she was walking around the office with her nose sort of screwed up. She said, what’s the smell, it’s like something died. And I said…”

I couldn’t help myself. “It’s your perfume?”

He nodded and I almost busted a gut laughing. “You have always had a death wish, haven’t you?”

“It’s a gift,” he said with a shrug. “But then I went to the store on my lunch hour and let this woman squirt about fifty of those sample bottles on little pieces of paper until I found the right one.”

“And you bought her a bottle of it,” I said proudly.

“Hell, no. I bought the whole damned line!” he declared. “Perfume, body mist, bubbling bath beads, body lotion. If they’d had a shampoo, I would have bought that, too. Cost a bundle. But by the next day, things were back to normal.”

“Good man,” I congratulated him. We fell back into silence, but my mind was going a mile a minute. I knew what needed to happen. I just had to figure out the details.

Well, the devil is in the details, God. You know that. And this was no less the case. The first part was easy. Well, sort of easy. I picked up the phone and called my sister.

Dana was a little surprised to hear my voice. “What’s wrong? What did you do to him?”

“I didn’t do anything to him and why do you keep thinking I’m going to?” I demanded.

“Because I know you, Bill. You’ve been acting really funny lately. Like you’re beginning to like Mulder or something. I know you’re just lulling us into a false sense of security before you put Tabasco in his applesauce or some other famous ‘Bill Scully prank’.”

Ouch. It’s a real pain when you fight with someone who knows all your little foils. I admit, at one time, that would have seemed a great idea. But I’m a reformed jerk. I’m trying to make amends. I’m trying to be good.

“Danie, cut it out. I’m not planning anything. OK, maybe I am, but not a bad thing. A good thing.” I then went on to explain about my little 3 am wake up call. Of course, she knew most of it, but the fact that I was telling her all of it really hammered in the point.

“So what are you saying, Bill? That I should come to Mom’s and sleep with Mulder in the big bed so he can get the rest he needs,” she snorted over the phone.

“Something like that.”

My tone must have gotten her attention. “He really didn’t sleep last night?”

“Not after 2:45, he didn’t,” I told her.

“Damn it. And I suppose he doesn’t have his sleeping pills with him.”

“Danie, he doesn’t need to be doped up. He needs some… TLC. That is what he’s here for, isn’t it?”

“He’d have TLC, Bill, if he were sleeping at my place, where he belongs.” OK, so she had a point but beating a dead horse wasn’t going to get us anywhere.

“Look, do you want to help the guy out or what?” I demanded. “He is your boyfriend.”

“Partner,” she corrected.

“Dana.”

“OK, OK, I get the point.” She was quiet for a moment. “Mom is going to suspect something.”

“We’ll tell her that your apartment is being fumigated,” I said brilliantly.

“We’re on a schedule. They did it last month, and I stayed with her then,” she replied.

“Your heat went out.”

“It’s not that cold yet.”

I thought for a moment, then it hit me. The perfect excuse. “You flushed a tampon down the toilet and the super says he can’t get to it till tomorrow!” I knew that one would work because Tara had done that in our last apartment and in desperation, I’d fixed the damn thing myself. If they’d just let me on my ship…

She was quiet, real quiet. “Actually, that might work,” she finally admitted.

“Great. I’ll lay the groundwork. You just show up about seven with a packed bag. Let me do the rest.”

I hung up the phone, rather pleased with myself. Then it dawned on me. The hard part was yet to come.

« ♦ »

Part three

I don’t know which of us were more nervous, Mulder or me. It was almost six-thirty and Dana had called about an hour before with her sob story of the clogged toilet. Mom had verbally chewed her a new one for being so irresponsible, she’d lived in base housing for years, she should have known better, yadda, yadda and so on and so on. I couldn’t help but smile a little, it was nice to hear Dana get the ‘evil voice’ for once, but then I realized little sister would focus her attention on evening the score and I got a little worried. Danie’s always been pretty good at getting even.

Mulder, on the other hand, just wanted Dana there. Mom had come back from the quilting bee with a whole armful of vitamins and nutritional supplements from the GNC at the Mall and more or less pried the poor guy’s mouth open, then poured it all down him. It made me gag just to watch. And the really sad part was Mulder sitting there, obviously feeling like shit, but still being nice enough to go along with Mom’s ‘doctoring’. I may have blamed him for a lot of stuff before, but nobody deserves that kind of treatment.

When we heard the door open and a gust of cold air in the hallway, I thought he was going to trip over himself getting to his feet. He started off to the hallway, but Mom had cut him off at the pass and was coming the other way from the dining room. He skidded to a halt. It would have been funny, if it had been some romantic comedy on HBO. He was standing there, his arms twitching at his sides, jumping out of his skin to take my sister in a big hug and probably an X rated kiss, but my mother was there, so the best he could do was a “Hi, Scully. How was your day?”

Dana took off her coat and hung it in the closet. She turned and gave Mom a quick hug, then finally looked at her partner. I could see it took every second of those two minutes for her to restrain herself from throwing the guy down on the floor and doing porn video-worthy activities on Mom’s thick beige carpeting.

“Hi, Mulder. How are you feeling?”

He licked his lips. She licked hers. Never saw a remote kiss before, but that was as close as anyone is going to get.

“Fine.” They said it in unison.

I had to hold back a groan, and get my mother out of there before they broke something. “Mom, what’s cookin’? Can I give you a hand in the kitchen?”

Suddenly, everyone’s looking at me like I’ve sprouted wings. I felt the need to defend my manhood. “Hey, I did a tour in the kitchen, you know. I can cook,” I said confidently.

“I’ll let you cut up the vegetables for the salad,” Mom said with a smirking kind of grin. As if to say that’s the most she expected out of me.

I would have taken offense at that, but my intent was to remove my mother from the scene and since she was now heading to the kitchen under a full head of steam, my mission was accomplished. I flashed Mulder a thumbs up, a grin to my sis, and I followed Mom. I didn’t drag my feet, mind you, but I wasn’t two steps away when I heard clothes rustling and lips smacking together and soft moaning and it made me grin all the way into the kitchen.

Dinner was delicious, but then, my Mom was the chef. I love my wife, and she’s a whiz in the kitchen, but give me my Mom’s beef stew everyday of the week and I’d be a happy man.

I was pleasantly surprised to notice that Mulder was a member of the clean plate club. I think Dana had more than a little influence in that area. Every time I noticed his fork starting to sag, Dana would reach under the table, squeeze his knee, and suddenly, he was Mike Mulligan and the steam shovel. Guess he was thinking he needed the energy.

I chewed a little slower and decided I was going to have to come up with a very good plan.

After dinner, Dana and I did the dishes. She washed, I dried and for the first time in my memory, we didn’t fight. Life was going pretty good.

“So, Einstein, how are we going to work the sleeping arrangements?” she asked as she scrubbed out the roasting pan.

“You stake out the couch in the den, then, after Mom’s asleep, I come down and switch places. Piece of cake.”

“Unless Mom gets restless in the middle of the night,” Dana pointed out.

“I’ll huddle down in the covers. With the blanket, in the dark, one body looks like another,” I countered and smacked her on the backside. “Don’t be such a worry wort.”

And God, that’s when you got involved. Not that you aren’t always involved in the workings of the universe, but apparently, things on cable just weren’t making it for you that night, and you decided to get some jollies messin’ with ole Bill Scully.

Unfortunately for one of Mom’s good glasses, I was drying it when Mom entered the kitchen. “Bill, Dana,” she said, all breathless and excited. “Look who’s here!”

The glass shattered just seconds after I looked at the doorway and saw the smiling face… of my baby brother.

“Charlie!” Dana squealed. What a little shit, she was washing a fork and they don’t break, especially when they’re just dropped in water. She turned to go over to Charlie, but I grabbed her arm before she stepped on my mess.

“Dana, watch the glass,” Mom commanded and went to grab the dustpan and broom.

Dana stepped over the glass and I just stood there, mouth open. “What the hell are you doing here?” I didn’t mean it to come out quite like that, but hell, I was just a little surprised.

“Glad to see you, too, Big Bro,” Charlie laughed.

I felt the flush rise in my cheeks. “Sorry, Charlie,” I said in the tone I’d used when we were kids. “You just surprised me. I thought you were working out of Penobscott Bay these days.”

“I had a meeting down here at the Joint Chiefs. I just found out this morning and to be honest, I didn’t expect to have to stay in town long. I was going to give Mom a call, but the meeting ran long and when it got extended to tomorrow, I figured I’d just come on home. Hey, is that stew I smell? Did you guys leave any, I’m starving.” Same old Charlie, the bottomless pit.

Mom laughed and it was good to hear. “Of course, I always make enough to feed the fleet, you know that. I just figured Bill and Fox could finish it off at lunch tomorrow.”

“Fox? As in Mulder?” Charlie shot me a look. The last time we’d talked, I was still in my ‘Fox Mulder is the anti-Christ’ phase. Oh, shit. I had a lot of damage control to do.

“That’s, right, Sweetheart, I forgot,” Mom piped up. “You’ve never met him. He’s in the den, resting.”

“Resting,” Charlie said evenly and I could see him coming up with a few ideas on how to ‘help’ Mulder rest that would have made me proud in an earlier era, but were now scaring the hell out of me.

“Charlie,” I jumped in. “A couple of weeks ago, Mulder… Mulder was shot in the line of duty. He stepped in front of a gunman who was aiming at Dana. Took a bullet in the chest.”

That took some of the wind out of his sails. “I had no idea.”

I hated the hurt look he was giving me, that look like I was keeping something from the ‘little brother’ again. “They were in San Diego at the time. That’s the only reason I know so much about it.”

Dana took over at that point. “I’m sorry, Charlie-man,” she said, taking him into a sisterly hug. “I’ve been so busy, getting back to work and taking care of Mulder, that I sort of forgot to call you about it. But it’s OK. He needs to rest for a couple more weeks and then he’ll be back tossing pencils at the ceiling to see if they stick. I’m just glad you’re here and you two finally get a chance to meet. He thinks you’re a figment of my imagination,” she chuckled.

As she led Charlie arm in arm out of the room, I just knew the night had gotten a whole lot longer.

« ♦ »

Part four

This started out as pre confession confession, God and it’s turning into my memoirs, but I swear, from the point Charlie walked in the house, the whole place went to hell in a hand basket, in a manner of speaking.

Charlie was angry and hurt that I had obviously started to ‘side’ with the enemy without telling him. That was a major laugh to begin with because he’s always been the one telling me I should give the guy a break. I think he was just feeling like the odd man out and nothing pisses off the youngest member of the family more than being out of the loop. At the risk of the entire project, and that’s how I’d started thinking of the evening’s sleeping arrangements, I was going to have to let the little shit in on everything. And then figure out how to duct tape his mouth shut so he didn’t tell either Mom or Dana that he knew what was going on.

But all that would have to wait until after the introductions. We walked into the den to find Mulder sprawled on the sofa. Poor guy, with the little sleep he’d gotten during the night and me pounding nails and revving up the drill all day, he was one tuckered puppy.

Dana got all warm and fuzzy, went over and sort of knelt next to the couch. She was watching him sleep. God, I wonder if Tara had any idea how often I used to do that when she’d take her afternoon nap while we were waiting for Matty to make his appearance. I couldn’t get enough of watching my wife, lying on our bed or on the sofa, her face rounded as much as her belly. It still makes me feel kinda tingling inside. A definite masculine tingling, mind you, God, but tingling, none the less.

Dana had an expression on her face, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t seem a lot like the expression I’ve had on my face. Sort of a ‘thank you’ expression. Like we’re both thanking you, God, for bringing these people into our lives.

Then she reached over and stroked his cheek with just one finger. Shit! I figured that was a dead give away to both Mom and Charlie and had to hold back a shout, but Mulder’s eyes fluttered open and he gave her this smile that told the universe ‘I love this woman with all my heart’. Shit again! Why don’t they just take out a full page ad in the Sunday NYTimes?

I looked over at Mom, but she seemed to be studying the mantel of the fireplace. Charlie had his mouth open and I reached over and knocked it shut with the knuckles of my fist. He glared and started to say something but I grunted out a near silent ‘later’ and he shut up, but still pouted.

Mulder seemed to come around to the fact he and Dana weren’t the only ones in the room. He shot her a look and they both sort of, well, just ‘distanced’ themselves. Just like two soap bubbles that get stuck together and then become individuals again. I know a lot about soap bubbles now, because Matty has taught me when I give him his bath.

“Don’t tell me this is the infamous brother Charlie?” Mulder said hoarsely and Dana helped him sit up on the sofa. He started to get up, but it was obvious that was painful. I was really proud of my little brother when he moved over and extended his hand to Mulder, so the guy didn’t have to get up.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Agent Mulder. It’s good to put a face with the stories,” Charlie smiled and I started breathing again. The little shit probably does great with the brass at the five sided building.

