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Turn the Lights Out When I Die
by EchoPlex
TITLE: Turn the Lights out When I Die 1/?
AUTHOR: EchoPlex
E-MAIL: [email protected]
DISTRIBUTION: Whenever, wherever just let me know.
RATING: R
CATEGORIES: Angst/ Romance
KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully
SPOILERS: The Truth
SUMMARY: Somewhere between an end and a beginning are two people and a few thousand miles.
Disclaimer: 1013 owns them; I’m just taking them for a spin. No infringement is intended.
Author’s Notes: Thanks for reading. Feedback is most welcome.
Turn the Lights Out When I Die
This night is never going to end.
Its going to be night forever…
-Girl: Two Lane Black Top
– 1 –
When morning comes the light creaks in. The bed is oddly soft and the sheets are hardly rumpled. Her hair smells clean, her skin soft and inviting. Soundless she sleeps and I am afraid. Deep breathing helps but it serves only to wake her. How many hours of freedom has it been? Maybe 4, the alarm clock is on her side.
I couldn’t remember what she felt like. Holding her now made it all flood back. I need a shower and she needs a meal. Holding her close and not wanting to let her go I could feel her stomach rumble in her sleep.
Order of the day was to keep moving. Shower first. I smelled like several beatings in a concrete room with no furniture. Food second because we can’t stop moving on an empty stomach. Check out, and we needed a new mode of transport. Talk would come along the way. A destination could help. Shower first.
With the first flinch of movement she wakes turns and faces me. Those eyes blink open like imperial waters cool and inviting. I thought about her way too much in my head. That’s always been the way. She can’t hide the sadness and she doesn’t try. Its a first. I smile at her. I can’t help it, she’s just so damn beautiful. She blinks away her tears and smiles back. The one great thing about being found guilty of treason was I didn’t have to worry about work, which means I have nothing more to hide behind, I could love her now the way she deserves. My life is set in stone, finally.
She rests her forehead against mine. It means so much. She wants to say something to me but I close my mouth over hers and time just stops. Her tongue eases in soft, the kiss is deep, so deep that it snakes its way south and I’m getting hard from this alone. I’ve wanted this for so long, just to be near her again, to have her devour me with just her…just…being this close again. She stops needing something more. Control. Scully’s always been a control freak. My breathing is harsh. Licking my lips just for that lingering taste of her I sit up my elbows on the bed. She joins me. Then gets frustrated for her reason. She gets up off the bed and walks to the center of the room.
We just look at each other.
The light is casting slanted shadows across her face. She runs her hands in her hair and she wants to cry again. How can I tell her not to? How can I tell her “hey Scully don’t fret, everything’s cool.” I don’t want to tell her that. I just want to get away, but there is nowhere to hide.
Throwing my legs over the side of the bed I walk over and pull her to me. Closeness. I lean down and kiss her again. The world spins, cars drift by out there in the outside. Its just breathing and teeth and tongue here on the inside. I break away because I really want to shower. She takes my hand in hers and kisses it. The gesture means she’ll wait.
I walk the 3 feet to the bathroom and shut the door. White towels folded neatly on the counter. Harsh florescent light in white bulbs lined in a neat row across the department store mirror greet me. A hair dryer near an outlet, small bottles of necessity ranging from hand lotion to mouth wash; it was one of the better motels we’ve ever been. Unwrapping the waxy paper of the soap, letting the water warm up in the shower I stripped down to the briefs from my time in the brig. I had to smile at my self in the mirror as I peeled them off, they weren’t my size. Staring into the mirror till the steam made me disappear. The shower drained into the floor. No bubble bath for Scully. Water is nice and hot as I lean my head against the cool tiles.
I thought about the events of the last two years. A tumbling down hill tangle of images filter in and out of my head. I don’t focus on any one in particular.
Minutes go by and I just stand still.
The air shifts a draft when she walks in. Her hand is visible when she pulls the shower curtain back. Naked she asks if she can join me. I just nod my head. She steps in with me as I move back to let the water hit her. Staring at her back as water slides down, staring at her hips as water slides down, staring at her ass, at her calves. I lick my lips tasting the warm water, she tries to turn to face me but I don’t let her. I push her just a little till her body presses into the tiles. Her breath hitches when she feels me getting closer to her. Her head rolls against my chest, I reach around and run both thumbs on her nipples. Soft moans escape, she whispers my name, I kiss her ears, her neck, shoulders, her hand snakes around dragging her nails lightly against the length of me,
“Its been too long without you Scully.’ I whisper into her wet hair.
“Yeah…”
This motion carries us for a few minute, the rubbing, the touching, the hot water running. I plant my hands on the tiles in front of her as she turns around. Trapped in our cagey desire she pulls me into the kiss we started in bed, her hands on my neck pulling me closer and closer bobbing then nudging her hot center, dying to get inside, can I help her? She lifts her leg just enough to give the hint, my hands shake just for a second its been that long away from her, slick heat and the hot water, and when I get inside she laughs just a little. I keep my eyes closed.
“Miss me?” I ask her with tongue and blind eyes.
“You have no idea,” she says.
Why we don’t move for seconds that last an eternity can only be answered with my pounding heart beating. When we do move its so very slow. Its like swimming in a warm lava flow. Its like falling out of an airplane with no fear of dying, crashing maybe in that plane. Head on into a ball of flame meeting a mountain. Her lips are kissing my arms, those perfect hands planted on my chest, swirling tongue circling my nipple, perfect flat feel, teeth grazing, she is everywhere she is using anything in reach. I pull her up to me so I can feel her mouth again. She was moaning in that way that got me thru sleepless nights away from her. Her nails are digging into my back. That air that breathes when you break skin, the glistening sting, her head buried in the nook of my shoulder, the world fell down around me when I came, I laughed a little and thanked her God. She clenched around me like a fist choking for life as I barely registered the water. It lasted all but two minutes. A lifetime.
But who’s counting?
Kissing like teens who stayed out past midnight. The water still hot, she moans when I slide out of her slippery confines. She leaned her head against the tiles and smiled at me. I slide down the tiles and let the water run over my Jell-O reduced body, she joined me. She leaned her head on my shoulder and I held her hand in mine.
– 2 –
She’s dressed and ready to go. Same clothes as yesterday for both of us. She has not said a word. I wish I could go back to reading her thoughts again. I think some part of her is in shock. I know she will crack and tell me eventually and so I wait.
The light and heat slam into me when I walk out of the cool vacuum of our room. She closed the door behind us and made a b-line for the manager’s office. The next item was checkout; I wait for her in Doggett’s Suv. Resting my hands, tapping my thumbs to a nervous rhythm on the wheel, waiting for Scully. Yup…I can’t do this to her. I can’t drag her into this, I’ve dragged her into so much, she can’t be a fugitive with me. She has a life-
Knock on the window.
I let her in. She takes a deep breath and mumbles, “I’m hungry, you?”
“Sure, I think I spotted a diner a few miles back from where we came.” I turn the key and off we go.
I hit Doggett’s CD player to kill the silence and this airy wispy suedo country music filters inside the cabin. Tree’s float by, Scully leans her head against the window and stares at the road. Her brow is creased with worry. She’s not even blinking. Just staring.
The airy mopey music’s got a guy singing in a sad way, missing the drawl.
Time wears away
All the pleasures of the day
All the treasures you could hold
Days turn to sand
Losing strength in every hand
They can’t hold you anymore-
Before I can ask she starts. “Its Monica’s CD, she loved Beck. John laughed at first but he really loved that song. He kept it on repeat, no matter how many times she tried to get him to listen to the whole album he just went for that one song…” She still hasn’t blinked. Referring to them in the past tense. She’s already thinking they’re dead.
That fucking bastard. He just had to tell her. I just had to take her there…
Already dead to me now. Already dead to me now.
Coz it feels like I’m watching something die-
“Scully?” I’m unsure of what to say, I just need to say something to her.
“Yeah?” She looks over at me.
“We need to talk about things…a plan…something-”
“Food first Mulder, then we can talk.” She turns the knob up on the volume, “I kinda like this song too now that I think about it.”
“Love looks away
In the harsh light of the day
On the edge of nothing more
Days fade to black
In the light of what they lack
Nothing’s measured by what it needs”
Food it is.
Sign for the turnoff. Trucks parked, motorcycles. I pull into a space beside a semi with a huge Big Mac on it. I smile at Scully and she smiles back. I could use a Big Mac, but a diner burger will do.
We climb out and walk towards the entrance. “Sweet Lou’s” in big neon letters on the door. I hold the door open for Scully and she glides in. The waitress tells us to sit where we please and Scully leads the way to a booth all the way in the back.
We sit and the Big Mac truck blocks our view from the highway. I nod to her thanking her for the head’s up in choice, she nods back. I will never be able to find a woman who could do that like she does. I’d never want to. And that leads me to my next thought. My first thought after we made love in the shower. She was kissing my neck and the feel was so perfect, just these soft lazy kisses. I went to kiss her back when this fear completely paralyzed me.
I have to leave her the fear said. I have to get away and set her free from me. Yes I can give her my full attention now, yes I can love her and lean to her more than ever, yes I need to, yes to all these things…but, I can’t. I can’t do this to her, I can’t have her live her life on the run with me. I can’t stop, I can’t-
“What’ll you have?” the waitress asks.
“Number three breakfast with…whole wheat toast and coffee.” Scully says.
“OK then one Martian Man Hunter for the lady, and for you sir?” The waitress asks.
“Double bacon cheese burger medium well with everything and a side of steak fries with a…cherry coke-”
“And extra pickles, Matt always has extra pickles.” Scully smiles.
“Molly, you know me all too well.” I take her hand in mine.
“You two are as pretty as a picture. Sure one Area 52 coming right up.” She takes our menu’s slides her pencil out and jots down our order then places the pencil back in her hair. She walks past the counter lined with regular’s yells out our orders to the cook behind the counter. Truckers make jokes about her loudness and she jokes back. Scully is staring at the creamer.
“Matt?”
“I didn’t want to say Mulder, you look like a Matt.” she says not taking her eyes off the creamer. “You’re thinking about leaving me aren’t you?”
When I panic I make this face.
“Scully-”
“Just stop it Mulder. You always want to leave me in the dust because of some idiotic idea that its best for me, that I won’t be in danger or you won’t be in danger. So let’s just skip that part and get to the part where we figure out what the hell we are going to do.”
“Scully-” I whisper.
“Mulder, I am not living out the rest of my life like this. I am not going to spend my last days on this Earth alone without you.” My Scully is determined and soft and inviting all at the same time. She makes parts of me harder than rocks, and others melt like candy. Thankfully this is all in my head.
I am going to try the direct approach.
“Scully I am a wanted fugitive for a capitol offence.” I say this to her with clenched teeth. “What kind of life can we possibly have together?” I say this to her so she can understand the finality of the situation and she’s still staring at the damn creamer.
“Mulder do you love me?’ Blue eyes. Big warm, beautiful blue eyes ask.
“Yes. Yes I do.”
“I love you too, do you know when it hit me that I was in love with you?”
“Scully-”
“Molly, name’s Molly now. Answer my question.”
“When?”
“Diana Fowley,” Anyone but her. Why is she doing this to me? “I had something to show you about Gibson, and I walked back to his room and saw you and Diana holding hands, smiling…” Like just stab me harder Scully, really the knife isn’t cutting through enough right now. “I felt like my insides where collapsing on me, I walked back to my car and I felt so foolish, and empty and alone. I convinced myself in that small space of time that I couldn’t have you, that you didn’t see me the same way you saw her, but I said to myself, hey the work is still there, we work so well together.” She stops maybe thinking about how we use to be, so young and dumb to the everything around us. She’s still talking, “So the work remained and we remained and I thought that it was enough. I blocked everything out and I called you.”
“Scul-” She puts her hand up for me to stop. I do.
“I am not saying this to you to exact some kind of bitter revenge on you. I am…I’m not trying to throw rocks at you Mul-Matt…I knew I loved you then, I know you where trying to tell me something that night in your hallway, things kept getting in the way, so many…I can’t even count. “No, more. I am not going to let you ditch me for the end of the world. I am not going to let you ditch me because you’re wanted for treason, I’m not.”
The drinks come. Cherry Coke for me, black coffee for Scully.
When I realized I loved Scully I seriously thought about killing my self. It was a whole year earlier and she was dying. She didn’t tell me she was dying of course. It was something in those eyes of hers. The brightness was clouded with pain, red lined and bloodshot. Her entire facade was filled with pain. She was dead to me when she left that night. I was a man in love with a woman who was dead. Compile that with every other fucked up thing about me and it added to a bullet in my head. I was a man using work as a mating call; I was a man who didn’t deserve the woman sitting in front of me.
I think I lost the thread.
“I held her hand because I needed her to be with me. She was comfortable and I recognized myself with her. I couldn’t be that way with you. I couldn’t say what I was feeling. I didn’t know what I was feeling.” Why are we having this conversation now? Why did I only sleep with Scully that one night? Why did I go to Oregon? Why did I leave her with our newborn son? Why did I trust Diana and not Scully that night? Something floating around me like a circle of wasted time.
Food is hot when Nadine places it on the table. This is what life is like.
We eat in silence.
“I never said I love you to her.” Shaking salt onto my fries as Scully goes back to staring at the creamer. “Dana? You listening.” I never use her first name, so when I do I always have her undivided attention.
“Yeah, I don’t care about Diana, she helped you, gave her life for you. I know that. I just wish that you would stop treating me like a possession.”
What are we talking about? She won’t go and I shouldn’t leave her. Is it really that simple? Loving Scully is it enough to save us? Scully loving me? The food is getting cold, Scully won’t stop staring at the damned creamer, I gotta be quick, I gotta get this right. Take a chance like that night on my sofa…Some might say for better or worse others might say in sickness and in health. I will say to death do us part.
And it wont be long. The death is coming.