“Charlie’s here for a meeting. Imagine our luck,” Dana said and I was pretty certain her teeth were clenched, but I was the only one who seemed to notice.

“Well, I can see the family resemblance, so I guess you must be the ‘real’ Charles Scully,” Mulder said, intentionally ignoring Dana’s comment, or so I could determine by the way he squeezed her hand without looking her way. “How are things up in Maine?”

From that point on, it just got too ‘chit-chatty’ for me and I went into the kitchen to finish the clean up job on the glass I broke. Mom came in a few minutes later and started some coffee. I thought all was well until I felt her hand on my arm.

“I want a moment with you, Bill.”

Panic. Sheer, undiluted panic hit my stomach. In the space of ten seconds, my whole life flashed before my eyes. Those were the same seven words Mom had used when she confronted me with the motel receipt so many years ago.

“Mom, um, the coffee. Shouldn’t we get the coffee out there? Charlie’s probably thirsty. Oh, wait, I don’t think he’s had dinner, either…” I was babbling. I knew it, she knew and it wasn’t going to help me one iota.

“William Dennis, be quiet and listen to me.”

I’ve had Admirals get less attention than I was giving the woman standing in front of me. No wonder Dad used to say he wasn’t the head of the house, he was only the XO.

“Your sister has every right to make her own friends. I know you haven’t always approved of her working relationship with Fox, but it is her decision. Now, I’ve been sensing a lot of tension between you and your sister, ever since she walked in that door this evening. And that little display when Charlie got here. What was that all about?” she demanded.

I stood there, totally unprepared for this attack. Mom had it all wrong. She thought I was up to something, but she was way off target on what I was up to.

“Mom, you’re imagining things,” was all I could come up with. “Dana and I are fine. I’m fine with her and fine with her relationship with Mulder.”

Mom raised an eyebrow. What had I just said?

“Partnership! I meant to say her partnership with Mulder. I mean, yeah, sure, I wish she’d decided to go anywhere else but the FBI, but as long as she’s there, I think Mulder will continue to look out for her. I mean, Mom, for God’s sakes, he took a bullet in the chest for her! That’s more than we could ask for, wouldn’t you say?”

Mom’s eyebrow lowered but her gaze narrowed. “Yes, I would say it’s more than we could ask for. That’s what I’ve been saying for five years, Bill and I’m just glad you finally see what I’m talking about. But I still get the feeling you are up to something and I’m going to find out what it is. Just a warning.”

She picked up the coffee pot and grabbed some mugs. “And don’t hit your brother again, either.”

I was dazed, standing there. I didn’t move for a long time. Finally, Charlie came in. I let out a sigh of relief.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Great. More demands.

“Charlie, look, I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong. There isn’t much time…”

“You mean Dana and Mulder aren’t shacking up and you’re in on it and you’re all keeping it from Mom?” he asked, a perplexed look on his face.

It was my turn to raise an eyebrow, but he kept talking.

“What? You think I chose ‘intelligence’ because of the office furniture? Besides, you can smell the pheromone in that room. How long have they been at it? Can’t be too long, they still both look dewy eyed.”

I needed a chair. I was barely able to get to the kitchen table. I didn’t think I could talk but I had to.

“Not long. I think they’ve really only been at it once or twice.”

“Well, the guy did look pretty bad. Man, Dana must be something, banging a guy that close to a hospital bed. But then, there was that guy in med school…”

“What guy in med school?” Now it was my turn to demand. “There wasn’t any guy in med school! She was a cloistered nun in med school!”

Charlie just gave me the same look I get from Tara when I say something monumentally stupid. “Bill. There were about four guys in med school. One was a prof, but she wasn’t in any of his classes and it didn’t last long. It’s only been in the last five years that our sister has been a ‘cloistered nun’. But I figured something was up. The dam had to break sometime. I’m just glad the poor sap didn’t get killed before they figured it out.”

I shook my head. Somewhere, in all that, I agreed with the little shit. But I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of telling him.

“So, anyway, what are you up to?”

This was going to be harder than I thought. “Mulder needs to rest. He was in bad shape in San Diego…”

“Then maybe Dana shouldn’t be doin’ the horizontal bop on the guy,” Charlie said with a smirk. I wanted to wipe that smirk off on the floor, so he’d shut up and listen to what I had to say.

“No, it’s not like that. He needs to rest and he can’t do that by himself.”

“Yeah, right,” Charlie said. God, I’d forgotten what an annoying little shit he could be.

“No, he has these nightmares. They’re pretty gruesome. And the only way he can calm down is to…”

“Screw our sister?” Charlie’s grin was getting entirely too big for his little snot nosed face.

“Would you just shut up!” I yelled, then realized we weren’t the only ones in the house and quickly lowered my voice. “He just needs her to hold him. They don’t have to do anything. Just hold each other. You know, or at least I hope you know how that is,” I added in exasperation.

Charlie turned serious. “Yeah, I know how that is,” he said and I could see the many hours at sea, away from the one person who makes your sorry life worthwhile reflected in his eyes. “OK, so what do I need to do?”

“Go along with whatever I come up with,” I told him.

He looked a little suspicious of that, but shrugged and headed out for the den. I sat thinking for a few minutes. How could this work? We had two bedrooms, a total of three beds and now we had five people crammed in the house. Hell, maybe Tara would take me up on the offer of coming out while I was on leave and we’d have the whole damned family here!

I had to press down the hysterical laughter that just didn’t want to go away.

Rational thought. That’s what I needed. To be rational. OK, how would Mom work this? Charlie is the youngest and did show up last, so Mom, in her infinite wisdom, would relegate him to the couch in the den. Mulder and I would again take the beds in Missy’s/Charlie’s old room and she and Dana would…

Oh shit. She and Dana would share her room! It was bad enough when I was just swapping places with Dana on the couch in the den. Now I had to figure out how to get Dana out of a bed that Mom was sleeping in, and not wake up Mom. Mom’s not exactly a light sleeper, she slept through Mulder’s little scare-fest, but even she would wake up with people jumping in and out of her own bed.

I was sitting there, trying to think of a way to drug my Mother into a deep slumber, when Dana came in.

“Why were you yelling at Charlie?”

“Because he’s a snot nosed idiot, what else is new?” I asked as I rubbed my forehead and got up to rummage through the cabinets. “Mom got any aspirin in here? Or whiskey?”

“You told him,” she accused, her voice low like she’d known I was a screw up all along.

“Didn’t have to,” I shot back. “You two were ‘screwin’ each other with your eyes out there. He caught on a mile away. He knows everything.”

“He’ll tattle. He always tattles,” she pouted, and she probably didn’t even realize she was a 35 year old woman talking about her kid brother ‘tattling’ on her.

“Maybe not. He’s willing to go along with it. Remember, you were in med school when Charlie discovered the opposite sex. We aren’t talking celibacy on his part, either,” I assured her.

Dana shrugged, like she wanted to argue but was too tired and worried to give it the effort. “I’m going out there and tell her that with all these people in the house, Mulder can come over to my place and I’ll keep an eye on him there,” she said, watching me pour a nice shot into my glass and slam it back in one gulp.

“Oh, yeah. And she isn’t going to think that’s an excuse for you two to be up to something?” I asked, wiping my mouth on my sleeve and going for another.

“I’ve done it before. When he’s been really sick, coming back from a bad case or an injury. He slept in my bed, I slept on the sofa. Mom knows about it because she stopped by one time and woke me up. So she wouldn’t be suspicious.”

“Fine,” I told her. I was sick of the whole thing anyway. The idea that Dana could get herself out of this mess she’d made was worthy of another shot of whiskey. “Don’t let the screen door hit you in the ass on the way out,” I smiled at her.

She flipped me the bird and smiled back. I turned to my drink, but she called my name and I looked up.

“I just wanted to say ‘thanks’. I know this can’t have been easy for you, and well, I appreciate the trouble you’ve taken.” The smile she gave me was one I’d missed seeing, even though I hadn’t realized it.

“Hey, don’t sweat it. Besides, now you’re ‘his’ worry, and not mine,” I said. She started to say something, probably to tell me that she hadn’t been ‘my’ worry for a very long time, but, God love her, she didn’t. She just smiled and left me sitting there with my half poured drink.

I was ready to put the bottle back, thinking that things were getting back to normal. Charlie was here, he and I could talk shop a little. Mom would eventually want to watch ER, and we’d have to go somewhere other than the den so we didn’t disturb her and Anthony Edwards. Dana would take Mulder back to her place and they could hump like bunnies or sleep curled up like kittens for all I cared. I’d call Tara about midnight and tell her how much I missed her. Life would be good, calm, peaceful.

And then came the crash.

« ♦ »

Part five

I don’t know why you chose that exact moment, God. I mean, the old silver maple tree in the front yard had been threatening to split since we moved into the place. The first words out of Dad’s mouth when our car pulled up in front was ‘Maggie, we have to have that tree removed soon or it’s gonna split and hit a car’. Well, Mom had a few other things to attend to, like getting us all in school and putting the house in order and Dad shipped out a week later, and somehow, the old tree stood up for all that time.

Until the least opportune moment, when it split right down the middle and crunched Charlie’s rental car. Not to mention, successfully trapping all the other cars in the double driveway.

I gotta tell you, God, I’m counting on you to take a few ‘points’ off my sins. I mean, you were obviously setting me up. At least a few of my transgressions could be chalked up to entrapment. But I guess I’ll have to wait to see if it counts.

Anyway, Dana was the first out the door, followed by Charlie, Mom and Mulder. Since I was the furthest from the crash site, it took me the longest to get there.

The tree was a complete loss. And the car, well, I sure hope Charlie took out that extra 9 dollars a day that would cover the deductible on his insurance. The five of us turned back into the house and Charlie started making phone calls.

He joined us in the den. “They city said the tree is on our property and since there’s no real storm to account for the crash, it’s our responsibility to remove it,” he said sadly. “And Budget said the soonest they can be out is tomorrow morning.”

We were trapped.

Dana sighed, Mulder gave me a sad smile and shook his head. Charlie looked like he was going to start crying.

Mom looked around the room and decided to cheer us all up. “Hey, enough of this. It’s not the end of the world! It’s a car, no one was injured. We’re safe and we’re home. I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you break out the cards and play a game or two?”

Dana looked at the clock and rolled her eyes to me, we silently noted it was about 15 minutes to ER. “Sure, Mom. That’s a great idea.”

Suddenly, we’re in a game of five card stud in the kitchen. Playing for stale pretzels that Danie found in the back of the pantry. And all eyes turned toward me.

“So, Bro, how are we working this ‘musical beds’ thing tonight?” Charlie asked innocently.

Mulder choked on his iced tea. “Musical beds?”

Dana sighed and gave me a look that spoke of piano wire and Columbian neckties. The woman has violence on her mind far too often for my tastes.

“Face it, you two need some time together.” There, that should have ended discussion.

“I’m fine,” Mulder said sullenly. Christ, oh, uh, sorry, God, I mean, shit, I was trying to help the guy and he was taking offence?

I was about to tell him that I was tired of hearing him holler my name out in the middle of the night when Danie took his hand on top of the table.

“I’ve missed you,” she said simply. He melted, right there and then. It took them a minute to acknowledge the rest of us on the planet, but when they did, Mulder looked to Charlie.

“You know,” he said to Charlie. Charlie shrugged and then nodded.

“I was starting to think one or the other of you was gay,” he added with a grin.

I groaned. “Geez, Charlie, get some manners!” At that both Dana and Mulder looked at me with the same astonished expressions and broke out laughing.

“But back to business, how are we working this tonight?” Charlie asked again.

“We aren’t,” Mulder replied.

“We are,” I said, a bit forcefully, maybe, but it was for the guy’s own good.

“Bill. This is your mother’s house. I’m not sleeping with your sister without benefit of marriage while I’m a guest in her house. Talk about manners,” he muttered as he went back to his cards.

“Mulder. I didn’t say you two could have an orgy,” I replied, drawing his attention back to the topic. “I think you need sleep. And so does Dana. You admitted that you do that better when you two are in close contact. She can sleep on the goddammed sleeper bed for all I care, but at least she’ll be in the same room.”

That seemed to settle it. Now it was time to lay out the battle plan. God, at Annapolis, we studied the battle of Midway. It was a blueprint for the aggressive capture of a decisive naval victory. I am not bragging when I say those planners had nothing on the four of us.