Those eyes again. So many years with those eyes, and those lips, dying to know what it would be like and then it happens. And ever since “it” happened I’ve run from her like a fucking coward. I leaned over that night and kissed her, she met me naked in the rain of that shower. I can’t stop thinking that we can do this. That we can live out our eternity in some semblance of comfort. If only the fear would stop beating against my head.
Can we do this? Fortune favors the bold…doesn’t it?
“Done. We are in this together. On one condition.” Ketchup where is the ketchup?
“What’s that?” that arched brow. I think I missed that most of all.
“No more I’m fine, no more keeping it in, no more drifting out into nowhere. Deal?”
Pinky swear time. She holds her pinky out to match mine.
“Deal.”
“You know something Molly?”
“What Matt?”
“I think I really wanted breakfast.” Eying her home fries and eggs and sausage and toast, and little shot glass sized orange juice.
“Good because I really wanted the burger and fries.” Grabbing my plate and dragging it across the table to her side and laughing all the way.
“So Doggett and Reyes?”
“Oh yeah, they weren’t dysfunctional paranoid lunatics like you and I. No, they got it on pretty quick once they started working together full time.” Big juicy bite from the burger, onions spilling out. Scully looks so real and alive to me.
“I am not dysfunctional, I knew I was in love with you way before you knew how you felt about me.” The home fries are fucking delicious.
Scully takes a napkin and cleans my chin for me. She wiggles her finger to get me closer to her. She leans up just a little to whisper some words at me.
“I can’t believe that in 9 or ten years we’ve known each other, I can’t believe that we’ve only fucked twice.” She winks and grins menacingly.
“My, my Molly…such filthy language.”
– 3 –
“I had dreams about what they were doing to you.”
I guess Scully’s been talking for a while. I didn’t hear her. Its not that I’m not listening. Its just, I can’t stop thinking about getting her alone, thinking about her head, maybe mine, banging against white walls somewhere. I can’t stop thinking about being buried to the hilt, that throaty way she says, “Mulder.” How it really sounds like “Muller,” the D has gone silent cause she can’t speak, and I can’t speak, but Scully is speaking and I should listen or she’ll make that face again.
Truth is I don’t want to talk about that. She takes the hint.
She has some kind of classic alternative rock weekend on. A song I hadn’t heard since I was at Oxford. This song was all the rage. I was obsessed with it for very bad reasons. I would head to this Pub in Nottingham. It was a million miles away from Oxford but I didn’t really care. I was nursing the wounds Phoebe left me with. It was really kinda pathetic. This song is seriously fucking with me right now. I remember getting into my shitty clunker of a car and driving east trying really hard to stay on the right side, left side of the motorway. All broken and destroyed over this woman. The bull and slings and arrows on the entrance of the pub. What was the name? This song playing on the juke…5 pints later, several bobs later and the song was playing again.
This very song…
Scully argued time travel in her own special way. She let me know on many occasions that she didn’t believe it. But with her “New Interpretation,” if this was a normal time, I would add my theory to hers. I would argue that music is the only true form of time travel. What is the name of this damn song?
-I could live a little better with the myths and the lies
When the darkness broke in, I just broke down and cried
I could live a little in a wider line
When the change is gone, when the urge is gone
To lose control…
“…here we come….” I sing.
“Mulder? You haven’t heard a word I’ve said have you?” she asks seriously offended
“Scully pull over will ya, this rain is getting a little fierce…”
“Mulder?” she pulls over to the side. No one was out in this. There are no lights on this highway, we where in the middle of nowhere…again. We’re well enough away from any traffic that might pass us. The song was ending and the announcer was giving away tickets to see some band called Black Rebel Motorcycle club if they could call in with the name to this timeless classic.
“Scully do you know the name to this song?”
“What?” she’s annoyed. “What song?”
“The song that was just playing.” I can’t remember this for the life of me. Its not so much about knowing the song as it is identifying the moment when I transported back into time and smelled all the cigarette smoke in the pub, some of it mine. When I noticed the match, who was playing?
Manchester and Arsenal?
“I think its Joy Division. She’s lost control…yeah I think that was Joy Division…Mulder you like Joy Division?” she asks shocked and surprised.
“No, yes. I mean I hate this song. It reminds me of a very pathetic and bad time in my life, it reminds me of my flat mate who killed himself because professor Irons didn’t think his theory was sound…it reminds me of walking into said flat after Felip’s funeral and catching Phoebe doing the mambo with that waiter from the fish and chips shack three blocks away…it reminds me of how life was before I met you…”
Every pathetic miserable moment.
“Bill loved Joy Division. He had a purple Mohawk and a leather jacket, ripped up jeans the works, he was the prototypical punk. He was rebelling and my father had enough, having spent the last year indulging him till he announced he was not going to join the Navy.” She killed the engine but left the radio on. “My father boxed up everything in his room, his records, posters…everything that made Billy, Bill. He shaved his head, took the earring out of his nose, my mother yelled and yelled for my father to calm down. She tried to get in between and my father actually pushed her…Charlie cried and Missy…Missy went to Bobby Ryan’s house…and my father, he burned everything in Bill’s room. All because of a girl…all because Bill liked this vampire looking girl. The girl eventually dropped out of school and Bill’s hair grew back and he stopped his punk rebellion and played full back and made my father proud en route to the Naval academy.”
Scully was transported to that moment just like me. The caller got the song right and won the two tickets, “Shake the disease” was just getting started on the rock of where ever…“You where there weren’t you?” I ask her secretly loving this song, waiting for her to prove me right about the time travel.
“Yeah I was…I remember the feel of the air, the way I was happy that Bill was getting it for once instead of Charlie…and me…but Joy Division, that was Bill’s favorite band and my father took that from him,” she’s sad thinking back to it…rebellion in the Scully house must’ve been the ultimate release, the ultimate high. “It was like being there all over again.” she added with something underneath.
We don’t talk for a second and just listen…to our breathing, the rain…the electro thrill that is the Mode…
-Here is a plea
From my heart to you
Nobody knows me
As well as you do
You know how hard it is for me
to shake the disease
that takes hold of my tongue
in situations like these-
“Like being transported back in time. Scully, music is the only true way to time travel. You hear a song and get swept up back to that moment when it meant something…good or bad.”
-Understand me
Understand me-
“Mulder-”
I cut her off. Unsnapping her seat belt I pull her to me. We kiss and its needy, hot breath puffs on my face, her teeth bite my lip just a tinge of pain that shoots through all the right places. Her hot hands running under my t- shirt making my skin breathe her in. She starts to unbuckle my belt leaving the seat belt in place to trap me, pulling, tugging at the button fly, frustration building in her because its not happening fast enough.
-You know how hard it is for me
to shake the disease
that takes hold of my tongue
in situations like these-
Those hot fingers snake around and she smiles against my mouth. “Going commando Mulder?” Hot little hand, her tongue licks my lips; I lick hers while tracing patterns on her back.
“Only for you…Sculeee,” those fingers feel good. “Do…do you realllywanna…. do this…here?”
“Yes I do…. this was a fantasy of mine…in unguarded moments.” She unbuttons her blouse and this Scully smell invades me, surrounding me. She finally snaps my seatbelt off, unzips her slacks, hits her head on the roof of the Suv, standing just a little, kneeling just a little then she laughs, finds my mouth, we kiss with rain beating the world into submission all around us. Straddling me now and fulfilling a dream at all the same time.
Unguarded moments?
Free from the confines of my Levis’. Free enough, she feels like sliding my fingers into her mouth, free again when her tongue swirls round and round, she guides my fingers over her panties then in, she moans, I watch. Depeche Mode had moved on a dancy slinky song was on. The girl was moaning in the back round of the song, the guy said hell was around the corner when he shouts.
“Scully?” A question. I wanna ask her a question. What’s the question?
She’s rocking back and the feel is making me cross-eyed. She’s gotta stop this. I need control. “I need. I need.” I am saying this in her ear. She kisses me again and I am close to being gone.
“Muller…Just a second more…please…please….”
I can do this. I don’t need to come. I don’t need to come. I can sing the lyrics to Shake the Disease really fast in my head. I’m not going down on my knees begging you to adore me. Can’t you see it’s misery and torture for me . When I’m misunderstood. Try as hard as you can I’ve tried as hard as I could to make you see how important it is for me…
Ba da da da da dom da dom da da dom dom da da
And there it is. Panties pulled to the side, hot hand again guiding me in and in and in and hot so very hot, the scratch of her panties as she rocks for a moment then stills. My hands grip the armrests like a kid on a roller coaster, her hot hand leaves a print on the window, rain keeps beating on the metal all around us, “move Scully, please move, do something so I won’t have to drown in you.”
Did I just say that?
Just this stillness. You can’t drown in fire can you? “Not yet Mulder, I just wanna feel you inside me, just hold it, please don’t come yet…”
Who is she?
Close your eyes Fox. Close em tight cause you never really knew her. Close them and think about something else, because if you open them Fox, you’re gonna see Scully’s, blouse open, nipples hard and showing through her cotton bra, and you know something Fox? Its cotton cause you watched half mast as she got dressed this morning, and all the years of jacking off in motels, and on the shitty couch thinking about what it would be like to pull over to the side of a road and stick these fingers in and make her moan, you know that getting inside was all that mattered, Fox you lucky fuck, you’re a dead man, she’s dead, we are all dead, but right now, right now she’s moving, and sucking your neck, my neck, and she’s the best damn thing that has ever happened you, when she throws her head back and tries so hard to grind that beautiful soft part of her against you, you lucky fuck, you’re gonna come aren’t you?
“Matt? Oh god Matt?” she moans in my ear.
Fantasy breaks. Wait. What? Who is Matt? “Oh yeah…funny Scully…. real…fu…Areyou close?”
“Closer…”
I wrap my arms around her and hold her close pumping like mad into her. Glove tighter as she pulls and pulls me under. In my mind I see a huge wave slam onto a shore. I shout into her neck as I come and I come. Her nails scratch my scalp, she pulls my hair in two handfuls…
“That’s three Muller…why’d we wait so long,” laughing and kissing me.
“Your brother Bill had a Mohawk?”
“Mulder that was…”
That was everything I’ve ever wanted from you Scully. I love you. “I know,” I whisper in her ear.
“Now what?” she whispers back.
“I’m not sure yet Scully.”
“So we keep driving?”
“Yeah, I stashed some money and transport in Metairie-”
“Louisiana?”
“Yeah.”
– 4 –
Interstate 10.
The sign blazes by. Scully sleeps with the passenger side all the way down. I watch her every now and then; I marvel at how I always knew I wanted to spend every moment with her even when I was afraid to admit it. I think about how it would make me lie awake at night, how when I dialed her at night any given night really, how I never felt I had a right to invade her the way she did me. Its kind of pathetic, women always had a way of taking up too much space in my brain, but Scully she’s always been different. She takes up the empty space that I wouldn’t let women touch, the space in my mind lead to my reason to my soul. The how leads to why. The why is all so simple.
I was living the life. The ultimate loner. I had my work, my dreams, goals…I had the search for my sister and the truth behind her disappearance. Then fate had Scully walk into me and she made me work for everything. It got to be that we spent every waking moment together, then I got addicted to her, swimming in her, everywhere I looked, everywhere I felt, every time I had a quiet moment, she would be there. I had to dig hard to find cases just to justify calling her out of fear she’d have more important things to do. It never even occurred to me that I was keeping her away from the life she should have had till it was too late. I assumed. I assumed her goals where mine, I assumed that she felt what I did. I assumed she was trapped in the same pattern I was.
Loops and circles roads twisted with memories of how I broke her heart again and again. But I couldn’t do it alone. She cracked me open like so many prison rocks, got inside and now I can’t live without her. I tried. I am too selfish and weak and though everything screams run, get away from her while you can, another part screams what are you mad? There won’t be anything left in a few years, enjoy her while you can…you…you, fucking idiot. How do you measure time? How did we? One minute we where standing in the rain laughing, the next we are here. I am. She is. We are. Monologues in my head always hate me more than I know especially when I repeat the same nagging thought again and again. The world goes by. Cars go by. Unaware that they are already dead. If they knew they would drive faster…yes that means you Mr. Big Rig truck driver, wake up! Move!
Think about something else Fox…seriously.
I take a deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. Good, panic is no longer rising; heart rate is not pounding its way outside of my chest.
I think about nothing while rain soaked farm and cow blur by and by. The truck takes the turn off. Its just those wavy lines on the road, smooth asphalt and Scully’s breathing underneath. I keep an eye out for “them.” Somehow I feel “them” lurking in every corner.
I wish I had some seeds.
I don’t even know where to begin. I have no conceivable idea of what we are going to do or where we are going to go. The money I have stashed that I saved for this very instance, for the moment in time that would force me to keep moving, the car I have is an indulgence, then what? A car and money are not exactly the best laid plans.
My father gave it all to me when I graduated high school. He returned just in time to see me get my diploma. He had enough time to get good and plastered before he arrived with keys in hand and suitcase in tow. In the parking lot, the cold rain beating down on everyone, ignored questions from my mother, scotch reeking in waves as he spoke and said “Congratulations. Fox you are one step closer to being a man.” My mother walked away in a huff without a word for either of us. And there it was a 77’ Fire Bird, black with a gold phoenix on the hood. I didn’t know what he was thinking or who he thought I was but the car was mine and the money I would find later. I had just finished reading “On the road” and all I ever dreamed about since Sam went missing was getting away and my father gave me the chance.
“Come on Fox, let’s take a drive and have a talk.”
“What about mom?” my 18 year old self asked.
“A good friend of mine is right at this very moment offering your mother assistance with a car ride back home. I am certain she will accept his invitation, she’s never said no before, fear not my son. “Here, he practically fell in front of me as he tossed the keys. “you drive.”
My blue cap and gown was soaked and the mousse dripping from my hair was stinging my eyes. I tried to wipe as much as I could from my face as I got closer and closer to the car.
I scanned the car out to in.
Michelin tires, leather bucket seats, fuzzy dice, an 8- track deck in the dash. A half drunk bottle of scotch on the passenger seat…a lingering mist of cigarette smoke.
My father nearly stumbled in the rain as he rounded the car towards the passenger side. I opened the door for him and my diploma fell out of my hand. He picked it up for me and smiled or was it drooled? I wasn’t sure how many bottles of scotch he might have had before he got there.
I slammed the door shut and headed to the driver’s side. I pulled on the silver handle and slide inside along the battered leather seat. The wheel had a nice grip and dad busied himself with the scotch as Tim Donaldson yelled for my attention.
“Yo! Fox…is that your ride?” Tim wandered over to me admiring the car. He leaned into the window and was dripping rain into my face as he leaned in some more and looked around. “Hey Mr. Mulder…haven’t seen you in while how ya been?”
“Good Timothy, your father is he well…” dad slurred.
“Mr. Mulder you don’t remember…my dad died in the war.” Tim said instantly depressed. My father had that effect on people.
Blank look from him then remembrance. “Sorry my boy…its been a long time since I have been home…my dearest sympathy for you and your dear mother.”
“Its ok…so Foxy…this your ride?” Tim asked staring at the dash.
“Yeah…my graduation gift…listen Tim I gotta go take my dad home…still on for tonight, yeah?” End of the year beer bust for all the seniors. I wasn’t sure I was going to go. Tim wasn’t sure he wanted me to. This was just Tim being polite and feeling bad about what went down.
“Sure, cool beans…later Fox…bye Mr. Mulder.” Tim walked away and joined his girl, my ex…Stacy. Why didn’t I remember that till now?
I turned the key dad gave me and the engine roared to life. Dad popped in an 8-track. It was “Knights in white satin” by the Moody blues. I hit the wipers and I pulled out of the parking lot.
“So dad where to?”
“Home…I want to go home.” he said as the music carried the moment. He drank deeply from the bottle then handed it to me. I took a sip and it nearly made me gag…scotch no matter how good or bad always leaves an aftertaste.
“Fox…I don’t know what your plans are…I have not discussed this with your mother…but there are things that I would like to prepare you for…things that your future self will need. Things you have no understanding for right now.”
Stacy and Tim left an unpleasant aftertaste. I let them go on with each other because I already knew what I wanted to do with my life. I was going leave and never come back. So what difference did it make if it was them together.
This is what I was thinking about while my father droned on and on about this moment.
“A time will come Fox, when you will have no choice but to abandon everything…for the truth.”
I balanced the road and my father and his drunken proposition with the interest of losing the girl you lost your virginity to. “Listen dad…I don’t think mom wants to talk to you…you’ve been gone for a while…and-”
“Fox are you even here with me? Is this all really happening…I am giving you the means to live, free…what are we without freedom?”
The car rode like a dream. If only he would’ve arrived my junior year with that car. I could have been something cool, instead of a 3 period library recluse who was a bench player for the basketball team.
“Fox…I want you to take this car and drive to this address. Pack a change of clothes, identification and drive to this address…do not tell your mother…anything…at all…anything…she need not know…anything.”
“Dad-”
“Damn it Fox, You are a man now!” he slurred and drooled and cried. “I am giving you the means to save your life…the life of someone you love…its all been decided…these fine decisions…here leave me here…go home and pack…don’t think…just go home, tell your mother that I am sorry we did not speak. I am sure she knows that I have nothing to say.”
Say, say, say…reverberation like the corners of my mind.
Best Western.
The sign blazes by and rescues us from the rainstorm from hell that seemed to be following Scully and me all the way to Louisiana. Next exit. The sign for a brief flash of lightning read No Exit. Blinking and refocusing I switched the radio on.
I kept the volume low but Scully was use to it for all our life spent on the road, she didn’t even flinch. The rock of wherever changed to the country of no tomorrow. The man drawled on about the argument, the woman claimed he burned her trailer, stole her heart and married her sister. It really made me miss Depeche Mode.
The sign reads Vacancy and free HBO. Great. Scully needs to sleep in a bed. And I need to think.
We pull into the empty parking lot and she stirred lightly. I get out stretch my legs and checked us in as Mr. and Mrs. Hale. Room 9 read the key on the ring as I knocked on her window; she wakes with a start and then smiles when she sets eyes with me. I open the door and help her as she softly whispers into my chest how she is tired.
We take baby steps into our bland room. I walk her to the bed in the center of the room, strip down the sheets as she takes her slacks off, then her blouse. She slides in and is asleep before I can kiss her, which I still do. I follow her pattern. Naked I lie next to her and absorb her warmth. I kiss her neck as she snuggles instinctively closer. I close my eyes and fall asleep.
I dream about that morning. That morning when I ran again.
It was the kind of bliss I never really dreamed about. Most times I didn’t dream about anything but strange lights and screaming. So to wake up next to Scully after every miserable bizarre form of torture that could be inflicted on a man, yeah I thought I was dreaming. To feel her body warm and lush, sweet baby scent clinging to her for dear life, the way the sun read the world to me across the walls of her apartment, hearing that soft breathing of my son. My son. Scully and I made a baby. Seriously, wake me up. I am dreaming.
I wasn’t. That morning it was no dream. I knew what the day meant. We got the odd visit from Kersch. He made a compelling argument for me to run away and Scully agreed. I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if I had stayed put and not ran away. Its like I was born to run. Its like I was born to never be content. Its like I don’t get to be grateful, thankful, to be cared for…Scully and I made a baby that I will never know, ever teach, oh man…Will…what the fucking hell was I thinking?
Sometimes the knife that I channel cuts left from center.
Waking up and not knowing where on Earth we are. Out of time, space and stars standing still. Rain has stopped. I get out of Scully’s warm embrace and walk towards the window. Cars continue to float by as if we don’t exist. Looking back over to Scully as she sleeps. Everything for this moment for her has stopped and she doesn’t care. I love it. Peace, how long was I out, maybe 20 minutes.
The dream of that morning mocking me and I can’t help but complete the thought, dreams are thoughts with live action pictures right?
That morning Scully couldn’t speak. That morning close to a year ago I told her everything that I didn’t get a chance to say the night she ran from me. I think I had tears, yeah pretty sure about the tears. What I said to Scully standing in her doorway holding our son for the last time what I said to her: “I’ve…I’ve, always loved you Scully. The universe can’t be this fucked up, I can’t believe that. I will see both of you soon, I will fix this and then we’ll build something more just the three of us.”
“Mulder-”
I cut her off with my mouth. There are only so many heartbreaks a man can take before he himself breaks. If she said the words to me…I don’t know why but Daniel Day Lewis running in a forest popped into my head. I laughed a sad ironic laugh then Scully did. I kissed my boy goodbye, I kissed Scully goodbye then I handed William to his mother. Just for a moment I stared at them. Sam was gone, my mother, my father, my love, my son. There was a pattern, techno color and quite brilliant.
Most nights in that trailer staring out into desert and tumble weed I thought about them; my love and son. I thought about the point of it all. I thought about the cold dark matter logged inside my physical self. I thought about all kinds of people coming to rescue her that were not me. I thought-
“Whatcha doing?” Scully mumbles in her sleep.
“Just thinking…just standing and thinking. I kept bad time while we where apart, got use to seeing the sun coming up against the desert.” I close the shades so the light doesn’t get in. I don’t want it to get in.
“Come back to bed for a little while, we can pretend.’ her drowsy eyes, her low voice. I’ve got too many things to say to her, if we pretend that we are someone else will it be easier?
I walk back over to her and she laughs.
“What?”
“On second thought Mulder stay where you are, I like looking at you bare assed.
“Oh yeah. We need some clothes Scully.” I say winking as I walk over to the bed.
“Yeah clothes would be nice, a toothbrush, um…shampoo…I like when you do that.’
“This.”
“Yeah…that. Its nice.”
“Go back to sleep Scully. I’ll take you shopping on Canal Street once we get to New Orleans.” what Scully liked. The feel that made her blush and run a little hot was the lazy hand of mine that crept over her breast.
“I dreamed about what they were doing to you.” she says again. I still didn’t want to talk about it.
“I’m sorry you saw all of that.” I say plainly.
“I saw one.”
“You saw a ship? Are you sure?”
“Yeah, the one that dropped you off, yeah, I saw one.” her tone suggests that it was her worst fear come true. “Mulder what are we going to do?”
“About the ships?”
“Yeah.”
“Scully we have time to deal with all that.”
“Do we?”
“2012 is a long way from here. I am not sure we can do anything but live till then.”
“I’ve seen a lot of things that I never admitted to out of fear, I don’t know if I can just live it out till then.” she turns and faces me. Her sadness was cutting close to the bone.
“Look Scully tell me here and now what it is you want to do. We need to talk about this so lets talk.”
– 5 –
Her eyes open wide with surprise. This is our time now. I want her to say the words so bad it makes my cock ache. I want those blue eyes to bore holes into me and fill me with the vengeance I have so longed for.
Scully…say it…say it. You want it I want it so much. Everything can stop after, everything can end; it’s all right by me. I don’t mind. Just say it and it can come true. No more fear, no more hiding from it all. No more. But you have to say it.
“We’ve done right by it all haven’t we Mulder?” she asks with good bleeding out. Is it odd to have a conversation of this magnitude stark naked?
“Whatever do mean Scully?”
“I’m tired of running Mulder. I am tired of being on the outside constantly with our heads in the sand or worse looking in unable to move or think. I am sick of it. Aren’t you?”
“Yes.” sick to death.
“We don’t owe anyone anything anymore. We know everything now. The means of transport, the methodology, causative effects engines of destruction we know it all. What more is there to uncover? Alien light house’s, vaccines. We know it all there isn’t anything more-”
“There is always something more Scully. Don’t get over confident.” I have my hands on my hips and Scully smirks just a little.
“You know what I mean Mulder. The how and why are utterly irrelevant. They took everything from us; they took our lives, our respectability your sister and mine, our son. We don’t have to play by the rules any longer. I am tired of running, tired of feeling weak and afraid.” she stands and walks over to her clothes strewn over the chair by the battered wooden desk. She stops then starts then stops again.
“So you are saying we should fight back?”
“Yes.” She said everything I’ve ever wanted her to say. My hands are shaking at the thought. My feet stay planted right where they are. My heart beats a calm beat, reason sinks into me like a dull blade. We cannot do this.
We can’t.
“Where would you like to start Scully?” She walks over opens that pretty mouth to start tearing into me and instead changes to the patented glare. It was the kind of glare she use to give me when I said something beyond unbelievable. It was the glare she gave me when she felt I was being sarcastic or chiding. I didn’t mean it to come out the way it did. I gotta put some clothes on so I don’t feel so imitated by her.
“Why do you do that?” she grabs my hand and I feel even more exposed. “Why do you act as if you are the only one whom this effects?”
“I don’t-”
“You do. You say let’s talk and then just as quickly you change your mind. What gives Mulder?”
“I wish I knew Scully. There were times when I knew exactly what I wanted but I can’t think anymore. My mind wanders all over and I can’t stay rooted in one place or time.” ok found my jeans. Cool. Shoes, where are my shoes?
“Mulder you have never been good at staying in place. The indecision you feel is me isn’t it?” she asks with this direct intent. Like she knows me so well. Sometimes it irks me.
“No Scully, not even close.”
“Then what?”
“Making them pay won’t change that life as we know it will end, it will stop and our lives won’t matter, our son won’t matter. He won’t have a future, there is no future.” There is steam rising from her pretty red head. She makes a great point as always. This is not like me. I always know what to do next and now I can’t even think. Its Scully its the sex, its the summer. Yeah, its not that I am more afraid than ever of not seeing her again. Nope that’s not it. Yeah it is. Yeah. It. Is. Yeah.
“What the hell happened to maybe there is hope?” Nothing I have no answer. Besides that was two days ago and I couldn’t remember what it felt like to be inside her. So yeah, fuck all that. Hope is just another four letter word right? Right? “Mulder answer me this; do you really feel that we have done everything we can to stop this? Do you feel that we have given it every ounce of challenge that is in us, do you feel there is nothing more that we can contribute, that there really isn’t any hope?” She waits patiently. Full of concern and an impeccable sense of honor.
Time travel is a paradox right? Queue the whoosh.
Two years ago. Later April. It was warm and sunny outside. I was going thru the slides getting my presentation ready for her. I was feeling good as of late. I was noticing the air and how sweet it was with all the flowers and fresh cut grass bleeding into my senses. Work was good, we had just finished wrapping up the “ectoplasm” case and I was pretty sure Scully was starting to come around to half way believing me. I wasn’t thinking about Sam anymore, I wasn’t thinking about mom or dad or him. I was thinking about Scully and how I opened my eyes one day and I finally saw her.
It was like everything was clear. I didn’t have this incessant fear of what she would say to me when I called her on a Saturday and asked that she meet me in the office. She was already awake when I called her, grouchy but awake. I was shaving and trying to find the most casual non work force attire I could manage and I was singing. I was singing on a Saturday at 7 in the morning, I was singing about Scully. I was singing this old Depeche Mode song, (I could never grow out of them and I kept it pretty closed off from everyone I knew, because when I did chance and voice my love for the Mode people had a tendency to make faces, which meant that headphones and showers were the only way we could be together.) I was singing this old song from them. “I feel you” that was the song. I was singing that song thinking about Scully with an Elvis voice and my face half shaved when it hit me like a ton of bricks.
I was in love with Scully and I was going to tell her.
I looked myself in the eye and I made a promise that I was going to tell her. I just needed a plan. So first the case, something with science in it to float her boat. Second, it had to be somewhere that we did not normal, somewhere she couldn’t drive away (not that she would but you ever know) from me incase it got dicey or emotional, after all my Scully has a thing about emotion. Third it had to be somewhere I felt comfortable in.
I nicked my throat and smiled. Cambridge. The crop circles. I hadn’t hit her with the crop circles yet, there was science involved, we could go to my old haunts, we could take the tube, and walk around, and talk and I could tell her because we where 5,000 miles away from who we were. I could confess my secret dark passion for Depeche Mode and she could answer the question that had bugged me since we met; why did she cover up that mole?