Mulder, it was decided, would go to bed first (before ER ended), but only after Dana checked his temp and pulse and basically felt him up. Of course, I wasn’t going to tell her that’s what it sounded like to me. I would go up next, claiming exhaustion after a day of hammering and drilling. Next, Dana would feign some level of tiredness. By this time, Mom would probably see the yawns Charlie would attempt to look casual and go off to bed herself.

An hour after Mom went to bed was about our best guess for when she would be in REM sleep. I know, it was an inexact measurement, based on some stupid sleep study of middle aged women in London that Mulder had participated in while at Oxford, but it was the best we could come up with.

At that time, Dana was going to get out of bed. If Mom woke up, or even moved, Dana was to go to the bathroom, get a glass of water and come right back to bed to try our little switch an hour later. She would turn the hall light on and then off again, to alert the others of the change in plans.

If Mom didn’t move, however, Dana was to come to the room Mulder and I were inhabiting. Since I would still be awake, I would relinquish the room to my sister and her, um, partner. Then I would go down to the den where I would tell Charlie it was time to move out.

Here is where the plan got a little tricky. Charlie, since he is about 60 pounds lighter than I am, was to go up to Mom’s room, and climb into bed, pretending to be Dana. Now, when they’re asleep, if it weren’t for the short hair on one of them, Dana and Charlie do look a hell of a lot alike. It might not fool Mom when she was fully awake, but in the dead of night, when she was basically asleep, it might work. That’s what we were hoping for, of course.

But that wasn’t the end of the evening. We couldn’t have the light of day hit our little ‘rearrangement’. We had to ‘regroup’ before Mom woke up and found us. And I had a plan for that, too.

I have a really cool watch that Tara bought me for Christmas. It has all these gadgets, including an alarm, which is pretty loud for a little watch. I set the alarm for 5 in the morning. I might not be able to get Mulder a full eight hours of his ‘snuggle’ time, but I figured getting him five hours might just push him over the nightmare hump and he could get the rest he needed. At 5 bells, I was to get up, go roust Dana, who would then relieve Charlie and Mom would wake up promptly at 6:15 as she’s done since before I was born, never to be the wiser.

Great plan, huh?

Too bad it didn’t work, huh?

« ♦ »

Part six

Oh, but it really looked like it was going to, God. I mean, really, really work. The first part went off without a hitch. Dana did her little ‘impromptu’ exam and then came downstairs. I could tell she was worried when she sort of slumped down in one of the armchairs. I made sure Mom was occupied with some medical drama unfolding on the screen so that I could sneak a word with her.

“So?”

“He’s exhausted, Billy. He was doing so well at my place. I mean, he’d improved to the point I felt like I could go out of town on that case for VCS. But he hardly slept while I was gone apparently, and then when we got home…”

“Homecoming’s a bitch,” I commiserated with a smirk. “They’re great, but they can also be a bitch.”

I got a kick out of the fact that she actually blushed as she smiled at me and nodded in agreement. “Then, well, last night he didn’t sleep, either. That’s almost a week without any real rest. Sure, he’s not doing anything much, but his body needs the serotonin that only sleep brings. If this keeps up, he’ll be back in the hospital before the weekend and he’ll really be pissed at me if I let that happen.”

“Then we’ll make sure he sleeps tonight,” I told her in a whisper. “Think you can keep your mitts to yourself?” I teased.

She gave me a very evil eye. “I’ve been the picture of restraint for five years. One night, I can handle,” she assured me confidently.

And so we all went to bed. At the time, I was congratulating myself on exactly how well planned it was and how everything was going off without a hitch. I know, God. You looked down and saw a man in serious need of a humbling experience. I guess, on some level, I should thank you for that.

At exactly 12:03, Dana made her way into our room. I have to hand it to her, if I weren’t looking for her arrival, I wouldn’t have heard her enter. Must be all the training, but she was like a ghost. Not there one minute, there the next. I got out of the little sleeper bed and started for the door. Before I got all the way there, she reached out and grabbed my arm, giving it a squeeze.

“Thanks, Billy. I owe you, big time.”

I wanted to tell her, no you don’t. You don’t owe me anything because I’ve been a complete and total shit to your partner, and you, for the last several years. But at that moment, God, well, looking in her eyes, I remembered what absolution really feels like. And promised myself that I’d make it to confession sooner than every other decade. Forgiveness is just too good to pass up.

I hesitated at the door and watched her crawl under the covers. Mulder had originally intended to stay awake until she arrived, but his body had other ideas. Even though he looked sound asleep, I saw him reach out the moment her weight hit the mattress. His arms went around her and she snuggled up against his chest, just as he’d described to me earlier in the day. He sighed, and a tiny smile formed on his face. I couldn’t see Dana face from where she’d burrowed into his shoulder but she appeared to have just melted into place around him. I closed the door, missing Tara more than anything.

After giving Charlie the go ahead, I could have just laid down to catch some winks. But I knew that Tara would have Matty in bed and it was the perfect time to call her.

Tara and I talked for half an hour. Thank heavens I reversed the charges. We talked about Matty and about Mom. She asked about Mulder and I sort of slipped and let her know that I would be collecting on our bet. Hey, since Charlie knew, why should I keep Tara in the dark?

And then I told her how much I missed her. I decided right then, it was just too much effort to stay with Mom. I would go home to San Diego in the morning and hope my Commanding Officer didn’t find out.

What can I say, God? Tara’s voice relaxes me. It sounds like such an insult to say that her voice puts me to sleep, but it does. It’s got this soothing quality and after hearing it, I just want to grab a pillow and dream. Dream of her. Dream of her shoulders and her back and her hands and her face and her lips and… well, you get the point.

So I plead temporary insanity. I’m insanely in love with my wife. Which is how I managed to sleep through the alarm. Which is how I found myself opening my eyes to find my mother and my very contrite little brother staring down at me where I was positioned on the couch.

“I want to know exactly what you think you were doing, William Dennis Scully, and I want to know now!”

Charlie had the good sense to run off to the showers. Mom had already given him an earful before they came to wake me up. I stood up, straightened my shoulders, licked my lips and prepared to take my punishment.

“It’s all my fault, Mom. I set it up. But they are two consenting adults, and they have little enough quiet in their lives. They need each other. If you have a problem with that, I understand, but I think if you’ll remember what it was like to be young and in love …”

That was when she burst out laughing. Well, it was more of a giggle. But it was enough to make her sit down and wave me to sit with her.

“Bill. You would think I just caught you upstairs asleep with Tara in your arms.” Then she gave me a raised eyebrow. “But it would have been in a motel room, wouldn’t it?”

My lip still hurts from where I bit into it. But I didn’t say a word.

“Bill, all this was really unnecessary, you know.”

“It was?” I asked, not sure where she was headed.

“I’ve known about Fox and Dana for, well, since they arrived home from San Diego.”

“But Mom, they were certain that you didn’t…”

“Don’t ask, don’t tell isn’t a new concept, dear. It just took the military a while to pick it up.”

“Dana wanted me to keep it quiet, but Mulder can’t sleep without her, and he really needs to sleep, Mom or he’s gonna end up back in the hospital and he really hates hospitals, I know…”

Mom put her hand up to stop me. “Why doesn’t Dana want me to know? That’s all the information I need.”

“Because she feels that if you know, they should tell Mrs. Mulder and they seem to think that might be a, well, a security risk,” I told her.

Mom blew a breath out. I knew from experience that meant she was thinking. Finally she nodded, almost like she’d been having a conversation in her head.

“When your brother gets out of the shower, go in and wake up Dana. Try not to wake up Fox. I’ll go back into the bedroom and pretend to be asleep.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s not even seven bells. We can still pull this off.”

So see, God, that’s how I forced my mother to lie to my sister to protect my sister from her lover’s, oh, sorry, partner’s mother finding out that the two of them…

Oh, hell, you were there, you know what it was about.

I felt almost guilty waking up Dana. She looked so cute, all curled up around Mulder. He definitely looked ‘dead to the world’. I wanted to check his pulse, but Dana placed a kiss on his mouth before she crawled out of bed and he smiled a goofy little smile in his sleep.

“How’s he doing?” I asked, more to keep her from noticing the time, then anything.

“Better. This really helped, I think. His breathing got better as the night progressed, his color is better than it was last night. Pulse is steady. Heart and lungs sound real good this morning.”

“You would know,” I grinned at her. She hit me in the arm, but grinned back, just the same.

She looked over her shoulder down the hall and to the window there. “Mom overslept?”

“A little. We’re in luck. Get in there quick, before she wakes up.”

“Or I could say I woke up to shower and get to work?” she suggested.

“That would work. And it wouldn’t be a lie.”

She looked at me thoughtfully. “I really do hate lying to her, Billy. I would love to tell her all about us. I know she would be thrilled.”

“You’re right. She would be,” I smiled. Irony. It’s truly something to behold. Keeps your life hopping, I guess. “Hey, I’m headin’ home today.”

“Missing Tara?” Dana asked with a knowing smile.

“Very much. How will you handle tonight?”

“That one’s easy. Mulder has an early doctor’s appointment at GUMC tomorrow. I’ll just tell Mom that I’ll crash on his bed.” At my questioning look she laughed. “He sleeps on his couch. Mom knows that.”

By breakfast, we were all in pretty good moods. Mulder made it down about 8:15, looking like a new man.

“Did you sleep well, dear?” Mom asked. I was getting good at the cloak and dagger stuff, because I didn’t even choke.

“Great, Mrs. Scully. Fantastic, really. It’s all the TLC, I guess.” He looked like the cat that ate the canary and then was named king of the cats.

“Well, it’s been our pleasure, dear,” Mom said, ruffling his hair just like he was one of us boys. In a way, I guess he is now.

Charlie shoved off at 9 when the rental car companies arrived with a tow truck and a couple of replacement vehicles. He offered Dana a ride to the metro stop so they left together. I gathered my duffle and made noises soon after that.

“Going home so soon, Sweetheart? It seems like you just got here,” Mom told me as we stood at the door.

“Well, I hate being away from Tara, now that Matty’s such a handful.”

She gave me a hug. “Be extra good to her. She’s a sailor’s wife,” Mom told me and I’m sure there were tears in her eyes. But I didn’t put them there, God, I swear I didn’t.

“It’s been good to see you again, Bill,” Mulder said, taking my hand.

“Yes, you too,” I told him. I meant it. I was really beginning to see that he wouldn’t be that bad as a family member. A family member who happened to live on the other side of the continent, mind you.

He walked me out to the rental car. “Thanks, Bill. I know you haven’t always approved of me, but I appreciate your efforts. It means a lot to Dana.”

“Just keep being good to her. Then neither of us have anything to worry about,” I told him. Then, I just couldn’t help myself. I gave him a hug.

It wasn’t a tight hug. More like a ‘Castro meets Breshniv’ kind of hug. But it felt right.

I’m outside St. Anthony’s right now. Maybe Father McCue has enough time for one quick confession. I need all the forgiveness I can get.

By Her Side 10: Until He’s Found by Vickie Moseley

Title: By Her Side 10: Until He’s Found

Summary: Maggie finds out

Spoiler (as if there’s anyone left who doesn’t know) for Requiem

Category: MSR, SA, MaggieA

Sap Factor: I rate this a 2 on a scale of 10

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Yeah, I know. Number 9,999 post ep for Requiem. Have we had enough yet? Obviously not. It was a good show, Chris. Remember how you did it and do more next season. And David, don’t be gone too long. We miss you already.

Archive: yes

Comments: For Brandon, and for Leslie and for Susan, Laurie, Dawn, June, Shirley, Kathy, Michelle and Ginny. And for Sally and Ten who were with us in spirit 🙂

By Her Side: Until He’s Found By Vickie Moseley

I’m a mother, worry is part of my job description. From the moment Dana approached us with the idea that she wanted to join the FBI, I worried. I worried that she wouldn’t find a place, that she would never be allowed to fit in. I’d been a military wife for more than 30 years at that point and I knew that sexism was and is alive and well and thriving within our government.

Oh, I worried about the dangers, of course, but I’d come to accept a certain amount of risk. I’d already sent one son off to the Navy, I regularly dropped my husband off at a ship to not see or even sometimes hear from him for months at a time. That was the easy part. But it was still a worry.

And I worried that she wouldn’t be happy. Dana, my thinker. Dana, the one who was never quite satisfied with her looks, her height, her hair, her life. I can’t count the number of times I’d find her in her room, her door shut, the lights out, just sitting on her bed. Never any tears, of course. Not at all like Missy, who used to cry at the drop of a hat. No, Dana kept it all inside, locked away. And when I would approach her, question her, try to break through the walls, she would batten down the hatches and Katie-bar-the-door. Only when she was good and ready would she come to me with her problems. Sometimes, I think I was a last resort. Often, I think I was the only one she ever turned to.