It was perfect. I got to the office 45 minutes after I called her. She had beat me to the office and looked like she was ten million miles away. She complained of hunger and offered to get food. Perfect again. I set up the slides and hit my boom box for tunes. Scully had been on this Moby kick and her CD was still in there from when we had to get our files in order for the audit. Everything was still perfect. Perfect as I called and booked the tickets and set up the slides at the same time. I was in the zone and she was in the Phantom Zone as I was talking to her.
She stabbed her salad. I mean the lettuce was screaming in pain. She didn’t hear a word I said she just murdered her lunch and looked everywhere the slides were not. She was as angry and out of sorts as I have seen her. I didn’t know what it was about and I was afraid to ask. I got the message sent loud and clear. Scully didn’t want to hear it from me. I pushed the Saturday boundary, I broke my promise about the slides, I kept her from her bath and I wasted my chance; I pushed her too far away. She had turned tuning me out into an art. The picture worth a thousand words, none of which she wanted to share.
I made my way through Dulles silently kicking myself in the head. Drinking dad’s old favorite on the plane as it dipped and fell a few feet rumbling and begging to crumble. I thought for a second that her God was as cruel as I’ve always suspected, he was going to kill me and everyone else on a trip I planned to bare my soul to her on.
I was drunk as I made my way through customs.
Fate had a funny way bringing you round like a boomerang. There was nothing in that field, there was no one at my old haunts, Phoebe didn’t return my call, and I was not sure why I even called her. Manchester and Arsenal still hated each other, everyone still thought Depeche Mode were a bunch of “sodding sellouts” and I really wanted Scully to see that all with me.
This is what I was thinking when she flipped me around and the world blurred as I thought of murder for one split second. I called Colleen to report my empty findings and she advised me to “find” Scully. She suggested that if I didn’t life would change. Scully was in transition and maybe she was going the wrong way. I didn’t even unpack or think how was it possible she knew this about Scully, or how she knew how I felt. I took a chance searching far and wide and there she was. She was actually happy to see me.
I could have kissed her right there.
I didn’t kiss her then. I kissed her later when she told me everything about Daniel and her own boomerang. I was in my kitchen getting a glass of water when she walked in behind me and just stood there waiting. My hands gripped the sink like a rock climber gripped his life. The wind was lightly scratching branches outside my window and I was too afraid to turn around.
If Scully was in transition than where was I? I traveled the space of an ocean to a place that brought me nothing but heartache. I wanted to confess my feelings as my once confident demeanor shattered like bullets into a window. Chance and fate playing spy vs. spy. One wrong turn and Scully and I would have never met.
It was stupid.
She said she was leaving that she wanted to get some sleep. I still wouldn’t turn around. She asked me if I was ok and I still would not turn around. She walked over to me slightly alarmed and that’s when I turned around when I said the words when I told her how I felt.
“I love you Scully.” my voice dry and cracked. She just blinked. The words hung in the air like a noose swaying side to side. Of course I told her once but she didn’t believe me and I did not believe myself, drugs will do that to you. I had to say something. “I never thought that I could say it without-”
She didn’t let me finish. She pulled me to her mouth and time just stopped. Then it started with her hands in my hair, my hands on her ass, she was grinding herself on me and I was not breathing. She stopped for a second or two and just caught her breath as she rubbed her hand on my hard on. Her lips were swollen, her blue eyes were blurred with something deep, we tore at each other, her skirt, my t-shirt, her bra, her panties, clothes they were everywhere spinning round in a whirlwind. She guided me inside her, shaking hand gripped tight. I could not think, we where on the floor of my kitchen naked and I didn’t know what the hell to do. We didn’t move for those first moments. We just looked and kissed as somehow I got the idea that I hadn’t mopped the floor in a long time. I carried us to the bedroom. I couldn’t have that moment on the floor in my kitchen. I knew it was not going to last, I knew from how hot she felt that she wasn’t going to last. So something had to be framed in the moment. I knew I would never feel her the way I did at that moment but if my back could hold up, if I didn’t shift us the wrong way while in motion, I knew that we could always remember that our first time was in a bed. And that meant something to me.
I didn’t want to remember Phoebe and the graveyard, or Diana and the elevator, or Stacy in her dad’s pick up or the other times and the other women. I wanted Scully in my heart and my bed. I wanted something that was more us and less them.
The motion was transfixing. It was my most replayed memory in the dust bowl that is New Mexico.
I wanted to talk to her afterwards, real talk, like move in and marry me Scully talk but the jetlag caught up to me and fear caught up to her. She was gone when I woke up the next morning. My machine blinked 2 messages. Scully was one.
“Hey…take the day off will ya. I have some last minute expense reports to fill out, lab results, fingerprint analysis to go over…” there is a long pause. Office ambience filters into the machine. She takes a breath and asks. “…Mulder…what did we do?” Deep exhale of breathing then the dial tone.
Beep.
“Agent Mulder this is Kim from A.D. Skinner’s office he has questions about a trip to Cambridge he wishes to discuss,” blah, blah…
Beep.
Mulder what did we do?
I call Scully back and get her voice mail. I tell her that what we did was right. I tell her that I love her. I tell her that there are no strings. I tell her that we can move at a pace that she sets. I tell her that I want to meet her later for pizza at Gino’s. I tell her to call me back.
She left me sleeping. No words, no love you in return. Part of me felt crushed by her. Another part understood. She was afraid and I was too. If I didn’t have hope. If I didn’t dream and believe in something I never would have turned around. I would have said goodnight and let her go like I always did, taking jagged parts with her every time.
Queue the whoosh in.
“Mulder answer me this; do you really feel that we have done everything we can to stop this? Do you feel that we have given it every ounce of challenge that is in us? Do you feel there is nothing more that we can contribute, that there really isn’t any hope?”
I wait before I answer. Her blue eyes crystalline and pure. She licks her lips. She does that when she is really thirsty. I should get her some water or something maybe a Red Bull, Scully likes Red Bull’s “There is hope Scully. There is you and me. There is our son somewhere out there. But we can’t stop this. All we can do is stay ahead of it and that is what we are going to do.”
“Just like that? Mr. Macho man making all the choices?”
Now she’s pissing me off. “What the fuck Scully? What do you want to do? What do you hope to change?” Her eyes look away. She knows something. I could always tell when she is being less than forthcoming, like now. “What do you know?”
“Nothing Mulder, nothing.” she doesn’t meet my eyes. That is the first indicator.
“No there is something, so why don’t you tell me.”
“There is a way to identify them.” she looks in direct but faulty.
“Them who?” as if I could not guess who she means.
“The men, the men who are infiltrating, the Super Solders. I know how we can stop them and I know how to I.D them without Gibson and his ability.”
“I’m listening.” I am not. We are not. No way. You see what happens when you stand naked and pray for what you’ve always wanted to hear.
“They have these marks on their necks,” she says as I slide my jeans on. I get em’ on so fast that it burns my ass and I nearly castrate myself with button flies of all fucking things. She’s still talking “-protrusions, three jagged peaks. We hunt them down and make it hard for them to coordinate efforts, we enlist help and we round up some raw materials and we get them back.”
“You are out of your mind. We are not going to do that. We are going to New Orleans to get a new car and the money and then we are getting the fuck out of this country. Call your mom and your brothers say your goodbyes. There is no way. Nope, no. Its too dangerous.”
That settles that.
“Fuck you Mulder.” She walks past me with all her sweet scents and storms into the bathroom slamming the door behind her, locking herself in. Locking me out.
– 6 –
I hate it when she’s like this. She will not talk she will not listen. Just this blank glazed look in her eye. Jaw set, lips in a frown. Sharp intakes of breath as if she wants to start but is afraid of what it means to continue. What should I say? Nothing. And time keeps ticking. Counting down. This is wasted time. These are moments we never get back. I chance a look over, no change. Just the same predictable distance.
I drive with my teeth clenched. I could chew a hole into my own brain from the inside of my mouth. I look over again. Same. We made a promise. And then it hits me again like ten tons of pressure. I owe her everything. I am only the man I am now because of her. I owe her an apology. She is much stronger than me, she is more capable than me, I owe her an apology…again. Its just been too long away from her, so much that I forget the way this use to be. I’m going to apologize.
Over the bridge into the wilderness we go.
We arrive in Metairie at noon. The sun is high in the air. The humidity was about as unbearable as it was exotic. It was a lot like the heat in D.C, only sweeter and flare inducing. I had not been in D.C. for a while and my sweat is like rain in this. The dry heat I was so use to is not a clear reminder of how this feels.
Its quiet as most people are at work. Kids run, they ride bikes, laughter. When I pull up to the old garage she is surprised. That eyebrow arches a question and I answer with a kiss. “I’m sorry,” is all I say as I unbuckle my seat belt. I run my fingers over her lips. I just love that plump feel. She blushes just a little and climbs out of the mammoth Suv switching back to remembering that she is supposed to be mad at me.
We walk over the cracked pavement and note the huge oak trees and the generous shade. Cars drift by and pay us no mind. I walk towards the entrance and crack the burnt dead potted plant onto the ground. Scully was about to ask why when I shifted the brown dirt to reveal a set of keys.
“Clever.” she says looking around, eyes a wander.
“Not my idea. That was dear old dad. Here, pull in once I open it. With those plates this roving gas guzzler is gonna get us caught sooner than later.” I toss the keys to Scully, she heads back to the Suv and I open the door dad opened for me all those years ago.
A vacuum sucks me right into it all…
“Fox what did your father want?”
I was staring at the ceiling in my room. I was 18 and I still didn’t know exactly how I was going to get away. The radio was on and “Heart of Glass” was playing. Mom had switched the radio off. She stood at the foot of my bed and noticed the duffle bag. Drink in her hand blurriness in her eyes as she snorts the question again, agitated.
“Fox I asked you a question. What did your father want?” A car rumbled by -School’s out for summer. School’s out for ever- Loud and in mono. The voices and laughter I could almost picture.
“He wants to give me a car,” my 18-year-old self tells her.
He was a good kid.
“A car? Whatever for?” she was upset. He was out doing her again. I could see the mechanism of her brain churning a “Why didn’t I think of a car first?” The ice jingled.
“Dunno…he was drunk. I have to go to Louisiana to pick it up. He wants me to meet him there. Something about being a man.” Sitting up and turning the radio back on just to upset her. I don’t know why I wanted to but I did and it did.
“Fox…there are things we need to discuss. Like life beyond high school. College?” No response. “Northwestern, Penn State, NYU…there’s even one from Oxford…Yale. Your father can wait.” the ice jingled in her glass when she said wait.
“I have not seen him in years. It can’t wait. Sorry. I’m 18 and I think I have earned this.” my words stung her. I could hear it all, “Haven’t I given you enough, haven’t I taken care of you, haven’t I sacrificed it all?”
She said nothing. All she did was swirl the ice in her glass.
“Have a safe trip Fox. Do you have enough money?”
I slide the key in and the lock gives easy enough. Dust and insects trapped for 20 plus years great me. I hear the engine come to life and watch as Scully pulls into the garage. I hit the lights and there she is. I walk over and pull the tarp down. God I missed this car. Scully climbs down and walks over to the car not believing her eyes. She laughs. I guess she’s not mad anymore.
“That’s not all Scully. Hang on a sec.” I walk over and slide the doors closed and lock them behind us. I switch the fans on and start opening the windows, kids voices and music filter into the garage. I run the tap in the sink for some water. “My father told me…he told me to prepare for a day when I would have to face the world alone. Can you believe that Scully? He knew it then…they must have discussed the end, its what really pushed my father over the edge. He left me everything I would need. Money, weapons…a car, contacts…he knew.”
I walk over to the tap and wash my hands. I cup them under the water and drink and drink. Scully joined me. She opened her mouth to say something but closed it and instead chose to splash water on her face. She walked back over to the car and got inside.
She looks super sexy behind the wheel.
“Pop the truck will ya.” I say.
She does. I grab the duffle bag and the crate of weapons. A letter falls out. Scully steps out of the car and helps me noticing the yellowed paper. I set the items down and grab the milk crates that dad and I sat on all those years ago.
“Mulder?” she says handing me the envelop
“Its a letter from my father.”
“Do you wanna read it?” she asks with a shaky hand.
“You read it to me.”
I don’t want to hear this.
“Are you sure?” that’s my Scully. Always looking out for me. Always caring and noting when I would rather eat a bullet than face something unpleasant, always wanting to eat that bullet so I wouldn’t have to. One day…some day soon before all this ends I am going to take her somewhere they won’t find us. Someplace warm, someplace where she can paint her toes, and get red then brown on a beach, somewhere we can make love in a ocean, someplace she can laugh at me as I try to climb a tree and get her some coconuts or something maybe a mango or an avocado…
“Mulder?”
“Sorry I just drifted off there for a second.”
“Its ok. Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Go on, read it.” There is nothing in that letter he can tell me that will change any of this.
She starts. “My son, I have spent this life in an constant state of regret. Do not live with regret, your father. William D. Mulder.” she stops. Flipping the paper around to see if she missed anything. That was my father. Straight and to a point that only his wet mind could understand.
“Thank you Scully.”
We ride in silence along the late afternoon bustle of Canal Street. Tourists out and about taking in all the steamy splendor of the Big Easy. I roll the windows all the way down and breathe it in. I wanted to take Scully to get some beignets and chicory coffee so we can sit and talk. I want to finish but I am afraid to start.
A lone guitar wails somewhere in the distance. The roar and rumble of the streetcar drown it out for a moment. The pounding bass from a car, the drunken laughter, Scully took it all in and I could tell she kinda liked it here. I did too when I first got here all those years ago. Before Oxford. Before Quantico. Before Scully. I hardly ever stop to think about life before Scully, but ever since we got “the news” all I have done is think. Think about wasted time. Think about empty missing spaces. Think about what could have been. What should have happened, save the world, learn the truth, lose the girl, find the girl, its all gone round and round. But this place. It has not changed. Maybe it never will. Maybe aliens will ignore this place because its below sea level.
Maybe. Maybe not.