It’s been almost 10 years since she first came home all excited with the prospect of joining the FBI. “They want me because I’m a pathologist, Daddy,” I remember her saying to Bill, while tears were threatening to free themselves from her lashes. Bill assumed they were just upping their quota of females, something that the military does from time to time. He definitely couldn’t see any advancement available to her, any hope of making a name for herself. Medicine, that was the better field for our serious and scholarly daughter, he’d always contended. Even the outlandish idea that she could have been a physicist appealed to him more than a life as a ‘civil servant’. He used to visibly cringe when he said the words.

I can remember so clearly how badly that hurt her. I can still hear the little girl voice asking me underneath the failing shelter of an umbrella, watching her father’s ashes take flight in the wind across the Chesapeake Bay “was he ever proud of me?” I have a hard time even now understanding how she couldn’t have known how very proud he was, how proud we both were of her. We told her often enough, but I don’t think she was always listening.

Sometimes it’s hard to listen. Sometimes what’s being said isn’t what we’re expecting to hear.

Her voice on the phone was tired, and I thought I could detect a hint of tears. She was at Georgetown Medical Center, quick to assure me that nothing was wrong, they were running a few tests and were releasing her. Could I pick her up and drop her off at her apartment?

I stamped down the feelings of dread that sprang to my throat. The last time I’d been called to a hospital out of the blue, she calmly told me she had cancer. I could feel the chill of fear running through my veins. I was so certain that was the reason she was calling, so very afraid.

She was dressed and sitting on the bed when I entered the room. “Mom,” she said with a smile and got up and hugged me like she hadn’t seen me in weeks. We just spent the last Sunday together and I couldn’t quite understand what was going on in her head. It was like she’d lived a lifetime in our brief absence.

“Dana, what’s the matter? Why are you in the hospital?” I didn’t mean to sound so harsh, so demanding. But given the fact that she has always kept things from me, I could only imagine what horrors she was keeping from me again.

She smiled again and chewed her lip. “It’s nothing, Mom. I swear, I’m perfectly healthy.”

“Then why are you here, Dana? They don’t hospitalize ‘perfectly healthy’ young women!”

She almost laughed at me, holding it to a smirk. “Not with our insurance, at least,” she said and then a brief flash of something dark crossed her face.

“Where is Fox?” I asked, looking around. It finally occurred to me that she’d summoned me to take her home. That was almost always left to Fox. Unless something had happened to him, too. Was he ‘perfectly healthy’ in another room somewhere?

When I stopped my musings long enough to look up, I noticed that she hadn’t answered me. She was wiping her eye with the knuckle of her hand. A tear fell on the silk of her blouse. My God, she was crying.

“Dana. Where is Fox?” This time I asked slowly, as I often did when the children were small and I didn’t want to scare them by screaming at the top of my lungs.

“Mom,” she said, and her face crumbled and she threw her arms around my neck and hung on to me as if her very life depended on it. “He’s gone, Mom.”

I couldn’t make out the next words for the sobs wracking her frame in my arms. I finally just let her cry, all the time trying to divine what was going on. She pulled away after a time and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

“He was abducted, Mom. Like I was. Taken from… us, from me.”

“Dana, can you be sure?” I asked before I had a chance to weigh the words. If Fox had run off, I wouldn’t have been that surprised. The man had experienced more than his share of troubles in the past few months.

She bristled at me. “Yes, Mother, I’m sure. AD Skinner was there. He saw it, saw him being taken.”

I needed to sit down and chose the end of the bed. “Then he saw the kidnappers. He must have a description, a license plate.” I shuddered to think that I could come up with the protocol so easily. I’ve learned so many things since Dana joined the Bureau.

She was shaking her head. “They didn’t have a car, Mom,” she said quietly. “He was… abducted.” She said the last word as if it had a different meaning, somehow deeper and something I couldn’t understand.

“Mom, I don’t know how to explain this, but you have to believe me. Mulder was taken… by a ship. By…” She stopped and swallowed and shook her head as if fighting with herself over what words would come next. “Mulder was taken by an alien craft.”

I’m glad I had a chance to sit before I fell to the floor. I could see my daughter waiting for me to respond to her statement. I’d known for several years that Fox believed aliens abducted his sister. I’d always believed that it was his way of blocking a traumatic childhood experience, his way of dealing with such a tremendous loss. If Fox Mulder chose to think aliens in spaceships took his sister from his family, but otherwise appeared perfectly rational, who was I to argue with him? But this was different. This was my daughter.

“Dana,” I managed to get out.

“Mom, I know this is hard to believe, but it’s true. AD Skinner was there, he saw what happened. Mulder and several others were taken into the craft, and it just… flew away. And now I have to find him.”

I started to say something else, though for the life of me, I had no idea what that would be, when a nurse in salmon colored scrubs knocked once and entered.

“Here are you release papers, Dana. And this is a starter box of prenatal vitamins. There’s a prescription for a larger box in with the papers, but Dr. Gilman wanted to make sure you tolerated these. Take them at dinnertime, it’s easier on your tummy. Oh, and you need to make an appointment to see Dr. Gilman in four weeks. Wear something loose, they’ll want to take another sonogram just to determine due date.”

“Thank you,” Dana said, blushing bright red and glancing at me furtively. I was somewhere back in the space craft with poor Fox.

“Is this your Mom?” the nurse barged ahead.

“Yes,” Dana answered, not making any further advances to the impromptu conversation.

“First grandchild?” the nurse asked me and for the second time in a morning, I was happy to be sitting down. But I’m Maggie Scully, and I recover well.

“No, no I have a grandson in San Diego,” I said with a forced smile.

“Well, then, maybe this will be a girl,” the nurse concluded. “If you have any questions, Dana, Dr. Gilman’s number is on the release form. Good luck with the baby.” She was out the door as if nothing had happened.

“Mom.”

One word and I lost it. It was Allentown all over again. Being dragged to a hospital in the middle of Pennsylvania to be told that my daughter was dying of cancer. What else had she been hiding from me?

“How long have you known?” I demanded.

“I just found out this morning. Honestly, Mom, I had no idea.”

“Is this why you have to find Fox? Does he know?”

“Mom, didn’t you just hear me? I said I just found out. Mulder was… Mulder was taken last night. He didn’t even know I was in the hospital.”

“Dana, you are a doctor. How could you not know that you were pregnant?” I howled. I’d had this conversation once before, in a dingy kitchen, but it was a dark haired girl standing defiantly in front of me. Thank God that had been a false alarm, she’d only turned 16.

“Mom, I was told I was barren,” Dana said in a growl and it brought me to my senses.

I sat down again, suddenly very tired. “Fox is the father?”

“Of course he is,” she spit out. “I haven’t been with any one else, Mom. And we’ve only been together since New Years.”

A tiny voice inside of me giggled at her words. I’d noticed something different in Dana since the start of the New Year. She had a bounce to her step, she smiled more easily. She had a brief period of doldrums, but nothing more than a couple of days. Then when I saw her the next weekend, she was on cloud Nine again.

And before I could stop it, that tiny giggle grew and grew and I found myself laughing out loud with joy. Dana stared at me a minute, I think she expected me to change colors or grow a second head. At that point, nothing would have surprised either of us.

I couldn’t stand it. I stood up and took her in my arms. She resisted at first, but then she melted on my shoulder.

“I’m so happy for you, Sweetheart,” I murmured in her hair.

“I want to tell him so bad, Mom. I keep imagining the look on his face when he hears the news. Just the other day, I held a baby in my arms. You know what he did? He tried to send me home, ordered me home from the case. He said our jobs had cost me too much. That it wasn’t worth the cost. He wants children, Mom. He wants to have children with me. I have to find him.” The tears skittered down her cheeks again and I could feel them soaking my neck.

“Then we’ll find him,” I said firmly. I pushed her away, just enough so she could see how much I meant what I was saying.

“I’ve done this once already, Dana. I’m a pro.”

She let the smile steal the tears from her eyes.

I waited while she gathered her purse and was ready to leave. We had a lot of work to do. I promised Fox, wherever he was, that I would stay by her side, until he could be there himself. Just as he had done for me years ago.

Together, we left the hospital, my daughter, my newest grandchild, and me.

« ♦ »

“I have to find him.”

Scully, Requiem

“If Scully is really with child, who’s the father?

This being the X Files, don’t rule out aliens – or the possibility of Papa Mulder. “There was a [recent] episode written and directed by Gillian that began and ended in Mulder’s bedroom,” Carter teases. “That would certainly bring up some questions for me.”

Chris Carter in an interview in June 2, 2000 Entertainment Weekly

I rest my shipper case 🙂

By Her Side 11: Mother of the Bride

Title: Mother of the Bride
Author: Vickie Moseley
Spoiler: Existence

Summary: A momentous occasion in Maggie Scully’s life. A “By Her Side” epilogue.

Category: MSM, Maggie Angst, Doggett Free Zone

Disclaimer: You get the money, we get the characters. That works.

Archives: yes Thanks to my Evil Twin… hope this one is an inspiration, too.

Comments: Please, I love them. Send them, I’ll write back

Mother of the Bride

I didn’t want anymore late night phone calls. Not for a while, at least. The two, no, three that I’d received in the past three weeks had been more than enough for me. First, the call from Fox that he was taking Dana to the hospital because the baby nurse I had hired might have poisoned her. I was frantic all night, even after I was assured that my daughter and my grandchild were fine and would continue to be so.

Two nights later I received a frantic and cryptic phone call from Dana saying that she and Fox were ‘going away for a while’, but the call only lasted less then a minute and I wasn’t given time to ask questions. When I tried, repeatedly, to reach her all through that night and the next day, I got only her machine, which was finally filled with my messages and started cutting me off without letting me say a word.

Fox called the next time, a night later, telling me what hospital to come to so I could see my grandson. I must admit, I wasn’t quite as upset at that one, but I was still rather miffed that I hadn’t been present for the birth. Apparently, neither had Fox, so at least I was in good company.

It was just over a week after that momentous occasion, the birth of my grandson, William Mulder, that I received yet another phone call. When my caller ID showed Dana’s apartment number, I hurried to pick up. Anything might have happened, Dana might be sick, the baby might have fallen. As I brought the receiver up to my ear my mind played with all the horrible possibilities that I’d never imagined with any of my other grandchildren. Fox might be missing again, the baby … I didn’t want to think those thoughts, but they came to me all the same.

“Dana, is the baby all right? You, Fox? What’s the matter? Why are you calling so late?” I demanded breathlessly.

“Mom, slow down,” Dana giggled over the phone. God, how I’d missed that. Hearing my baby girl laugh, giggle, show some happiness. The first real smile I’d seen in months was on her face when I came to visit Fox in the hospital. That smile had become strained in the recent weeks, but it was back ten fold when I went to visit my new grandson for the very first time. Finally, I could hear it in her voice, over the phone.

“Mom, we’re fine. Wills is sleeping and Mulder is right here beside me. Um, Mom, we have a favor to ask,” Dana said and at the time I was so relieved I didn’t notice the slight break in her voice.

“Sure, sweetheart. Just give me the list, I’ll run out right now,” I answered. Middle of the night trips to the grocery were a vivid memory of my life with four children. And that was just for milk and bread. Now there were diapers and diaper wipes and any number of ‘essential’ items we’d somehow managed to live without.

“Mom, it’s not a grocery list. Um, actually, we were wondering what you were doing tomorrow afternoon, say about 2:30.”

I could hear Fox in the background; he was saying something I couldn’t make out.

“Well, I have ‘meals on wheels’ from 11 to 1, but I think I’m free for the rest of the afternoon. Why? Do you have a doctor’s appointment?” I was a little confused, since Fox had been doing so many of the chores that Dana needed to have done around the apartment.

“No, it’s not a doctor’s appointment, but we do want you to come with us. We need you to meet us at the courthouse in Alexandria at 2:30.”

“Dana,” I whispered, holding my breath and hoping my suspicions about this ‘appointment’ were correct. “Can you tell me what this is all about?”

Suddenly, Fox was on the phone. “Call it an early birthday present, Mrs. Scully. And maybe a late Mother’s Day Present, as well.”

Tears were streaming down my cheeks and I almost couldn’t get out the next words. “Do I need to bring anything?”

Fox had given the phone back to Dana and I could hear him repeating my question for her. “Just yourself, Mom. Oh, and wear something nice, if you don’t mind.”

“My Easter dress, will that do?” My suspicions were all but confirmed and I was overjoyed. But I could tell this was supposed to be a surprise for me and I didn’t want to spoil that for them.

“The green one? Yes, that will do nicely,” Dana replied. We then chatted for a moment about the baby until I could hear Fox in the background calling for a new box of wipes. My grandson seemed to think naps were never meant to be very long. I told Dana I loved her and said good night.

I didn’t sleep a wink that night. I tossed and turned and always my mind kept coming back to one thought. This was the night before my daughter’s wedding day. I had planned this day in my mind from the moment the doctor put a squalling Melissa in my arms. When Dana was born just a year and a half later, Bill had joked that he’d have to start saving immediately just to pay for two weddings.

It was always a deeply kept secret of mine that one of my regrets for Melissa and for Bill was that neither of them got to see the wedding days I had planned. I knew that it was selfish of me, but every mother dreams of her daughter’s wedding day and I always felt doubly blessed that I would get two such days. Instead, after Missy died, I kept quiet, but a bit of my heart broke over the fact we’d never see that day together.

As the years passed, and I saw how close Dana became to her partner, I couldn’t help but wish for just one such day. Years came and went and I watched the relationship grow so very close, closer than any I’d ever witnessed save the one I had shared with Bill. I dreamed that one day, I would get to see my daughter’s wedding. That dream died the day we lowered Fox’s casket into the frozen ground. I grieved for the man we had lost, but I grieved, too, for the dream that had died with him.

I was shocked when Fox was returned some three months later. I will never understand how he survived being buried alive and I continue to stop my thoughts whenever they wander in that direction, but I was happy no matter how it came about. Though for some reason, I just never let my heart dream about wedding days again. Even when I knew that Dana was carrying his child, I just always steered away from dreams of white dresses and rose bouquets, seven tiered cakes and tow-headed ring bearers. I figured they would never get around to it and I had best catch up with the times I was living in.

I fell asleep somewhere near sunrise, but something was still breaking in my heart. Even as my dreams were being realized, I still felt that something was missing.

I woke up long after my alarm and was rushed getting ready to do my meals on wheels duties. When I got back to the house it was a little past one and I had to get changed and get all the way down the B-W Parkway to downtown Alexandria. I was slipping on my dress when something occurred to me and I ran to my dresser, digging through the second drawer until I found what I needed. Tucking the slim box into my purse, I all but ran out the door to my car.

Lunch hour traffic was horrible at best and it seemed even worse when I had somewhere important to be. I wondered if Dana had thought to bring formula for little William. She surely wouldn’t want to breast feed him in the courthouse! A thousand thoughts were running through my mind and I almost ran a red light before I started to concentrate on my driving. The last thing the two, no, three of them needed was my ending up in the hospital from a car wreck. Talk about ruining a day! But finally I pulled up in front of the courthouse and even found a free parking meter.

It was 2:15 as I entered the glass doors, but I could see Fox pacing just on the other side of the metal detectors. “Dana sent me down to make sure you could find the judge’s chambers,” he said to explain his presence without my daughter. “Wills needed to be changed, so she’s taking care of that.”

I noticed he was wearing one of his charcoal grey suits with a tie that I had given him for Christmas two or three years ago. For a brief moment, I remember looking at that suit as it hung in his closet just five months before. Dana had called me in tears. She was at his apartment, searching through his closet for the clothes he would wear in his casket. It broke my heart when she took out each suit; making some mention of the last time she’s seen him in it. She’d settled on a navy blue one because she remembered it as the one he’d worn when he’d punched out an auditor. A faint sad smile had played on her lips for the briefest of moments until the tears returned to take its place.

For a second, standing there in that lobby, it was impossible for me to believe that he was there, alive, and waiting for me to go through the metal detector. Life was moving on and to me it seemed to be going at an amazing rate.

“I’m really sorry about this,” Fox said as he held the door for me to enter the elevator.

I must have looked confused because he drew in a deep breath and continued.

“I know you would have liked to have the rest of the family here. I mentioned it to Dana, but she didn’t want to wait and well, quite frankly, neither did I. think we waited a little too long as it is,” he added with that lop sided grin I’ve grown so fond of over the years.

“Fox,” I said, reaching over to put my hand on his arm. “This is yours and Dana’s decision. I accept that, and I know her brothers will, too.”

He laughed at that. “Somehow, Mrs. Scully, I think that’s wishful thinking. I have a feeling I better be ready for a real ass kicking in the not too distant future.”

I grinned back at him. “Well, if they start to come after you, they’ll have to go through me, first. And so far, neither of them have ever had the guts to do that.”

Fox allowed himself a full laugh at that. “I think I’m with them on that one,” he said as we reached our floor and got off the elevator.

Dana was standing the middle of the hallway, bouncing a squalling infant on her shoulder. She had her hair pulled back in a clip and wore a pale pink suit I’d never seen. It was a fuller cut and I’m sure that was to accommodate her post pregnancy figure. Still, she looked stunning.

“Mulder, where did you put the pacifier?” she asked without even acknowledging my appearance.

“Did you look in the side pocket of the diaper bag?” he asked, searching for and finding the bag sitting on a wooden bench. In an instant he was searching through the pockets, coming up empty. “I know I put it in here, Scully. It was in my hands when I picked up the bag and I just slipped it in…” His face lit into a grin and he pulled his hand triumphantly out of the bag, in his fingers was the clear plastic pacifier. “Found it.”

Dana eyed him suspiciously and took the pro-offered pacifier. “Next time, don’t hide it on me,” she growled. Shifting the baby down into her arms, she tried unsuccessfully to get him to take the pacifier.

“Maybe he’s hungry,” Fox suggested innocently.

“Maybe you’d like to try breastfeeding him in a silk blouse and suit jacket,” Dana shot back.

“Dana, may I hold him?” I had to run interference or there wouldn’t be a wedding before there was a divorce.

“Sure, Mom, but here, I don’t want him to spit up on your dress,” she fretted, placing a cloth diaper on my shoulder.

“I’ve had spit up on my dresses before, Dana. I’m sure I’ll have it again.” But then I felt the weight of my baby grandson against my shoulder and I couldn’t find enough moisture in my throat to speak. His precious little head snuggled into my neck and I could smell the baby shampoo that Dana had used to wash his hair. I swayed gently, an ancient dance I could never forget slowly lulling him to slumber.

This tiny little miracle, one I never thought I’d see, was falling asleep on my shoulder. I thought my heart would burst with joy.

“Good job, Mrs. Scully,” Fox whispered, his grin matching the twinkle in his eyes. “Fussing to sleeping in under five minutes. A new Wills world record!”

“Quick, put him in the car seat. The judge has court at three, we have to get in the chambers now,” Dana informed us in no uncertain terms.

“Don’t be so romantic, Scully,” Fox teased and after a split second flash of red in her eyes, she broke into a wide grin, stood up to him on tip toe and placed a kiss right on his chin.

“Let’s go get hitched, G-man,” she purred. It was the first time I’d ever heard that tone come out of my daughter, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

“That’s more like it,” Fox growled in return and took her in his arms for a quick hug. I gave them a little privacy while I put the baby in his car seat carrier.

“I’m not late, am I?”

I wasn’t surprised to hear the voice; I’d almost asked Dana where he was. Assistant Director Skinner was stepping off the elevator, a large bouquet of white roses in his hands.

“Thanks, Walt, but I really prefer red,” Fox joked and I was somewhat surprised to see the usually stern AD chuckle.

“Next time, Mulder. I’ll make sure I remember next time.” He handed the bouquet over to Dana, who smiled brightly and kissed him on the cheek.

“Thank you, Walter. They’re beautiful.”

“I figured the groom would forget,” he said, shooting a look over to Fox.

“That’s why I asked you to be the best man, Walt,” Fox beamed.

Dana was already through the door of the judge’s chambers, tapping her foot insistently. “C’mon, people, time’s a wasting!”

“Dana, wait,” I said suddenly, before I ever realized I was thinking the words. Three pairs of eyes fixed on me in total surprise.

“What, Mom? Can it wait?” she asked anxiously, glancing over her shoulder at the judge who had come around his desk and was busy paging through a worn book looking for the right passages.

“No, it can’t. Can we talk, just for a minute? Out here in the hall?” I don’t know what I was thinking, my mouth was talking, but my head was spinning. I just knew I needed to talk to her, alone.

Dana frowned; Fox shrugged but nodded his head in silent acquiescence. She stepped out into the hallway and I closed the door behind us.

“Mom, what’s going on? What’s the problem?” she asked and I could tell she was just barely holding her anger in check. When Dana makes a decision, hell and all its fury won’t stop her. But here I was, standing in the way of her happiness. Or at least, that’s what she thought.

“Dana, this is a very important moment in your life, and I just want to you reflect on it for a second,” I started. I really didn’t know what I was going to say; I just felt that I had to have some time with her.

“Mom,” she said softly, a gentle smile forming on her lips. “I’ve thought about this. For a long time. I won’t be apart from him, Mom. He’s the father of my son and I want to be with him, always. We aren’t rushing into this, Mom. You, of all people must surely see that!”

“Honey, I’m not saying you’re rushing into this,” I tried to explain. “I just want to take a moment to understand what is happening. And maybe this isn’t even about you, really. Maybe it’s about me.”

She covered a hundred different expressions from surprise to anger to worry in about a breath and a half. “Mom, what haven’t you told me?” she demanded. “Are you sick? What’s the matter?”

“Dana, Dana, stop jumping to conclusions and let me finish,” I said, probably a little too loudly for a courthouse hallway. She quieted immediately and stood chewing her lip. “First, I am fine, there is nothing wrong with me���physically.” That comment earned me an arched brow and narrowed stare. “It’s just that I always dreamed of this day, Dana, but this is definitely not how I pictured it!”

There, the truth was finally out. She stood there chewing on that lip again, and I know she was regretting the fact that they had called me to join them. I felt horrible; I’d ruined this day for her because of my own selfish dreams.

“Mom,” she whispered after an eternity. “I never pictured getting to this day.” A tear slipped down her cheek and she wiped at its intrusion. “I’m sorry I’m not getting married in the Church, but we just didn’t want to take the time. As for Pre-Cana conferences, Mom, if I don’t know Mulder by now, I never will.”

I could see exactly where her thoughts were going and she still wasn’t getting the picture.

“Dana, this isn’t about churches and priests and all of that. It’s about me and you and how apart we’ve grown,” I said with a tired sigh. I felt exhausted, and it was more than just not have slept the night before. I figured by this point it was a lost cause trying to explain myself. Since I couldn’t make the day any worse, I decided to go ahead with the plan I’d made just before I left the house. I dug through my purse and pulled out the narrow box. “Here. Maybe you’ll understand.” I handed her the box and stepped back a few feet. It was everything I could do not to break down into sobs.

With trembling fingers she opened the box. The hinge caused her a bit of trouble, but it soon released a squeak and she uncovered the contents. Her gasp was soft and tears filled her eyes.

“Mom, are these…?”

“Your Grandmother’s pearls? Yes. The same ones she’s wearing in her wedding picture. Your father and I got married at the base chapel in Newport News and my mother couldn’t get there. I never got to wear these on my wedding day. I just always wanted to make that up to her. I wanted my daughters,” I choked on that word and quickly corrected myself, “my daughter, to wear them on her wedding day.”

She was crying in earnest now, and that wasn’t what I’d intended, but I wasn’t surprised. Reverently, she pulled the strand of pearls free from the cloth ties and tried unsuccessfully to undo the clasp.

“Mom, help,” she laughed through her tears, handing me the strand. I wasn’t much better working the clasp, my eyes were brimming over, but it finally came free and I reached around and encircled her neck with the pearls.

“You know, my name means Pearl,” I told her as I fixed the clasp, securing the strand.

“I know. I’ve got the baby name book almost memorized,” she grinned. “How do they look?” she asked, and for a moment I remembered the little girl she once was, standing in front of my bedroom mirror, posing in her new Easter dress.

“Just as I always dreamed they would,” I told her. The tears were drying on my cheeks, and I could swear somewhere down the hall I heard my mother’s soft laughter.

“Hey, you don’t want to keep the groom waiting,” I announced, wiping at her chin to keep the teardrops from ruining her silk blouse.

“Yeah. He might change his mind,” she grinned back. She reached for the door, but I grabbed it first.

“One more tradition. Let me lead you in.”

She smiled at me and nodded. I opened the door to three very anxious faces. I smiled warmly at Fox and he relaxed.

“What? No music?” I asked, stepping into the chambers. The Judge, whose name I still didn’t know, looked first confused and then frantic.

“I’ve got this CD player. My wife gave me some disks for it, but frankly, I usually just listen to NPR,” he stammered.

I looked through the CDs quickly, finding the perfect one. I slipped it into the player and soon Pachebel’s Canon in D filled the empty spaces in the room.

“There. Wedding music,” I sighed and Fox grinned at me. But then his attention turned to the door and his gaze was fixed on his bride.