I find a meter and park. I pop in three quarters and Scully slams the door on our vintage ride. I stick my hand out for her take, to forgive me and she does. I feel better. We head to back to Bourbon Street, the corner really. There are these ridicules tourist traps shops and its a great place to get cheap clothes.
The guitar was back wailing and calling out to me. We walk into the bone chilling air conditioning.
“5 T-shirts for 20 bucks…come on Scully that’s a bargain.” I say pointing to the New Orleans Country orange prison t-shirt. She smiles for a second and heads over to the tank tops. The heat was making her more lush, the sweat beading on her, dripping down her neck. I just stare for a second as she picks one in each color. Black, white, blue, pink, yellow, red. Tossing them over her shoulder as she makes her way to the shorts.
I pick out some clothes that don’t scream “come on rob me,” and we head to the counter to pay. I want to buy some Mardi Gras beads but I think better and pay the lady behind the counter. We grab our bags and head back to the car to drop them off.
Walking down into the bustle of the French Quarter. Past the vomit smell, past the wannabe White Castle, past, the Blues Bar, deep into the heart, holding hands, sneaking kisses. We walk in the street the sidewalks are so crowed. Take a turn and turn and zigzag till we are at Pat O’Brien’s, its a tourist trap but I don’t care they have these great drink specials and I need a drink or three thousand. They seat us near the fountain under the shade and we order two Hurricanes’ with the glass. We munch on popcorn and share looks of disdain at the poor drunk sweaty pigeons. She has not talked. Just takes it all in.
“Tell me something Scully.”
“What is there to tell?” Distant. Alone. She’s doing it again, but we made a deal and I have not followed thru on my end.
“Tell me, talk to me. Say something. Anything.”
She thinks for a long time. Eyes darting around soaking it all in. “I never thought about coming to this place. Its so hot.” Drinks come we sip we listen. Scully wipes sweat from her brow I take her hand in mine. “I thought I could do it alone. I thought I was strong, I felt it. I said to myself Dana, you can do this. Mulder will come back until then you’re just holding the fort, you’re doing his work.” Our work. “You’re raising his son.” Our son. “Everything is going to be alright.” She drinks again. Deep drink this time. She wanted the cold sting of the alcohol to burn away the pit inside.
I point to the glasses and order another round. The waitress nods and smiles. The fountain lights up with this fire, colors make the water look fluorescent. The drinks are cold and refreshing. Scully and I drink in silence again. Its an odd thing to float in and out of talking then quiet. We handle it all very well.
There is a question I want to ask her. I want to ask her why. I know why Skinner told me why. He told me about the kidnapping and the powers and every other thing about my son. But I want her to tell me. I think she needs to. Something is eroding her will and its not the payback, that is too simple. No, somehow we always wind up back in this space of time. Somehow She wants to tell me something and she doesn’t know how, and more to the point I don’t know how to ask. I could go back and catalogue every single moment when she wanted to tell me something and I wasn’t listening. I wanted to ask her something but the words were all choked in my throat.
Drinks are set down old glasses taken away. Are we hungry the waitress asks. Sure, we should eat. Thank god its after five. I don’t need to worry to about the meter. I bang my knee into the wrought iron table thinking I have to go and feed it some quarters. Scully laughs. Her face flushed with heat and booze, her eyes all a sparkle. These hurricanes are tougher than they look. The waitress returns with two glossy menus’ she offers to move us inside but we decline. Scully orders the blackened chicken and I order the barbeque shrimp and the waitress scurries off leaving us in our silent thinking.
No one is around us. The music is loud. I can do this. She might hit me, she might accuse of me having no feeling but I need to know. I need to hear it from her. We made a life together I just need to know if she fought for him. I know she fought for him, Scully is a fighter but the truth is I don’t know how she could give our son away. I just can’t understand it.
“You want to know why I gave him away? You want to start a file? Grade my actions, organize my motives, categorize my decisions, you want to store it away and what, make a slide show maybe?”
Drinking on an empty stomach…Maybe that was not a good idea.
“Scully that is not what I am thinking. Its not even close.”
“So ask me then. Ask the big question. Why did I give the only baby I will ever, ever have up for adoption? Go ahead…ask me how it feels to have a part of you missing, ripped away, ask me. Go on Mulder ask me how it feels.”
I gulp half of my hurricane down. I get one of those brain freezes and I remember a conversation like this, just like this between my parents.
“Don’t you dare ask me how I feel…William.” there is venom in her voice, it was the kind of venom that took hours to kill. “There aren’t enough words for how I feel.”
Drunk, anguished. It was morning and they were fighting…again. It was three weeks later. I was hungry and I was going to the kitchen for a snack. They were already in there. I could see the bottles of booze on the table. They were drunk.
“We need to talk about this. Fox cannot bear this, we need to be there for him, he blames himself…” He whispers. She is not listening.
My mother laughs. She laughs and laughs. She gets up and walks past me without even noticing me. She stumbles as she climbs the stairs to the guest room. She hadn’t shared a room with him since Sam went missing.
I walk into the kitchen and sit with my father. He stares at the light reflecting off the bottles. He was drunk. I clear my throat and he looks up and smiles at me.
“What ever is happening now with your mother its not your fault Fox. You’re just a boy, there was nothing you could do to stop it.” He stands runs his hand through my hair takes one of the half empty bottles and climbs the stairs. I could hear the familiar creak of the door to Sam’s room.
Am I feeling like my mother or father right now?
– 7 –
“I know why. I know…I want to blame you. I do blame really well.” my brain is not in much pain but my blood is cold and drunk.
“That has always been your problem Mulder.” blue eyes clouded with uncertainty tinged with anger. I’m a dick. I’m in love with her, I missed her and our son, I could bear it all just knowing they were at the end of the road, I’m a fucking coward, I left them, so of course they wouldn’t be here- “You know it all. I don’t ever need to explain to justify, you know everything. You’ve been thru it all and I’m just along for the ride, yeah?”
Along for the ride? Deathly serious…along for the ride? The song playing is distracting…
-Don’t wanna walk through the eye
of any needle
Don’t wanna watch the sand just fade
to grey-
Scully had cancer. She was going to die. My real father stepped in and saved her. Oh sure I found the device that would control her later; that would save her. Yeah I found that round little chip, but dad he saved her. I really thought she was going to die.
Scully didn’t die.
She lived, she lives. Being that close to death changed her, remade her. She was a new slab of marble and each time she came to my shitty apartment unannounced…we got closer and she got stronger. Its how lines blurred between us. Its how we courted each other. Its how she became something new.
It started with her mother calling me…No. A few days before the retreat is when it really started, sorry Mrs. Scully. Scully knocked on my door and said she wanted to go shopping. I was in my boxers and her gaze settled as her attention drifted. “Scully you want to go shopping?” I rubbed my stomach to get a reaction. She bit her lip. I was sure that I knew why I did that. Of course admitting it to yourself, myself…well that was another thing all together.
“Yes.” she said absently. “I need a new gun. Something just said…Dana, you need a new gun. So I figured its Saturday we don’t have any ectoplasm spewing mutants who chain smoke taking us out of town, so its a good a day as any to get a new gun.” She walked past me. I took a deep breath to get a sense of her perfume. It was not the clean soft scent she wore to the office, it wasn’t the just out of the shower powder fresh scent like on the road. It was spicy, it made my mouth water with the need to fuck her. I walked quickly to the bathroom and claimed I was going to change. What I really did…well we all need our secrets.
Scully drives like an insane person. But I didn’t care. Her hair was free, wild. Her clothes were clinging. She was thin but I wasn’t too caught up with that. She wore all black, cashmere sweater, black, tight jeans, black, sensible shoes but nice ones, black denim jacket. I took a long look while she searched for parking and I came to the conclusion that she raided Krycek’s closet.
We didn’t talk about anything really. I didn’t ask her how she was feeling. I didn’t want to spoil it, dredge up all those near death distances. I didn’t know why Scully wanted to go window-shopping for a Heckler & Koch USP Compact that fired .40 Smith and Wesson bullets. I was just grateful to be on the ride.
“What do you think Mulder?” the gun guy behind the counter was in love, apparently with Scully. Apparently she had this whole secret gun crazy life that I was surprised by. I mean I always knew she was a killer shot. But this secret life of ammo velocities and weekend firing ranges, and the proper way to clean chambers and all the other things her and Skippy here were yakking about was about as fun as Thanksgiving with mom.
“Its great Scully.” I had said bland as toast. She was balancing the weight of the gun in her hands. Those soft hands. “Really great.”
“I think I am going to take it.” she set the weapon back down on the counter and licked her lips as if she were going to devour a fine cut of meat.
“Sure thing.” the pimple popper said. He had a bunch of forms for her sign a fingerprint to take and he threw in 5 cases of ammo for free. A leather holster caught her eye and she added it to the purchase. 2300 hundred bucks. He boxed her stuff to go and she whistled on the way to car.
“Can I drive Scully?”
“Sure thing. What do say to lunch then we hit the range. I wanna test this baby out before we have to do that team building thing.”
Sweetest smile I had ever seen on her. “Sure,” whoever you are. I thought to myself. We never really know each other. Partners that is. At least that was the saying.
Her mother calls me a few days upon returning from Florida. She was concerned that Dana was taking on too much too soon after her illness.
“Fox, its like I don’t recognize my baby.”
She didn’t recognize Dana Scully because she was remade. She was more independent, she was more confident, more take charge, less prone to wander shakily thru life, not that she would wander when any of us were looking. No. Dana Scully stared death in the eye and death blinked.
God I had it bad for her…I have it bad for her.
“Mrs. Scully, Dana is the strongest person I have ever known. What you are seeing now is not the end result. She may not need you in the ways you want but she loves you, just be patient. She is feeling immortal now, she’ll come back down and she’ll need you then, just be patient.” the phone was sweaty in my hand.
“Fox, she talks to you, doesn’t she?’
Food eaten and no words were said. This wall of. Deep breaths. What was life like when we where just coworkers? I can’t even picture it. I pay the lady and we walk out with our drinks in hand, cold and sloshy, melting in the jungle heat. Close and distance. That is her and me. These are drunk thoughts. My synapses are going the other way as we walk deeper into the Quarter. The sky fills with dark clouds heavy with the stink and the want to drown. Water falls in rivers and our clothes stick to our skin as we duck into an empty courtyard.
Red.
Russet.
Coral Red. aniline red, in debt, lose one’s, temper…annals, archives, evidence, Scully.
When I think of Scully. While I was away. While she lived the burden, unknown…While I was away. I use to try to picture her. A flawless being. Abstract form. Red on the horizon as light cracked sky. The void getting locked away. I pictured her perfect. Beyond small, beyond smart, beyond a sledgehammer in goodness and trust, beyond all that, when I thought of her, when I think of her, she is hot, sexy, a woman who didn’t care about what other people thought.
Too many things.
Red bricks all around.
There is no way to hide from the water that is falling. So we don’t. We stand like we first met all those years ago. Just two crazy kids and the want of the truth.
The rain beats us down. Our water logged drinks useless in our hands. Scully is smirking at me, her stare gets low and the blue I don’t recognize. She drops the drink and thunder strikes us closer, smashed drinks get masked, those hands warm in mine. I move to kiss her she blocks my approach as her teeth gnaw thru my t-shirt. The bite makes me close my eyes, raindrops hit my lids. Hot hand getting cold as she rakes her free hand down my stomach.
I should do something.
Push and pull her close as I force my tongue and we meet. Swirls in my mouth as she pushes me back. There won’t be any sex here we’re just not that free, but this kiss, this wet downpour, this drunken grope…
The rain stopped.
Every cell in my body screams for relief. Scully just tucks her hair behind her ear. She pulls me to the way out. I follow.
Tourists come out from where they are hiding and the bustle is back. Couples laugh as they shake water from their wet hair. Beads are thrown from balconies at the wet t-shirt parade that develops. Scully’s clothes still cling to her. My clothes still cling to me.
“We need a another room.” she stops at the light. “Mulder? I think we’re drunk.” she laughs.
Green means go. Red…well red means, “I think there is one down that street. You see that green awning?”
“The Old Absinthe Bar?” she asks. I want to get drunker. Oh…Scully…we can have sex whenever you want to.
“Mulder?”
Oh yeah a room…
“No under the green ironwork… Royal Sonesta Hotel. Should be nice, we have money. I bet they have a bath tub, you would look great in a bathtub-”
“Sure. Fine. Spectacular idea Mulder. Live in lavish luxury, its no big deal right? World’s gonna end and we are going to live it up. Ain’t we?” she walks without waiting for an answer towards the hotel.
I follow but not as fast.
Upon entering the lobby the air conditioning makes meat pops out of us. The concierge made a crack about the Louisiana rainstorms. I pay in cash for the most “lavish” room and the elevator waits as we walk towards it.
96 Hours…
“Go…Go now…” the charming man says a little while later he blows up.
The lay of land floats by my head in second like flashes. The Australian claim. The Antarctic Convergence. Tasmania. Campbell Island. Victoria Land. Christchurch, Wellington, Sydney. Flights to Chile. C-130’s, not enough time to sail…
Somewhere in all of this is Scully.
I couldn’t go back to my place they’d be waiting. I used all my get out of jails with the Gunmen. 96 hours and counting down…from when? My head burned and I felt it. My legs numb. Panic started to set in. Fear coursing like acid in me. I ran past the White House laughing at the irony.
Tourists thought I was drunk.
I had to keep moving. If I didn’t I was gonna die. Scully was going to die and that wasn’t an option. How do you plan an unexpected trip to a frozen desert?
I had no idea just roaming questions.
Delirium transported me to Senator Matheson’s Condo. Nice view of the Potomac, nice view of the park. His doorman took me for a beggar he was no match for desire.
This wasn’t going to happen to her again. Either I’d win and get there or she’d die and know peace. There wasn’t going to be any unexplained hospital appearance. This was far too real for all that. I say this to the doorman and he still wouldn’t call up. When I reach across and grab him by his lapel, when I shake him and spit hits his face, when I grab the phone and hit him in his then spit speckled face is when he finally listens.