She wasn’t wearing my wedding dress, and she didn’t have on her First Communion veil as she’d once imagined when she was in second grade. But she was beaming the same smile I remember had been on my face one afternoon in June, 37 years ago. And around her throat were my mother’s pearls. She stepped forward and grabbed Fox’s outstretched hand in her own, taking her place by his side.

Just as I’d always dreamed.

By Her Side 12: A Christmas Story

Title: By Her Side 12: A Christmas Story

Author: Vickie Moseley

Summary: Bill Scully gets more than he bargained for as he hosts Christmas for his now extended family.

Rating: PG-13 (R for one naughty word)

Category: H, MSM (married Mulder and Scully), (please note this story totally disregards anything that happened in Season 9. It is Doggett/Reyes/Season 9-free)

Spoiler: Existence, Dead/Alive, By Her Side stories Disclaimer: I’m still not making money from this and I didn’t even watch season 9 (except for The Truth). Ten-thirteen still owns the character names and all action figures.

Archive: yes

Comments: This is the next installment in the By Her Side Series, where I make Bill Scully, Jr. into a somewhat loveable, three-dimensional asshole as opposed to the one dimension asshole he is portrayed on the show. It does mention my other ‘wedding story’, “Mother of the Bride” which, along with the rest of the series, can be found on my website. https://vickiemoseley.mimicsmusings.com

Dedication: to all the very sweet people who have asked for this series to continue. I think I’ve got my inspiration back now. Thanks to Susan, dtg, Sally, Theresa, Dawn and Suzanne for keeping me sane.

Part one: The Bar

San Diego, CA December 24, 2001 1:45 pm

I should have stayed out on the ship. I see that now. I had the chance to go out on the very next day, but noooo, I’m Mr. Family Man. I could have cruised the South Pacific, stopping at Honolulu, Tahiti, Melbourne. But no, I had to tell my Captain that I had a wife and a son waiting. I had to tell him, happily, might I add, how my family likes to get together at the holidays and this year it was our turn to play host. I had to tell him that I was actually looking forward to some time stateside.

I know why Dad was out on the sea so much. He was a very smart man and he’d never even heard of Fox Mulder.

So, we pulled into port on November 30. I missed Thanksgiving, but my loving wife Tara more than made up for it with a blow out dinner that was way more than just the three of us could ever consume.

Of course, I needed the protein after the workout she had put me through. She’s gotten so good at these homecomings. I thought, with the addition of Matty to our little domicile, that homecomings would be more, shall I say ‘tame’ than they were when it was just Tara welcoming me home. But the woman is a genius. She plans sleepovers for Matty for the first night I’m home. The kid’s only 4, it’s not like he doesn’t get just as excited to see me 18 hours after I really arrive. In the meantime, well, I figured out that this stint on shore duty would include shopping for a new mattress on one of my days off. We busted a few springs on the old one.

But back to the story. Like I said, Tara had Thanksgiving all ready for me on December 1. A week late, but none the poorer, believe me. She got an 18 pound bird, stuffed it with oysters, cranberries, bread I’m sure she made herself. And that wasn’t the half of it. Sweet potato casserole that melted in my mouth, mashed potatoes swimming in the richest giblet gravy ever to grace a Scully table (God forbid Mom ever hears me say this, but Tara’s gravy runs rings around hers, I swear!), green beans, corn, every olive I could hope to encounter. For dessert, she brought out a 10 inch pumpkin pie with real whipped cream. For three people! It was almost criminal.

Actually, it was criminal. It was deliberate, premeditated and I’m pretty sure illegal in least 28 states. The woman drugged me. Yes, I say it here, she drugged me. That stupid drug in turkey that renders you sleepy and content and willing to agree to anything. She used it to coerce me into agreeing to something that I never would have agreed to in a million years!

I remember the conversation like it was yesterday, even though it was just four weeks ago. I was sitting in my reclining chair, watching the Chargers game and thinking life did not get any better. Matty was playing with some stuffed animal that looked like a fuzzy blue-green monster with purple spots and being quiet, an almost unheard of occurrence since I’d come home. And Tara was doing something in the kitchen, though I couldn’t tell you what because Matty and I had cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher.

The phone rang. I figured if it was important, or for me, she’d call me into the kitchen to take it. But she left me to the game, which suited me just fine. A few minutes later, she came in and crawled in next to me on the reclining chair.

I glanced over at Matty, but relaxed because he was all caught up talking to some invisible guy named “Mike” about someone named “Boo” and wasn’t paying attention to us at all. Besides, we’re a family. We snuggle all the time. It’s not like I was going to strip Tara right there and we’d do it in front of the kid. Or at least that’s what I thought until I felt Tara’s nimble little tongue lapping at my ear.

That’s something else for the court documents. She drugged me AND seduced me. And right during a crucial football game! I was just about to either stop her or send the kid upstairs, when she settled down again and started watching the game.

Oh, I thought. We’re playing that game. OK, I was fine with that. Tara would get me all, well, you know, and then when we finally got Matty to sleep, we’d use that lock on our bedroom door Tara made me install years ago and I would get breakfast in bed in the morning. Yes siree Bob, life didn’t get better!

Then she started to talk. She knows that I only half listen when I’m watching a game. I pick up on key words, like ‘buy’, ‘sell’, or ‘doctor’, but the rest of the dictionary just sort of floats through my ears. I remember vaguely nodding once or twice and that’s the extent of it.

Next morning, as she placed the tray with eggs over easy and those really great little sausage links on my lap, she hit me with the bombshell.

“So, I called Mom and Dana and it’s all arranged. We can use St. Mary’s, I’ll call them this morning and I think I’ll call that bakery in Horton Plaza for the cake. Of course, we can’t do it on Christmas morning, that would be just too much, but I think we could get the little chapel around 5 o’clock on Christmas Eve. If no one else has it by now, that is. But then, this is San Diego, there has to be a church available, right?”

I had my mouth full by this time, and was searching for a way to clear it. The coffee cup was there, and I grabbed it and gulped. Big mistake. Tara likes her coffee just a few degrees below nuclear meltdown. I burned all the skin off the inside of my mouth.

“Church? Cake? What the hell are you babbling about, woman??” That’s what I meant to say. It didn’t come out quite that clear. It sounded more like ‘Thurth, thake, wha’ th’ heww are you babblin’ ’bout, woman?’ but she seemed to understand.

“Fox and Dana’s wedding, silly! Remember, I asked you about it last night. You said you thought it was a great idea!”

I reran my memory of the entire night. At one point I remember Tara asking me if I wanted a beer. She’d said something else, something before that, but I hadn’t really answered. At the time, I thought the beer was a great idea. Ohmigod!

“Tara, I never said anything about a wedding! Besides, they got married. Justice of the peace or whatever.”

“A judge. At the courthouse. Bill, what kind of wedding is that? I mean, just your mom and their boss there, that’s not a wedding. It’s a… a… well I don’t know what it is, but it’s not a wedding!”

“Tara, they have a kid, for cripes sakes! It’s not like she can go down the aisle in a big white dress. They were probably too embarrassed to have a church wedding.”

Lucky thing I was holding my coffee cup, or it would have been in my lap if the look Tara gave me was any warning.

“Oh, and I suppose all those times in the back of your car were just ‘practice sessions’, right? All the sex we had before we were married. That was just, what, learning the ground rules, William Dennis Scully?”

“Matty was born a full 8 years after our wedding day, Tara Elizabeth, and you know it!” I almost never use her full name, but she pissed me off. Besides, she used my full name first.

Apparently I pissed her off as well. After a rather silent day, spent mostly avoiding her glaring looks, I sort of caved about dinnertime. Besides, she’d made Matty mac and cheese for lunch and she knows I hate that stuff, so I figured it was more punishment for dinner if I didn’t give in soon.

Which is why I’m standing in the middle of some uptown florist shop right now, on December 24, tossing about 350 bucks worth of soon to be dead flowers on my VISA account and once again cursing Fox Mulder and the horse he rode in on and I’m not referring to my sister!

At the tinkling bell behind me, I cringe. I remember he said he wanted to look down the street at something. Funny, he shows up right after I sign the charge slip. Amazing how that works, isn’t it?

“Bill, what the hell are we going to do with all these flowers?”

Well, if I weren’t so pissed at the bastard, I would give him points for that question. I’m wondering the same thing myself.

“Tara ordered them. There’s a bouquet for the altar, one for Mary’s altar, one for the Nativity scene, flowers for Dana, for Tara and for Mom, then boutonnieres for you, me, Matty and one for little Bill…”

“Will,” Mulder corrects me.

“Oh, yeah, for little Will, and then I think that one is supposed to be on the table at home.”

“Christ, this must have cost a fortune!”

The man is astute. But then, he was an FBI agent. A now ‘unemployed’ FBI agent. Dana says he’s got a book deal on the line and he’s going to be teaching a class at Georgetown next semester, but for now, he stays home and watches little Bill, I mean Will, while she goes to work. Oh, yeah, I’ve got one of those brothers-in-law. I notice he doesn’t reach for his wallet, but instead grabs one of the three large boxes of flowers and hefts it toward the door.

Yeah, one of those brothers-in-law.

I guess, in some ways, I should be grateful. I mean, I have known for years that this asshole is the man with the keys to my little sister’s heart. And he’s been falling all over himself in love with her for at least as long, longer if he’s to be believed. I know Mom never believed they would kiss, much less go so far as to have a baby together. And get married? That was completely out of the picture. So I should be tickled pink that they finally did the right thing, gave the kid a name and all that.

They did it already. So why am I paying for them to go ahead and do it again?

“Bill, I have to say, I mean, this whole wedding and everything.”

We are halfway to the car, and from the list I have, we have four more stops to make. I’m feeling a little miffed, but hey, if the guy wants to finally cough up some cash, I can be big.

“I really wish you hadn’t gone to all this trouble.”

“Don’t think anything of it, Mulder,” I assure him.

“No, Bill, I mean I really wish you hadn’t gone to all this trouble.”

We’re standing here in the middle of the frigging sidewalk on Christmas Eve and the asshole has me ready to punch his lights out.

“Are you saying you don’t want to marry my sister?” I ask, trying real hard to keep my voice down as the last minute shoppers hurry past us.

“Bill, I already married your sister. I married her six months ago. I just sort of hoped to avoid all the, you know, other stuff.”

Now I get it. He wanted to avoid the whole ‘church’ thing. Oh, boy. That takes the cake, that really takes the cake. Well, Mister, let me tell you one thing…

“Well, Mulder, let me tell you one thing, you are going to go through with this and you’re gonna like it, get that? Because if you ever-”

He grabs my arm and propels me down the street. Suddenly, we’re both inside this little corner bar, the kind the shiny new Marine Corps boots hit the minute they graduate before they start weapons school. Dark, nice wood, but the smell of beer and urine is unmistakable. My kind of bar. He pushes me to the counter and plops down on a bar stool, glaring at me until I follow.

“Two Rolling Rocks and two shots of Jack Daniels,” he tells the bartender. Then he turns to me. “What are you having?”

I suppress the nervous giggle that is threatening to come out of my mouth. Oh great. Now he’s going to get drunk before the wedding. Flashes of the last time Mulder and I tied one on come back to me. I remember a hospital came into play at some point …

“I’m just kidding, Bill. Geez, get a grip. You like JD, right?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” I reply. The bartender sets the two shot glasses and two beers in front of us. Mulder picks up his shot glass, stares at the reflection of himself in the mirror behind the bar and holds the glass aloft.

“To women, especially the ones dumb enough to marry us,” he proclaims and downs the shot in one gulp.

Well, I see no argument in that toast, so I second it. “To dumb women.” Then it occurs to me he just called my sister and my wife stupid. I’m seeing red again.

“Bill, relax, it was a joke. I know Dana and Tara aren’t dumb. They’re saints, they’re the mothers of our children, they’ll probably end up in some history book for their bravery and steadfastness, at least your sister sure will. But look at us. We’re hardly the catches of the season.”

“OK, I’ll give you that one,” I tell him grudgingly.

It’s my turn. I tap the countertop and the bartender is there, Jack in hand. He pours two more shots and goes back to watching his soap opera on the television. I raise the glass, nod to Mulder’s reflection in the mirror and give my toast.

“To fatherhood.”

He nods a bit and downs his drink again, in one gulp. I’m starting to feel that really nice burn in the pit of my stomach, but hope we manage to get to the beers now.

“I love being a father,” he says, turning the glass over upside down on the bar. “I wake up every morning and just go into his room and watch him sleep. He doesn’t sleep much past the minute I get in there, but for just a few seconds…”

My eyes are burning, must be the left over smoke in the bar. “Yeah,” I say. “I do that with Matty sometimes. When I’m not out in the middle of the ocean someplace.” That sounded like regret in my voice. I didn’t mean it to, but Mulder picks up on it, too.

“It’s a hard job you’ve chosen. I don’t know how you do it,” he says and when I look at him, I can tell he’s not bullshitting me. He means what he says.

“You’re the one who had the hard job,” I huff back. “You got killed.” Opps, I didn’t mean to bring that up.

But he takes it in stride, picks up his beer and takes a sip. “Yeah. It’s been a bitch. I don’t remember my funeral, but the headstone was real classy. Gave a nice set of new nightmares to Scully.”

Now he’s the one with regret in his voice. “That little guy she carried off the plane sure made up for a lot of that,” I tell him, nudging him in the ribs with my elbow.

“But I still have a lot of making up to do. That’s why I agreed to this. I have a lot to make up for. I just wish.” He swallows what he was going to say around another sip of beer.

“It’s the church thing, isn’t it?” I ask him.

He shakes his head slowly, staring at some spot of air between the bar and the shelf of bottles behind it. “No, not really. I mean, Will’s baptism didn’t bother me at all.”

I missed the baptism. I was somewhere off the coast of Sitka if I remember correctly.

“I just wish we could have done it right the first time,” he goes on, regardless of if I’m listening or not. “I wanted to marry her a long time ago. That stupid ass job and that fucking Bureau… no, I can’t even really blame that. I was a coward. Plain and simple.”

“Dana wasn’t ready to marry you yet, either. Have you thought about that?”

That statement sort of catches him off guard. He stares at me, and I know I better back up what I’m saying.

“Tara and Dana talk all the time. And right before you were, uh, you disappeared, Tara said Dana was happier than she’d ever been. Tara brought up the idea of you two finally settling down together, I mean, making it legal and all and you know what Dana told her?”

He shakes his head at me, mesmerized by my story.

“She said ‘we’re so far past that point, Tara. We don’t need to make it legal.’ That’s what she said. So if you’d come to her and proposed, to her, it would have been a mistake, a step back. She wasn’t ready to see the advantages of being married.”

“We’ve always made decisions together,” he assures me. “But not like now. Not where to live and whether I go with one publisher or another one. It’s different.”

“See, the way I see it, you two had, oh, what did they call it, a common law marriage. You had that for a long time. But you have to consider little Will now. That’s what made the difference.”

“I know, Bill, I know. But I really hoped I wouldn’t have my son attending my wedding,” he says with a sigh, finishing off the beer.

“Look at it this way. At least you’re marrying his mother,” I shoot back with a grin.

“At least she’ll have me. Twice.”

“If I were to ask Tara to marry me again, on certain days at certain times…”

He interrupts me. “She’d do it again, Bill, and you know it.”

I nod in acceptance. “Yeah. I do.” We’re quiet for a minute, each inspecting our beers and the counter of the bar. It’s been a question that’s been eating me for so long that I almost don’t realize it slips out of my mouth.

“So how the hell did I get a nephew?”

Beer spurts from his lips, but not enough to call it a loss and he chokes down what’s left in his mouth.

“I should have known not to get you around beer, Scully,” he growls. He wipes his mouth on a nearby cocktail napkin and shakes his head as he looks at me. Right now, I’m pretty sure he’d bust me in the chops if he didn’t have to face my wife and my mother when he left this place.

“Do you want to know the specific position, or just the general working principles?” he asks, in that smart ass voice of his.

I get to growl this time. “She was barren,” I remind him. “She couldn’t have kids. That was the whole point of that little girl.”

“Emily,” he reminds me with an undeserved glare.

“Yeah, Emily.” I still think it’s crazy, but Tara takes flowers out to the grave every holiday. Dana asked her to do that, I know, but why should my wife get stuck putting flowers on some kid’s grave that wasn’t even really part of our family? And Tara yells at me that I don’t get it every time I try to bring that up so I’ve learned to just keep my mouth shut. “Face it, she couldn’t have kids and now you have one. How?”

He’s chewing his lip, and I’m pretty sure he’s not going to tell me. Then he looks at me for a minute, and I can actually see him change his mind right there in his eyes. “She wanted a child.”

“You guys aren’t married, well, you weren’t at the time,” I point out, rather reasonably, I think.

“But we couldn’t. Not and stay partners. So she wanted a child. And a doctor told her there was a chance with IVF. So we tried.”

“And that’s how you got Will?”

“No,” he says with this shit-eating grin.

“No?” I ask. What the hell is he talking about?

“It didn’t work. She didn’t get pregnant. So we gave up. She never mentioned it again. We went back to the way things were…”

“Having sex every other minute,” I nod. It sure as hell seemed that way the last time I saw them.

“Hardly,” he tells me with icicles hanging off every letter. “So, anyway, we went back to the way things were. No more little plastic cups for me. No more doctors for her. And then…” He just stops. He doesn’t say anything.

“You took off,” I supply. It was what I always suspected.

He laughs. A full belly laugh. He waves over the bartender and taps at his empty beer bottle. Another full one appears on the counter. He downs about half of it.

“Yeah, Bill. I took off. I just walked out to Oregon and stuck my thumb out and the nearest spaceship just gave me a lift. That’s exactly what happened.”

I nod for a second. The spaceship story again. Dana had told Tara something like that but of course, she was pregnant at the time so I ignored it. Hormones do terrible things to pregnant women.

“You were dead when you came back,” I point out. He was, too. I didn’t get to the funeral, but Mom did and she even helped Dana pick out the suit the bastard wore in the casket. Dead and buried and that was the end of it. I never knew how to feel after I got the news. In one respect, I was sort of happy that chapter of Dana’s life was over. He’d caused her so much pain and anguish, running off when she got pregnant like he did. If he turned up dead, who was I to care? But Tara told me, in no uncertain words, that he didn’t know she was pregnant when he left. So why did he leave? The man I saw a few years back would never have left my sister.

“I didn’t leave her on purpose.”

I hate it when he reads my mind like that, but he just keeps going.

“I didn’t want to leave. Bill, I know you have no reason to believe that, but if you’ve ever thought for one minute that I love your sister, you have to understand that I did not leave her of my own free will. I was taken away from her. Believe whatever you want. Believe it was aliens or believe it was terrorists, I don’t give a damn. Just know for a fact that I would have done anything to come back to her that night and she was my only thought all the time I was away from her.”

“OK, maybe I can buy that. But Mulder, you were dead,” I remind him. Just in case it slipped his memory for a minute. God, I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be in that casket all those months…

“I wasn’t really dead. I was… very sick. What they did to me left me near death, yes. But I wasn’t dead. I didn’t ‘rise from the dead’, Bill. Skinner, our boss, saw something that made him put two and two together. He’s the one who dug me up, got me to the hospital. But it was Scully, your sister, who saved me. She cured me. She brought me all the way back to life. Just like she always does.”

We hear the bell on the door as it opens and the bright light of the sun floods the room for an instant. When our eyes adjust, we see our wives standing just inside the door.

“I told you to look for the nearest bar, Tara,” my dainty sister says as she saddles up to the counter and plops down next to her husband. She picks up the shot glass, examines it like it was some guy’s spleen, and sets it down on the counter again. The bartender is standing at attention, waiting to call the cops. “Give me what they’re having.”

“Me too,” says Tara, hopping up to sit on the stool next to me. “I saw the flowers, at least you didn’t forget what we sent you out for,” she directs at me with a little glare.

“Hey, this wasn’t my idea,” I object.

“It was mine, Tara. I decided I needed a bachelor party. I didn’t get one last time.”

“As I remember,” my sister pipes in. “The Gunmen took you out to Casey’s and you had a round.”

Mulder looks over at me and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Yeah, but my best man wasn’t there,” he grins broadly and sips at the shot the bartender just poured him. Best man? I mean, yeah, I’m standing up for them, but Best Man? Who’d have thought! Guess the first two drinks mellowed him out a bit. Mellowed us both out a bit, the thought isn’t as disgusting as it once would have been.

“Are Will and Matty with Mom?” I ask, trying to hide my embarrassment at our newfound ‘closeness’.

“No, we duck taped them in the closet,” Dana replies dry as sand. “Of course Mom’s with them. When you two didn’t come back when you were supposed to, Tara and I decided we better go look for you.”

“Sorry,” we both say as one.

Dana starts to pull out her wallet to pay the tab, but Mulder stops her by tossing a Gold Amex on the counter. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. Hey, wait. I thought they were broke!

“You need to pay Bill for the flowers. I forgot to bring the checkbook, and he’d already paid when I caught up with him,” he tells her as he helps her down from the stool.

“I already handled that. I paid Tara for everything at lunch,” she informs him. She turns to give him a look. “Why weren’t you at the florist with him?”

I recognize that tone in her voice. Somebody’s got some ‘splainin’ to do.

“You’ll see, later,” he tells her.

She gives him a look and then… lets it drop. I have to remember how he did that. But then, it is Christmas Eve. Dana was always a horrible snoop at Christmas, but maybe being married with a kid has mellowed her, too.

Tara is checking her watch. “Judging from the backseat of the car, you haven’t made it to the bakery, the rental store to pick up the punch bowl or the dry cleaners. And we have exactly three hours until we have to be at the Church. The only way we’ll get this done is to split up the errands. Fox and Dana, you do the punch bowl, I showed you where the rental place was right by the house, right?” Dana nods, I sit there in awe. “Good. OK, Bill and I will get the cake and run past the cleaners. We’ll all meet at the house at 15:30. Any questions?”

“I thought you were the one in the Navy,” Mulder mutters in my direction.

“So did I,” I return, but before I get the words out, his wife has him by the arm and my wife has me by the arm and we are out the door and on the road.

Part two

The Church
16:55 hours
St. Mary’s Catholic Church

I have to admit, Tara knocked herself out. The little chapel is full of all those flowers that were in the back of our van. Candles are all over the place, because, well, it is Christmas Eve. This chapel won’t get much use tonight, Midnight Mass is in the main sanctuary, but it looks none the less festive for the season. The little Nativity has Matty wide-eyed and actually quiet, for once. Even little Will seems to think it’s pretty cool, bouncing on Mom’s lap. She looks good with grandchildren. I wish we could give her more. But I guess Matty and Will will have to do until Charlie starts holding up his end of the bargain.

Tara and Dana are in the women’s restroom, doing God knows what to Dana’s hair. Tara’s been a frustrated hairdresser for as long as I’ve known her. She’d be a good one, too, if she ever decided to do it. She just hates the smell of those stupid chemicals. Come to think of it, I hate it, when she gets her hair permed or whatever and I’m forced to sleep in the same bed as ‘Bride of Frankenstein’. Oh, God, don’t ever let her hear me say that.

Well, tonight, it’s Mulder sleeping with Bride of Frankenstein. But for the moment, he looks…

This is so funny! Here he is, he’s been married to her for six months now, and he’s the picture of a nervous groom. His hair is sticking up from the five hundred times he’s run his fingers through it. The jacket to his tux is bunched up on his shoulders, again an effect of moving his arms up too high. And what has he done with that cummerbund? So help me God, if he lost that damned thing and we have to pay for it. Wait, what am I saying? He can pay for the whole goddamned monkey suit, from what I gathered this afternoon. OK, let him lose the cummerbund. Hell, it’s not my money.

But there is no way I’m going out at 5:00 on Christmas Eve to find him another one!

“Mulder, man, what did you do with the rest of the tux?” I ask, trying to keep the frustration out of my voice.

“Huh?” So much for an Oxford education, apparently.

“The tux, man. The cummerbund to the tux. Where is it?”

He looks down at his waist, as if it will magically sport the missing piece of fabric. Then he looks up at me, stricken. “I… I don’t know.”

I nod, trying to keep what little patience I still have in check. “OK, did you have it with you in the restroom?” I ask. When did I start sounding less like me and more like Dad on Easter Sunday when I couldn’t find my left shoe?

“I think I did. I don’t know. Are you sure it came with one?” he asks. This man was a top profiler? This man watched my sister’s back for 9 years? Shesh!

“Let’s look, shall we?” I offer and guide him toward the men’s room. Luckily, we’re alone, so we don’t look quite like the dorks we are as we check the stalls and under the sinks. Finally, he spots the hanger on the back of the door. The cummerbund is still hanging on the hanger. At least it’s not on the floor of one of the stalls.

“I just… I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Mulder tells me as I watch him try to get the cummerbund around his waist. He can’t seem to get the hang of the fastener. I give up and go around to help him.

“It’s nerves, Mulder. Every groom has ’em.”

“But the second time around, and to the same woman?” he asks.

The cummerbund is in place, I straighten the jacket and hand him a comb, pointing toward the mirror on the wall.

“Sure. What is a wedding, anyway? A big show. Who doesn’t get nervous the night of a big show?”