“The Senator will see you….Mr. Mulder.” he cleans his face, he straightens his coat. Glares the glare of kill. It must have been too early into his shift.
“Mr. Mulder was my father.” I say as I walk fast towards the elevators.
8,9 the elevator beeps.
“I don’t wanna do this alone.” Break. “I don’t think I can. Splinter. “And if I quit now they win…” Crumble.
What did I know about love? Work was love. Running was love. Lost in a rage that lacked explanation, heh….that was love for me. I was trying to tell her something. I was trying to explain to her that I loved her, all that came out was work.
That really did happen a lot.
11th Floor as the doors chimes open. Two Secret Service men nod and let me pass. I walked past the foyer, past the Bosendorfer. “Fox. You look…tired.” Senator Matheson had his back to me, which in my shot in the head logic meant he knew I was coming. So predictable I am. “I can’t help you. I am,” he added while taking a deep drink from his glass. “sorry.”
“Wasting my time?” The question hung in the air like a hurricane. I was losing it big time. “This can’t happen to her again. I can’t live with it, just give me something.”
He handed me a ticket to Chile. He turned his back and didn’t say another word.
…but you saved me….
My words ringing in my head. Thunder was still threatening and Scully is gone.
– 8 –
The door shut behind us. Her clothes flew by me in a whirl. We had done a lot of things together. Seen unreal sights, had a child lost a child. We’ve been together and apart, but we’ve never been here. On the run, cut off from everything and everyone and now I’ve angered her. She was standing naked in the room. She made a bee line for the air conditioner and shut it off as if she meant to strangle it. I thought it was a good time to get away and let her breathe. Scully had other plans. My body had other plans. She got closer to me heat rising off her in waves, she licked her lips before she kissed me. I was thinking that her mouth was made for it, for kissing me, it was that perfect. She took my hand in hers and guided it to her breast. Rough moans escaping her as I rubbed her nipple with my thumb.
What were we doing?
Her kiss deepened her tongue making long strokes in my mouth, against my teeth. I wanted to talk to her, to explain the three or four abrupt conversations we tried to have but her fingers wouldn’t listen. She unbuttoned my jeans, let go of my tongue and spun me round like a top forcing me down with a strength I didn’t know she had. She peeled off my wet t-shirt and it hit the wall with a splat. She warmed my cool skin with her hands and I was humming again some off the wall tune that forced me not to think. Laying flat on the bed cool air hitting my ass as she pulled my jeans down to my ankles. What was she doing? I couldn’t ask her. I lost all reason and ability to speak as she lay her naked body down against me. All those days weeks months and years this is what I feared from her. Fear buried deep inside that she would find a way to control me, to make me weak at the very thought of her naked upon me.
Panic is a good word. My panic face couldn’t save me from her. It could not save the sweat that broke out all over me. It couldn’t save my hands from shaking when she kissed my neck, when she bit my shoulder, when her tongue and her lips and her teeth made their way down my spine…I told her to stop. I needed her to stop.
“Scully, stop…please…please-”
I could hear her eyebrow move. I could still taste the sugar sweet of her drink on my tongue, the salt of my sweat, that feel of the sheets beneath me. It was converging into too many sensations I didn’t know which one to choose. When she turned me over I looked at her and stopped thinking as I pulled her down closer to me, held her hips as she guided me inside. The world around me went white with surprise. She rode me till she burst and the colors returned blurred and yeah that was my voice pleading with her to not stop and the shock and the submission.
Submission meant that her control over me was as complete and as perfect as her mouth. That was a doozy. I closed my eyes as she kept on kissing and exploring parts of me. I feel asleep sometime later when she told me loved me even though I am a jerk.
When I woke she was gone. How long had I been out?
It was a week later. Settled in nice and comfortable. The air was dry the land was dry. It was quiet and everywhere I looked I saw red. Gibson wasn’t back from school yet and I was sitting out on a plastic lawn chair with a notebook in my hands trying to figure out what I was going to say to Scully in my first email.
I didn’t pack a photo of her or William. I felt like I packed everything yet I forgot those things. I nearly destroyed the trailer looking for them when it hit me that I didn’t pack anything except clothes, files and this notebook I bought in Phoenix after the whole “Hole in the Earth fiasco” as I liked to call it. This plain black notebook where I could practice saying things to Scully that I never had the guts to say.
The pages where blank.
I sat there in the dry heat waiting for some kind of literary genius to finally pop into my head. Something about her eyes or the ways she made me feel. Something about maybe missing her and missing our son. I had the pen. I had a glass of water a bowl of seeds. Low lying mountains and quiet. I stared at the paper and the paper stared back.
Dear Scully, scratch that.
Dear Dana,
You never let me call you call you Dana and I never let you call me Fox. It seems foolish now to start but since you are not here and I am not there I can be Fox and you can be Dana.
Did you ever think about how life would have been if you were Dana and I were Fox? I never really thought about it till now. I never thought that a day would come where I wouldn’t be able to talk to you or see you. I guess I took it for granted. But that’s not really what I am trying to say here.
What I am trying to say is that I miss you. I miss those days with you when I was too afraid of you, when all I wanted was you. I miss having you all to myself, just you and me and the unseen world. I miss driving into the unknown with only you at my side. I miss you. Its only been a week and I miss you.
Is that wrong? Weak?
I miss William. He is our unknown don’t you think? Who knows what he can become with you as a mom.
Can I touch you again? Can I feel you? I spent nearly every day of my life with you and I feel like if I stay away I won’t remember what it was like to touch you. I can’t do this but I have to. I have to right? For you for Will, delete this will ya, I sound like a ponce.
Fox.
I read it over and over till it made sense to me. Her reply made me feel really alone.
Fox,
To say that I miss you is an understatement. You made me feel complete. I echo your words and I too feel that I was a whole person while you where here. We will see each other soon and know that I love you. You said it that night and I don’t think I ever returned the sentiment. Everything is under control and you well return to us.
DKS.
A phone ringing cut through the panic and gushing pain of Scully ditching me.
“Agent Mulder?” a female voice says.
“Who is this?”
“We’ve never met. My name is Shannon McMahon-”
“Look, I am hanging up now. I am hanging up because I don’t care how you found me, how you got this number. I am hanging up. This is me hanging up. Goodbye-”
“You won’t find her without my help.” the woman says all matter of fact.
Of Course. Its been a while since Scully went and got kidnapped. It only makes the most perfect sense in the world that this would be happening right now.
Seriously.
Fucking perfect.
“So this is when you tell me all the hoops I have to jump through and blah, blah. I have an idea. Just tell me where Scully went and I promise to let it all go. Really. I’ll let it go. Just tell me where she is?” a little desperate, a little rushed. A whole lot of panic. This is what happens when you have conversations with strangers…naked and alone.
“No Agent Mulder you’ve been gone for a while it seems that you don’t understand things. She came to me. She wanted something, something very important. I gave her the means-”
“And you’re calling me because?” phone etiquette be damned.
“She is quite stubborn. Self-reliant. She needs help and I want to make sure that the mission she is on won’t end in vain. So meet me downstairs and I will explain everything.”
“I’ll be right down.” I’ll be killed. Its a trap. When did this all go so wrong?
“It went wrong when you stopped listening to her.”
Ghosts. I can see Ghosts. Walk ins. Apparitions. No Slimer just dead people. Like Krycek. Like now.
“You’ been watching the whole time?”
“You think I got some kind of joy outta watching you and Red go at it? No, Scully is ok. She went to get some bullets. She’ll be fine. Doggett and Reyes are going to meet up with her-”
“See into the future much?”
“Sorta. She went to get special bullets. A whole shit load of them. To help you of all things. But you, you just keep on blaming the world for all your problems.”
“Who is Shannon?”
“She’s an advanced prototype.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean…oh. She’s one of them.”
“Yeah genius. I had problems keeping you in line? Go get Scully and the bullets take Shannon with you. You know you need to get ready…Jeez Mulder you’re losing it.”
And now I am being haunted and lectured by Krycek.
I get dressed and check out. The concierge who had checked Scully and I in two hours ago seemed confused but this was New Orleans and one does not question, its not polite. When I step out into the wall of humidity I instantly regret not having taken a shower. Scully and her scent and sweat still clung to me and I felt like a lothario. A tall dark haired woman stood against a car and eyed me as if she knew me. “Shannon?” I step closer my eyes looking around. I’m not armed and add it to the list of stupid things I have been doing as of late.
“Agent Mul-”
I put my hand up. “Its just Mulder. I’m not FBI any more.”
“Of course. She left minutes ago. We can still catch her.”
“Scully, Scully.” I scratch my head in confusion. “Where did you send her?” the music was loud and frat boys on the balcony of the hotel cheered at a woman who indulged them with a flash of her breasts. Shannon seemed unimpressed, as did Krycek who stood right next to her with his arms crossed.
“Mulder, I contacted John Doggett with a formula to construct ammunition to stop them. Agent Scully called John for the information and they agreed to meet to try and retrieve said information.”
“Where?”
“I’ll take you-”
“No just tell me where she went. I don’t need you tagging along and I really don’t need you either.” Krycek looked hurt. Shannon looked at the space he is standing in.
“Mulder this is not a very wise decision. You’ve dealt with these beings before you understand what they are capable of.”
“I understand. Just tell me where she went.” she hands me a piece of paper and the address didn’t ring a bell at first but the name helped connect the dots.
Strughold Mining Co.
Perky West Virginia.
“This is where she went, were she’s supposed to meet up with them?” I ask.
“Yes.” she says. Her eyes are blue but not as blue as Scully’s.
“How did you get here so fast, how long ago did she call John.
“She called him three days ago.” she turned and walked away. Krycek just laughed.
“What the hell is going on here?”
“Women. Can’t love them, can’t trust them. Can’t live without them. She called him three days ago. How about that?” Krycek says laughing and staring off in the direction where Shannon walked.
“Krycek do you have anything more to offer, anything?”
“Nope. Just enjoying this.” he vanished.
I break into a run back towards Canal Street. People and music whirl past me in a kaleidoscope of colors and themes. The crowd crests then breaks when my run catches up to them. I make it out of the Quarter and almost get run down by a tour bus. I cross the street and almost get run over again. I walk over to my car and there she is. Like she never left.
“Scully?” I am out of breath and a little surprised all at the same time.
“Hey.” she slides off the hood of my car and stares at the ground at her feet.
“I thought…I mean…you left. I got a call…in the room. You left-”
“I’m sorry Mulder. I was not thinking clearly. A little too much to drink. I couldn’t do this without…I could not do this alone. I couldn’t do it to you.” she didn’t talk for a few seconds just kept on staring at the ground. She looked lost and sad. I don’t say anything. I know she has more to say and so I wait. “I called the FBI and I quit. I called my mother and my brothers and I told them that I wouldn’t be seeing them anytime soon. Their silence was always present always the same…disappointment. Even Charlie…I don’t know why he gets the free pass…I mean I haven’t seen him in like ten years…Between the cancer and you being dead then alive then William.” she stops again. The words where coming out a little choked. She catches her breath and continues. “I think that they are relived and that made me feel so alone. Here I was trying to say goodbye to them when I should have just left them alone. Isn’t it better Mulder to have them thinking of me-”
“Don’t do this Scully. Don’t do this to your self.” tears break and fall from her eyes. Her nose is red her lips tremble. I know what she is thinking. Why say goodbye to them when they are already dead. I pull her close to me and I kiss the top of her head.
“We need to do something Mulder. I needed to do something.”
“I know. Baby I know.”
“Baby?” she says sniffling.
“I’ve always wanted to call you baby. I don’t know.” I touch her chin and make her look at me. I love those eyes of hers. “Look we have get out of this city. If you called them this is the first place their gonna look. We’ll fix it. We’ll fight, I’ll do whatever you want…just trust me to help you.”
She smiles at me then kisses my cheek. I toss her the keys and let her drive.
– 9 –
We headed out east of New Orleans her little legs hammering down on the pedal. Scully has some warm crooning beach boys sounding song on the dial. Her hands at a perfect ten and 2, I won’t tell her just yet she’s only in cruise. Fear eased its self away and I wanted to sleep. I climbed in back as Scully laughs and shakes her head, her hands still at a perfect 10 and 2 and the sun, now its beating yellow against my closed eye lids. The drive lulls me, the guilt. Before all this we where normal people, now…now I try and sleep. A predictable dream ensues. At the time it was a nightmare.
I tell her about it, she asked. She needed something to keep her mind on.
“Somehow I managed to get myself to South America. Somehow my brains stayed put inside my skull. I didn’t sleep on the plane. I didn’t eat. I couldn’t with the concussion, nausea, the horny couple behind, the crying baby in front. All of that seemed less than civilized.”
She does not take her eyes of the road. I continue.
“When I made my way thru the airport I felt every eye on me. My FBI credentials got me to the airstrip and onto a cargo plane that was luckily making a drop, they even loaned me some supplies once Skinner convinced them that it was indeed official FBI business. Anyway, I paced inside the cargo hold. I felt you in a way I never did before. I felt your words cutting thru me, the idea that you didn’t think I needed you. The idea that you held me back. God, Scully…that was probably the worst day of my life. I think I slept. My body took over.”
I stop for a second. Time traveling back. I take a deep breath and run my hand thru my hair. My hand came back sweaty, its hot in here. She looks in the mirror and those blues catch me. Words hang in the air. I smile weakly at her, she wanted to know more, she wanted me to keep going.
I continue.
“The bounce of the tires touching down woke me. It was time for me to move again. The…uh…uh…cargo hold opened at a pace slower than molasses and they greeted me with instructions. Major Ellis went over and over the details on how to operate the vehicle and left instructions written out in dummy just in case. He said they would be waiting, he questioned why I didn’t want back up, Skinner reminded them again it wasn’t in the budget, they wondered just what the hell was going on.