“It’s not just a show,” he reminds me as he tries to tame the wild thing on his head. Man, I wish my genes had that many follicles.

“Mulder, you don’t love her any less right now than you will after you say ‘I do’, again,” I remind him right back.

“I couldn’t possibly love her any more than I do,” he agrees. Finally, he decides to give up on the hair. He looks at himself in the mirror. I shoot him a smile and a nod. Just like Dad did to me at my wedding.

“Ready to get this show on the road?” I ask him.

He blinks and for a moment, he turns a little green. Oh shit, what did I say? But he recovers quickly and gives me a weak smile.

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

I nod and head out the door, fighting the urge to look over my shoulder and make sure he’s following me.

The little chapel looks great. The sun has set outside, and even though it’s a balmy 67 degrees, I can almost believe it could snow tonight. Christmas snow. I know it’s pretty silly of me, considering we really didn’t have much Christmas snow when I was growing up, definitely not when Dad was at Miramar, or when we were in Pensacola. But the two years at Great Lakes we had snow each year and I think those are the Christmases I always remember from my childhood.

Matty sees me and yells out ‘Hi, Daddy!’ before Mom gets a chance to shush him. On most Sundays, this chapel gets double duty as a cry room and he’s used to talking back here. He tries to explain that to Mom, but she shushes him right back and I have to hide my laugh when Matty gets the same look we used to get every time we acted up in Church.

Will, on the other hand, is mesmerized by the candlelight and looks about ready to drift off. I know Dana fed him before we left for the church, so he’s probably not going to last long.

I look at Father Dannon, the young priest here at St. Mary’s. He’s a good guy, about Charlie’s age. We’ve talked a time or two after Mass when I’m on leave. I like him and I’m glad he’s the one doing this. Old Father Sullivan would have said something about ‘carts before horses’ when he got wind of the circumstances. Dana doesn’t need to hear that, not after what they’ve been through.

And speak of the devil, or in this case, my sister, here she comes. Tara said they found the perfect dress, white, sleeveless, a v neckline that I would have choked at if it had been my bride coming down the aisle. I glance over at Mulder and see the appreciation in his eyes, too. It’s funny, I’ve known for so long that they’ve been in love, but it never occurred to me how much in love they really are. I shoot a smile to Tara, who’s just made it to the front of the church right before Dana. She smiles back. I guess we’re still that much in love, too.

Father Dannon smiles at everyone and the ceremony gets started. Amazingly, Matty doesn’t say a peep after the initial warnings from Mom. I wish she’d teach that trick to Tara. And as I expected, when I have a chance to look behind us, Will is sound asleep in his carrier, none the wiser that he’s witnessing a very important occasion. So basically, Mulder’s getting his wish, too.

When Father Dannon asks them to exchange rings, I remember that Dana had already given me her wedding band to give to Mulder. I start to pull it out of my pocket, but Mulder shakes his head and pulls something out of his inside jacket pocket instead. I only see it for a second as he slides it on his finger, but the whole ring is encircled with diamonds and sparkles enough to light up a battle cruiser.

Dana was looking at their hands and when this new ring appears she jerks her head up to meet Mulder’s eyes. For a second I almost feel sorry for the guy. If looks could kill, I’d back up to be out of the blast zone. But then he smiles at her and tilts his head just a bit and she closes her eyes for a blink and replaces her fiery glare with the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen on her face. She nods to poor Father Dannon, who isn’t quite sure what’s going on, but doesn’t want to add to any possible bloodshed. In a shaky voice, the young Father finishes the ceremony.

They kiss, a most chaste kiss that promises to be more passionate when they get to the hotel later. That was Tara’s idea, too. She pointed out this would be the only Christmas when Will would be too little to notice his parent’s absence, so they should take advantage of that and spend one honeymoon night together. Mom told me earlier they didn’t get that after the first wedding.

We all stand around, kissing the bride, shaking hands with the groom, but it doesn’t really take much time because it’s just us and Charlie finally shows up, late as usual.

“I missed it, you’ll have to do it again!” he declares as he waltzes in, sweeping Dana in to a hug and then Mulder, too.

“Not on your life!” Mulder tells him. “Twice is enough.”

“Not even on our 50th Anniversary, G-man?” Dana asks coyly.

He grins down at her and pulls her into his arms. “Ask me in 50 years.” The kiss he bends down to give her is anything but chaste and Mom clears her throat to break them up before things get out of hand.

“Let’s get back to the house. We have dinner, yet. And don’t you even think of sneaking out on that, you two,” she warns the newlyweds.

We gather up the boys, Mulder hefting the carrier in one hand and puts his other arm around Dana’s shoulder. “About these weddings, partner. I liked the original, but the remix is good, too.” I have to swallow my laugh when she socks him right in the gut.

Tara, Mom and Dana had knocked themselves out while Mulder and I were playing at the florist and bar. The house, which I hadn’t really had a chance to notice before, looks like a Christmas wonderland. No, it looks like our house, when I was growing up. It looks beautiful and I make sure to tell my wife just how beautiful when we have a minute.

The buffet of food is excellent, too and a few of our neighbors are over to share in it. Tara smiles at it all, she loves hosting parties. Such a Naval wife. So much like Mom.

I notice the punch bowl is empty after we’ve all had our fill of the ham, turkey and roast beef sandwiches and salads. I go into the kitchen to mix up some more, maybe with a little more ‘spice’ this time.

I hear a high-pitched squeal that I know comes from Tara in the living room. I almost drop the punch bowl to run in and see what’s the matter.

As I get in the room, there is my wife, clinging to my brother-in-law for dear life, tears streaming down her face. And right in front of me, she plants a hell of a kiss right on his mouth.

“I love you, you big lug!! They are perfect, absolutely perfect! Oh, god, if we hadn’t gone to all this trouble, I’d marry you myself!” And then she notices that I’m in the room.

There is complete silence for a few seconds. I must be seventeen shades of red because my face feels like it’s on fire. Tara pushes herself away from Mulder and runs over to me, throwing her arms around my neck. “Nah, on second thought, I’m sticking with my current model,” she says and proceeds to stick her tongue very far down my throat.

Whatever I was thinking is lost as I return the kiss and try to remember there are people in the room, cursing every one of them that I can’t just tell my wife to ditch the party and let’s get a room somewhere. But I gain some brain cells as she slides down my side and holds a small box out for me to see.

Diamond earrings. Something I could never afford on military pay.

“They’re from Mulder and Dana,” she says with the biggest smile I could ever imagine another guy putting on her face. Then she pulls me down and whispers in my ear “and the money we put out on this thing, it’s all been covered. Plus, next leave, we have plane tickets home and an offer to babysit Matty while you and I spend a few days at Mulder’s summer house in Rhode Island!” Her eyes are twinkling so bright, she looks like a miniature Christmas tree.

I look over at Mulder and he just shrugs. “It’s there, if you want it.”

I keep a smile plastered on my face and nod. The son of a bitch. He’s loaded after all. The ring on Dana’s finger almost blinds me when it catches the lights of the tree and now the earrings in my wife’s ears are causing the jets at the base to confuse our living room for the landing strip.

I look over at Mom, hoping for some moral support. That’s when I catch the necklace she’s wearing. Not diamonds this time, thank god. The room can’t stand any more brilliance. No, my mother is sporting a perfectly matched set of pearls. They are beautiful. And I know where they came from.

I search for any scrap of calm I can find in the pit of my stomach. So this is what I’m in for. A lifetime of being out ‘Jonesed’ at every family gathering. A lifetime of hearing ‘Mulder gave Dana this and Mulder gave William that’. Or worse yet, maybe even the ego-crushing ‘why can’t you provide for Tara like Mulder provides for Dana!’ I can feel the 50-year migraine starting just behind my left eye.

“Bill, where’s the punch?” Tara asks as she showing off her earrings to our next-door neighbors.

“Oh, yeah, punch,” I mumble and beat a hasty retreat into the kitchen.

I hear the door swing and don’t bother to turn around. “I’ve got it, Tara. I couldn’t find the new bottle of 7-Up.”

“It’s not Tara, Bill.” Oh shit, it’s Mulder. But I keep my face steady. The bastard just gave my wife and mother at least a couple thousand dollars worth of presents, I can be grateful. Can’t I?

“Bill, I, uh, what Tara said back there,” he mumbles.

I refuse to let this discussion happen. He’s got money, I don’t. Big deal. It’s not the end of the world.

“It’s OK, Mulder. You gave some terrific presents tonight. She got a little overwhelmed. No big deal,” I say, making sure my hands are occupied with pouring fruit punch and 7-Up into the cut glass bowl. Cut glass. Damn, even the punch bowl is depressing me now.

“Bill, can I be honest with you?”

I really don’t want to look at the guy right now, but I can’t exactly shove past him with the punch bowl. It would end up on both of us. So I turn, wiping my hands on a dishtowel.

“Bill, I probably should have told you that I was getting Tara those earrings. For all I know, you’re giving her a set just like them.”

I snort. Not at my pay grade.

“I just wanted both of you to know how much I appreciate all that you’ve done for us. You didn’t have to plan all this. It’s been a really wonderful ceremony for Dana. She wanted a church wedding the first time, but it didn’t turn out that way. You’ve given her something I couldn’t give her. I just wanted to find a way to repay you.”

I can’t help myself, it just blurts out. “By giving my wife earrings I could never afford to give her?”

Mulder closes his eyes for a second, like he hadn’t given it any thought at all until this moment. “I, I never meant… Bill, in my family, money was never a problem. You’ve seen how I live. I buy expensive suits because they fit better. If we weren’t living in Dana’s apartment, Will would be growing up in a one-bedroom fourth floor with an elevator that runs half the time. Money really doesn’t mean that much to me. I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable. I’ll try to remember it in the future.”

His hand comes out and I’m now forced to make a decision.

He’s not the man I hated for so long. I got over that. He’s not my sister’s lover. I was able to ignore all that. No, this man is now my brother, that’s just how our family is. And just as Charlie can drive me crazy at times, like when he shows up after our sister’s wedding, well, this man is likely to drive me crazy at times, too.

But that’s how brothers are. That’s what family is. The warts, the Jonesing, the whole nine yards.

I take his hand and shake it firmly. “Just keep the earrings to under 500 next time,” I tell him sternly.

He laughs, a relieved laugh if I can judge by the sound of it. At that moment, Dana comes through the doorway.

“Will is asleep, I just fed him again. If we leave now…”

“Right there,” he tells her with a wink. “Just one more thing.”

“OK, I’ll get our sweaters. It’s turned chilly out there.”

“Well, Bill,” Mulder says, shrugging his shoulder while digging in his pants pocket. “I guess I should take these back and exchange them for something a little less showy, huh?”

I look at him in confusion. He pulls out season tickets for the San Diego Chargers. I can see the seats. These are really good seats! I snatch the tickets out of his hand and pull him into a bear hug.

“Damn, Mulder, if you weren’t married to my sister, I’d tell Tara we’d have to make it a threesome!”

And turn around to see my wife, my mother and my sister all staring at us from the doorway of the kitchen.

“Mulder, it’s time to go,” Dana says coolly. Mom and Tara look like they’re about to burst.

“Yeah, sure, ready when you are, babe,” he tells her and goes over to give Mom a kiss on the cheek and then looks back to me. I nod and he gives Tara a kiss on the cheek, too.

Tara and I walk them to the door. “Mulder, about what I said in the kitchen,” I tell him as they start to head for their rental car.

“Yeah?” he turns to look at me.

“You can go higher, if the mood hits.”

His grin is worth it. Everything I’ve been through this day and to come.

We wave as they get in the car and drive off. Tara gives me a hug and walks with me back into the house. Before we rejoin the party, she pulls me down to give me a kiss. I have to admit, the earrings look perfect on her.

“What was that with Mulder?” she asks.

I can look innocent when I want to. “Just a thing between brothers,” I assure her.

I have one of those brothers-in-law. And I wouldn’t change him for the world.

The end.

EX-LIBRIS: X-LIBRIS

This file has been downloaded from x-libris.xf-redux.com. It contains work/s of X-Files FAN FICTION and FAN ART which are not affiliated with Ten-Thirteen or The Fox Network. No income is generated from these works. They are created with love and shared purely for the enjoyment of fans and are not to be sold in any format. The X-Files remain the property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen and Fox, unfortunately.

Individual stories and art remain the property of their talented creators. No copyright infringement is intended. Any copyright concerns can be addressed to [email protected].

RETURN TO BY HER SIDE SELECTION PAGE



THE PLUGIN UPDATE HAS BEEN ROLLED BACK YET AGAIN. Today's update attempt was worse. I'll have to get back to the developer. Thanks again for your patience.
+