I traveled to the bottom of the earth. I rode out to the coordinates and, uh…I was afraid that I was going to fall of the edge if I took a wrong turn. None of that mattered. None of the hunger, the fatigue, the fear burning in me, not of it mattered. I was calm, rational and I knew in my gut that it wasn’t going to happen to you again. And…I uh…as…I. As I shattered that green ice as I injected you and that black shit vacated your body and your blues greeted me, I knew. There was no turning back, I couldn’t tell you I loved you then, I didn’t have the words. All I had was a concussion from hitting my head on the ground, a wound from a bullet that missed by an instant and you Scully alive and well.”
I stop for a second to catch my breath. There were a few tears tricking down her cheek. Did she remember it at all? Was it lights out once the bee stung her? I’ve always been afraid to ask. Is that wrong? So many times there’s been mountains of unsaid words between us. I guess some things do not change.
Somewhere between the ship leaving and the advanced research team from Australia arriving were her cold lips kissing me…I think. On the ride back to the airfield and the even longer flight to Australia and then Germany something changed in us, something beyond the realm of our reason. I truly believe if were allowed a moment I could have told her then. I can tell her now yet I stay there in those moments when I couldn’t. I’m so bad with words for her. So bad with emotions for her.
Some time passes some cars. Thank you is all she says. Its quiet again. Dark. When did it get to be dark? I close my eyes for a while this time. I was so tired. I sleep and I dream of nothing. Warm sweet nothing.
The roar of wind flooding the interior woke me. Wasn’t it daytime? Daytime, night time…what time is it?
“Hey sleepy….you alright?”
“Yeah, still tired though, want me to drive?” my throat is dry.
“No, I like this car a lot.”
“You figured out you were in cruise?”
Scully laughs. “Yeah…I figured it out. Once I did…it was uh…it was fun to just go. We are close to Georgia why don’t you rest some more then we can switch?”
“Sounds good. You alright Scully?”
“I’m good actually. I feel awake, really awake, for the first time in a long time.” the wind roaring is all I hear for a moment or two. “I had trouble sleeping after, after I gave William…Well…fuck…Is there a right way to say that I gave up on my child?”
“No…no…” I barely whisper.
“I would wake sometimes so sure I could hear him crying out for me, you know? Well, I couldn’t sleep afterwards…its all so raw…but now…now I feel awake. Awake and ready and…its all you Mulder…Its all you.”
I want to tell her we will get him back. I want to tell we will find him. I say nothing. I lay back again and stare at the leather battered seats.
We pass farms again. We pass more cars. We pass a highway patrol that pays no attention to us. I let out a breath. We pass empty landscapes of green fertile land, we pass strip malls and schools, kids playing…what day is it?
Scully cries low inside herself. I pretend not to listen. She wouldn’t want me to comfort her, it goes against her nature. Sometimes I wonder why these walls won’t fall down. A part of me wants to smash them and break them up and another part is grateful for the privacy. But that’s my savage Scully and its way too late to change us.
Stretched out back on leather seats inside everything is down, eye side up. Green leaves now and brown branches. The light of day. The world flies by in an instant. Signs read Gas and Food. Scully’s foot seemed to drop down harder. The signs blew right past us. So what do we talk bout’ now? Nothing. Just the hot breeze and only her skin showing thru her summer tank topped clothes. I like this vantage point I get to look and let the urge to touch her build a little more, not that we need more, foreplay be damned. I’ve had enough for ten lifetimes. But I like her a little this way, distracted absorbed like the old days with something new. With the windows rolled down, sweat clings and the leather seats don’t help. Scully I notice, is moist and pliant, she licks her lips a lot she must be thirsty. I pass her some water, which she absently drinks.
“When you lived in San Diego what was it like?” she breaks her concentration on the road and chances a glance at me.
“You wanna know something about me?” she says slowing down a little to adjust the mirror and lock me in her stare.
“Yeah I do.”
“You want to know if I liked living in a warm safe place?”
Slightly sarcastic with a hint of a grin.
“Yeah.
“Not enough of a view.” she says with a shrug.
“Really?”
“I lived in a nice house in a nice neighborhood my neighbors where normal, my parents loved each other my brothers and sister we all did normal stuff-”
“I feel a but coming.”
“Well it was dull and it was boring and I couldn’t wait to get the fuck out.”
“F word? What song was playing when you lost your virginity?”
“What song was playing when you lost yours? she asks with a big grin on her face.”
“Mine I will have you know Agent Scully was Heart of Glass.”
She laughs. Big-hearted laugh. Shaking her head she stops and thinks, I see the gears of her brain working should I? Shouldn’t I? “You have to promise you won’t laugh.” blue, deadly and serious, love that blue. I lean up in the back seat my head in between the passenger seat and driver. I cross my heart over my chest and I hold up my hand.
“I promise.”
She hesitates then proclaims with a tinge of embarrassment.
“Flesh for fantasy.”
I don’t know what to say at first. So I just sit and my mouth sorta doesn’t move. “Now correct me if I am mistaken but you did say Flesh for fantasy?”
“I knew you would react that way.” she says glaring at me.
“I am not reacting.”
“Sorry its not Heart of Glass.”
“Come on Scully its kinda cool. I mean I wish that I knew a girl who was-”
“Well you do and it wasn’t my choice. It was the product of living in a nice normal place. Its not my kind of music at all I’ll have you know.”
“I can imagine.”
“Can you?”
“Well sure I pay attention. I know what’s in your CD rack, you have five CD’s in your CD rack.”
“So enlighten me.”
“Well you have some classical music and you have Al Green and you have Elvis Costello and 311 so my profile on you is that you like mellow music with feeling, warm music. The Elvis Costello thing, no offense but I don’t get that.”
“You forgot Moby and what about you Mr. Brit New Wave guy. You don’t own any CD’s that I know of.”
“That’s because I listen to the radio.”
“Sports talk radio and 80’s alternative will wonders never cease.”
‘Yeah where are we?” besides she had the 80’s rock of where ever on not me.
“I think its Georgia. There is a farm down the road that has a sign for lodging.”
How can she see that? I can’t even see it. “You tired?”
“A little. John and Monica won’t meet us till late tomorrow that should be enough time to get to where we are going.”
“Cool.”
“Mulder?”
“Yeah?”
“If you hate me because of what I did for Will-”
“Stop. I could never hate you. Ever. Its damn near impossible. No more talk about what could have been, you made a choice for the safety of our son. It was weak and fucking pathetic of me to even try to blame you considering that I was the one who left you both. I was the one running around oblivious when you were pregnant, I was the one who thought that…well forget that part.”
“You thought the William was not yours?”
“I mean I saw the way you defended him and stood-”
“You thought John was the father?” she’s two steps from laughing hysterically.
“I feared, there is a difference Scully.”
“Oh Mulder…you’re an idiot.” she is now laughing hysterically. I don’t think its very funny at all.
“I’m in love with you Scully, super in love. I was dumb and jealous and dumb and I’m dumb now.”
She pulls over towards the shoulder and hits the hazard lights. We get out and stretch our legs. I look up into the sky. She pulls me close to her and I love her warmth. The way she feels soft and strong, the way she smells clean and sweet.
“I love you.”
“I love you.” she says.
– 10 –
Charlotte’s Diner and the sun beating down the walls. This level of bright makes me remember. Brightest light of my life. Maybe not the brightest. When I looked over and saw him that fateful summer night in Oregon I knew I fucked up big time. Bright light as you can tell freaks me out. I like the dark. I feel good in the dark. Scully gave me her sister’s chain for luck. It seems odd to say chain and not crucifix.
What I am trying to say is that we are in a diner. Another diner, the same diner as a million years ago when the fix was out to get us because we got too close. Sound familiar? The light is bright. Its warm not cold or sterile. This diner and this light make me remember how I knew I was going to die. There were no answers on that ship, just pain. Gouging pain, searing pain, pain in the mind pain in the soul. Is this what I wanted he asked me over and over. Maybe it was the bright light or the quick view of my blood sliding down my body but I could have sworn there were a thousand of him…the Bounty Hunter.
The blood and tearing and the words in my head. I lost focus. Sometimes I thought I was already dead other times the pain was so real that all I felt was that trickle of blood trailing down my neck, my thighs…and that nausea. Somehow they found a way to inflict pain without drawing much blood, like they reverse engineered acupuncture or something. To top it off they had me naked but it wasn’t like that.
“Isn’t this what you wanted?” he asked.
“I want Scully.”
“She is of no use, not yet…you can’t have Scully. Isn’t THIS what you really wanted?”
“I want to die.”
“No…you can’t die. We have other ideas, ways to make you obedient, a drone. You’ll make a fine drone.”
“Mulder…Dana. Long time no see.”
Agent Doggett walks into the diner snapping me out of my memory. He’s got Monica Reyes with him. They look like they haven’t slept since we left Washington DC. He’s got a Dupont 24 race jacket on and she’s got a pretty white dress. Scully and I still had not changed out of our tourist tees from New Orleans. I guess we’re not who we are. How long has it been?
“Hello John, Monica.” Scully greets them and they take the empty booth seats.
“Why are you both still doing this?” Doggett blurts out having less patience with me then I remembered.
I look at Scully. She looks at me. I was still feeling the false burning sensation on my chest. That scar won’t ever go away. Scully likes to touch it. The way it feels when she does is like yeah it will fade one day.
“Its me John,” Scully says defending me. “Its not Mulder. Mulder wanted to go and I have unfinished business with them.” the waitress brought over two more coffee cups and two more sets of utensils for our new guests.
“Dana,” John says with a personal tone that I am really trying not to take too personally, I mean why does he get to call her Dana…to her face? “You can’t be serious. When you and Mulder left we had thought it was forever, then you call with this crazy plan and-”
“I know.” Scully says interrupting his hey why didn’t you both stay the fuck away speech. “You both have to understand what’s at stake here. You need to know what Mul-”
“No Scully.”
“Mulder?”
“Scully all they need to know are the facts. Simple easy. There is no need to complicate things more.”
I look across the booth and notice that John has that look that he gets when I am really getting on his last nerve. Monica looks pissed too. If they could only imagine how I feel about all this, this…shit.
“Look you two,” John says with his finger pointing from Scully to myself. “We have given every single bit of our lives into this mess you’re in. And while we have not given our blood and life in the ways you have I think we’ve earned our stripes. So stop this holier- than- thou- bullshit and just tell us what the heck is going on for once. The truth no more lies, no more games. We’ve helped you, we’ve damaged our careers our lives we deserve the truth.”
“The truth.” I say. The waitress looks like she’s worked here since 1996. She was startled by John’s outburst.
“Yes. Mulder all John wants all I want is the truth.” Monica says looking from Scully to me.
We where in this very diner and we made a significant discovery. We ran all night ducking tress and searchlights and bullets, everything. I heard her laughing the farther we got from them…the closer we got to the diner, despite it all. She shot me, cured me, listened to me, trusted me, trust. Its so overrated till you need it. Scully trusted me and it got us closer than we’d ever been to finding it all. Closer to finding every single messed up thing they’ve done and how afraid most of them are of bright lights.
And so light greeted day, as we were tired and alone. Only our breathing carried. I think we were afraid that this would be it. And you know most of all not really believing ourselves now that I think about it. And closer. My father was dead her sister was dying and fuck it all if we were hungry. And blessed Scully added.
And so light greeted day and she called Skinner and we bugged the waitress for coffee till she demanded we order something. I had the tuna melt and Scully poked at a chicken salad. Her hair was mussed a bit not completely out of place. Her workforce cut and blow standing tall. I wasn’t sure whether I was Gumby or a banker with my hair. I think it was the drugs still in my blood from the poisoned water.
Scully’s eyes soaked up so much sun that morning and right up to three moments before Skinner walked in she was close to laughing again because she felt the rush too, she was thinking about it. I could tell she was thinking about, she was biting her lip. She knew, she was thinking about the adrenaline, the roaring blood flooding her ears, she knew the nervous fear. The hunger. She met me there and it was sex way before it was love. I wanted to fuck her so bad. I wanted to fuck her. When the fuck did that happen? Then Skinner walked in. Her blue eyes soaking the sun wrapped in the thrill of nearly getting killed and her saving me and trusting me and I wanted to fuck her…I wanted her to suck my cock and I wanted feel her close and naked. I wanted to taste everything that she was, obsessive flashing thoughts about what her nipples would feel like pressed into my skin…then…Skinner walked in.
He wanted to play let’s make a deal.
“You want the truth here it is. On December 22, 2012 the aliens you refuse to believe in are coming to colonize our planet. They will either be aided or stopped by your super soldiers or hybrids or some other freaked up thing they’ve cooked up. Its gotten so damn confusing Doggett. It really has. I use to know where I stood. I use to know what I had to do to get things done. I use to understand that the truth was coming. I use to believe in it whole-heartedly. I had my files lined up in nice cabinets. Then Scully came in and actually organized them, Vampires, Flesh eating, Zombies, Ectoplasm…she was good at that and so many other things. I use to ditch her, she ever tell you about that? You know on second thought don’t answer that because I don’t want to know what you two talked about while I was getting tortured and almost made into a super solider. And who exactly came up with that name anyway…I guess Terminator was taken already huh…heh…Why so glum?”
“Jesus, Mulder.” Scully gets up and walks towards what I can only assume is the ladies room. Monica follows.
“Can I get yall anything else besides coffee we have some wonderful breakfast specials.”
“No thanks.” Doggett says. He waits for the waitress to leave then he gets up stares at me and walks outside towards his truck. A few mintues go by then I watch as Monica and Scully join him.
“That went well. You ever think she liked him more as a partner, I saw them together a lot when you where on the motherwheel, they looked awfully cute in trench coats.”
“Krycek drop dead already.”
“Ha. Ha. We don’t have time for this. You and Scully need to keep moving. You have to get ready.”
“Yeah, listen why am I only seeing you. Why not X or the Gunmen anymore?”
“I don’t fucking know. You think I want this. I had nothing. Think about it Mulder sweet fucking oblivion. Then…I am here and I have this compulsive urge to guide you.”
He seems confused by this. In the old days I would argue the existence of a parallel universe or maybe a vortex, a tear in the fabric of time in which Krycek’s undead reality ran in tune with my waking reality and the only way we could stop it would be to team up and make sure the lightning hit the clock like in Back to the Future. Scully of course wouldn’t believe me and, and….
“And you gave yourself a headache trying to be clever in your own mind. Mulder get a fucking clue. God is real and Scully’s been right all along, on all of those occasions when angels came a calling to her. You’ve had it all backwards its why they wanted your son. He represents something greater than what they know, he represents-”
“Is that what you think? Really?” I Barely hold my laughter.
“Well yeah.”
“Krycek if that were the case then why isn’t she seeing your ghost or the others for that matter?”
His stunned silence speaks really loud to me.
“I don’t know. Maybe God is trying to talk to you and not her. She believes you don’t.”
Now it was my turn to be stunned silent.
“Wait…what were we talking about?”
“Oh you know that alien apocalypse thing and how you need to get off your ass and stop wasting time and take Scully to get those munitions formulas and stock up for the end times. Jesus Mulder get your shit together. Oh and stop thinking about useless shit from the past that doesn’t matter.”
A tear in the fabric of time?
“Hey wait, you were about to vanish right?”
“Yeah Mulder.” he says rather impatiently.
“Do you know when you are about to leave?”
“I hear footsteps reflecting on stone…that’s oddly… damp.” he looked off into nothing.
“OK…”
“How do you think I feel about it?”
And just like that he is gone.
“Hey you ready or what?” John asks with the door to the diner open. He seems irritated.
He asks what’s the plan?
“So Mulder, what’s the plan?”
I walk over to the trunk put the key in, turn. What gets revealed is a crate full of all kinds of weapons. Some old, some new. I guess my father had them rotated. Out with the old in with the new. Doggett seems impressed. He picks up that odd silver thing that never did a get a name as long as I’ve known of its existence. He asks what its for.
“OK you got balls Mulder I’ll give you that. You got Dana so that’s means brains are covered, you got me and Monica but what in tar nation is this?”
“Tar nation?”
“Don’t be cute, what is it?”
“Its a weapon Agent Doggett. It pierces the base of the neck, you’ll want to be precise.”
He looks at it then at Scully. What was he thinking?
“This is a bona fide ice pick, what makes it so damn special?” he stops then thinks. “It can kill aliens or something?”
“My father must’ve thought it was important, Its always been important-”
“Your father?”
“It goes back to before we were born Doggett. Don’t stress it. Come on, we gotta put something black and sexy on.”
They rented rooms. One for them one for us. We follow Doggett’s green Tacoma. Scully is silent which means she’s pissed at me for something. Don’t need to read minds to know she didn’t like the way I broke it to them. We park in front of our room and I can see that Doggett and Reyes are fast in conversation. I can only guess as to the nature of the discussion.
“Scully-”
“Don’t Mulder. Just pop the trunk so we can get this over with.”
Slam.
She tried to murder the door with the force of her will to not kill me. This old Love and Rockets song is stuck in a loop in my head that I will need to sing in order to get it gone. Scully slams her hand on the truck to get me moving.
“We, we are free. You send me high, you send me high,” I sing as I pop the truck, she grabs the bags and heads towards Reyes and Doggett. I hit my head against the wheel. I want a cigarette.
Imagine four non-descript people roaming the abandoned Strughold Mining Company. We all walked cautiously over the sign, the same sign that Scully and I walked over so many years ago. The same broken windows. The same unlocked doors, the creeping sinking feeling that we where not alone, the idea that whatever was found…well yeah. Deja vu all over again. We climb higher till we get to the locked blast doors. Flashlights our only source of illumination. Scully types the code and it still works. Odd.
“You’ve got to be kidding? She says with a hint of frustration.
“Makes you wonder what’s the point of all this don’t it?” Doggett says brushing past me to see for himself.
“After you Scully.” I say. She still won’t move, like something is creeping…which it always is, was.
Lots and lots of files. Like before. Doggett found his name, his ex wife and his deceased son. Monica found hers as well. Scully dug deeper, further down the railway. Something she wanted to do the first time before the hit squad showed up. I follow her. We don’t speak and our feet crunch gravel and broken bits of rocks and debris. When we get to the end of the tunnel there is a newer set of cabinets, these are silver. I keep watch as Scully goes through the files. I can hear Doggett and Reyes and they are all “what the hell is going on here Mulder” and people will say that I never really warned them except that is all I ever did.
“Mulder these are charts for the enzymes and other branched junk DNA we found-”
“I know Scully, Just, here, throw it all in here and lets get going I have sinking spinning feeling…”
“You’re right.”
Huge army duffle bag gets filled with all kinds of charts and other assorted paper works. I feel it coming. I know Krycek wants to say something but he won’t show himself in front of Scully. It seems like a million years before she says bingo.
“Got it, the mining locations for the magnetite and the locations of labs brewing the Vaccine. Mulder why would they leave this-”
Right on cue Doggett and Reyes storm in and announce that we have company. We break and run back from where we came and then left as we hear the heavy booted footfalls of our armed guests. This time we parked a mile away so we wouldn’t have to walk back to Charlotte’s.
We finally hit free air when I feel air buzz around me. Puffs of dirt are flying and we are under fire from the roof of the complex. I grab Scully and the files as the bullets whiz by. We hit the tree line as bark splinters all around. Doggett fires some shots back Monica helps but I can’t see shit and Scully hasn’t stopped running since she broke from my grasp.
We take cover behind trees and Scully seems upset. I feel a stinging warmth that I hadn’t felt in a while.
“Mulder you’re bleeding…bad.”
“Iz not bad…Scullee”
Its bad.
“Damn Mulder…you’re hurt.”
“We don’t have time they’re getting closer and I hear a chopper. We have to keep moving.” Doggett says picking me up.
“Ain’t nothing gonna break my stride.
Nobody gonna slow me down,
oh no I got to keep on moving-”
“They nicked an artery…John-”
“I’m on it Dana.”
Up in the air. No not the air…We gots to keepon moovin….
When I come to Agent Doggett is yelling for everyone to calm down. He’s yelling at Scully to cut me open. He told Monica to hold the light so Dana could see what she’s doing. Krycek just kept saying over and over that we don’t have time for this and told me that it was all my fault.
“You fucking idiot. This is all your fault.”
Poof.
I feel…a little delirious. I ramble. I’m rambling.
“I could have avoided all of this. I could have stayed wit Scully. I could have raised him with her. I could have married her, I could have had more sex with her, quit the FBI (before they fired me), dragged her with me into the private sector where we would have gotten arrested more but they would have chalked it up to trespassing and nothing more, we could have had more sex and fucking and my cock and her tits and everything else in showers and motels and airplanes and William needing a baby sitter and me always getting a show…like now.”
The world stops.
I left and he was waiting. I always knew it would be him. I knew that no matter how much I loved Scully…no one was gonna keep me from finding out what happened to my sister. Walk in or Walkins as I like to call it don’t mean shit to me. I mean fucking Krycek has a man on for me in ghost form. If I ever told Scully about this she would never stop laughing. Aliens will blow us all away and take whatever’s left and Scully will still be laughing. But Scully she’s not laughing. She crying and I feel cold and Someone or Things are shooting at John’s crappy Tacoma and Scully has a combat knife in her hand and she has to do something to my artery or so she was yelling.
Its days later when I wake. There was rain falling. Scully was in another room. Where are we now? I hear Doggett talking to her, telling her to take it. She’s refusing. She’s crying, why is she crying? He tells her he doesn’t give a shit if I can hear him or not. He tells her he loves her and he always will. She laughs that polite laugh of another life.
My arm is bandaged and it hurts when I move it. So I stop. I sit up and the room spins. Its a nice room. It would be nicer if it stopped blurring. I reach for the water on the table near my side of the bed. Its warm but it feels good. The clouds are more black then gray and that means the rain is going to come down harder. Its time to break them up. Its only when I head towards the door that I notice that Monica has been watching me the whole time.
“You heard all that?” I ask.
“Yes. Its not who is he. Its who she makes him. You feeling any better?”
“A little. What happened?”
“You where shot, the bullet hit an artery you bled a lot then Dana fixed you and we hauled ass here.”
“Where is here?”
“We are still in Virginia. This is her brother’s home if I am not mistaken.”
“This is Bill’s house?”
“No she didn’t say Bill…she said-”
“This is Charlie’s house, really his wife’s great grandfather’s house.” Scully says one hand on the doorknob. “Mulder get back into bed. Its all over we got the files, Doggett and Reyes are gathering the material’s they’ll check in every now and then, we’ll meet up at one of your father’s safe houses in Canada…New Brunswick…I think, right?”
“Yes.” Doggett and Reyes say.
“Well my work is officially done I can now retire.” I say slowly walking back to bed.
“I’ll call you, come on Monica let’s hit the road.”
Monica joins him after she gives Scully a hug. She waves at me then takes Doggett’s hand. He nods at me then turns and leaves. After a moment or two I hear another door close and the roar of my car driving down the wet graveled road.
“He took my car Scully.” I sound like a kid.
“But you get to keep the girl.” she winks.
“I heard him…what he said.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m where I want to be.”
“Are you?”
“Of course.” she says changing the subject. “I saved your life again you know.”
“I know. Come here.”
She walks over and lies down next to me. We stare at the ceiling. The rain lightens up a bit. Thunder rolls in the distance. Scully snuggles up closer to me. I kiss the top of her hair; breathe in that scent of her. I feel so tired. Its dark in the room. Another room, more rain, another rolling thunderstorm. It follows us wherever we go, the night, the dark. That means something.
“Mulder?”
“Yeah?”
“We planned a lot while you-”
“Not now Scully.”
“But-”
“No, not now. I just want to lie here with you and listen to the rain. We have time to plan and finish things.”
“Mulder-”
“Shhh…Ever get a song stuck in your head and the only way to get it out is to sing it?”
“Sometimes, are you gonna sing to me Mulder?”
“No, but I’ll hum…its an old song…I feel speed by Love and Rockets.” I feel her smile. She kisses my chin. Her tongue teases a little.
I half hum/sing the song for her. I can’t sing at all so my voice sounds low, cracked.
“Motorcycle and me
Motorcycle set me free
The motorbike don’t go too fast
Just sets me free
Just you and me
You set me free
Just you and me
You set me high
High…
I feel warm inside
On my motorcycle
The wind is all around
We are free
Me and the motorcycle
We…
We are free
You set me high
High…
You set me high…”
She’s out like a light. She sleeps soundless again. Rain again. Loops round like the ink in her back. She can see the future way better than I ever could. She sets me free. If being free is such a true thing. When I look back at these last 9 years what do I really see? I don’t see the truth about my sister, after all this wasn’t only about her, I don’t see the truth about all the odd and unforeseen things lurking under the surface, I don’t see innocence lost or ever the myths and legends such as Big Blue, when I look back I have to look to my left or sometimes my right. I have to look down a little and make sure Scully is there. Here. Now.
– Epilogue –
Its hard for me to imagine life without Scully. I’ve spent the last 25 years with this woman. And while I am reaching an end, Scully is still ticking. I hear it mostly when she has the rare occasion to laugh. Its young and vibrant still. All these years on the run, the bagging and tagging, getting everything to go and never did she lose that laugh. Through panic and fear, heartbreak, waking her on warm nights in cold places with tears in her eyes; I always know what to say to her, how to get her open up and laugh. I can’t live without her. I don’t even know how, you get so use to her, I do really. In my skin inside my bones she breathes, always saving me, waiting for that day that we don’t talk about much. Its been hard to come to terms with what has happened to her, what we’ve learned, gained, insight and new. Its hard for me to believe. And that is saying a lot.
We would lie awake at night. Its a habit I never got out of. Its a habit that I dragged her into. We never slept in. Well I shouldn’t say never. There were those lost years when all we did was sleep, catch up on bone dried tired, breakfast in bed, those baby blues, and me and my olive and possible green, breaking in and feeling new…God…that’s one thing I don’t ever believe in, but she makes me question and I love her so. But mostly we lie awake. We plan, fall into traps in our minds and day dreamed, night dreamed really.
William the doctor. That was her favorite. William the shortstop for the New York Yankees that was mine, he would wear 88 and redefine time. William the marine biologist, hunting Big Blue making us both happy searching for the big lout in Antarctica, how he wound up there only William could say, but we’d listen by the fire, warm brandy in our hands. William the teacher, maybe 5th grade, that was the most important year, other children looking up to him. William the novelist, rewriting Hemingway using our old stories, nothing about aliens because that never happened, they didn’t exist, Scully was right, the energy requirements kept them on Planet…K…William the cop. No anything but a cop or a F.B.I. agent. No instead it ended with William the missing, William the gone, William the abandoned.
Thunder rumbled in the sky. It was always the way. In our past future imperfect we ran and hid and there was always rain beating on the rooftop, slanting on the windows. The light would always leave her at those moments. No matter where we were in the world. No matter what we would do. No matter how many times I messed up and blurted it out, she would always get up walk over to the bathroom turn the shower on and cry. Then it was Mulder the asshole. Mulder the insensitive dick.
I’m a dick.
And speaking of rain that’s how I knew I could love her. Way back then in the 90’s. Tapes were in. Michael Jackson was out. The times where stuck in a rut, two steps forward 5 back. In walked the cutest thing I ever saw in a outfit that looked pieced together. God she was adorable to me. But not that night in the rain. It was the most perfect of moments. She had my mind, accepted her doubt and trusted my hair-brained “theory.” It was love then but I had to wait for her. She was just too young for me. Mixed feeling wrapped in something more. When did it change? I forget because of time. So in my mind I remember every moment that I ever felt love for her.
And so tonight I think of that night when she was taken. The first time? Yes.
It was something in the way she called out to me. A tone I just could not shake. Sleepless nights, confusing days, all in a reel with yellowed film aged cracked and I was dying, because it was happening all over again and for the second time I could not do a fucking thing about it.
It made me weak to know that I had not told her what she meant to me. I get these chills when I think about how we use to be. This endless cycle of denying every little thing. I get these chills when I think about being in that cargo hold, freezing with no sleep just thinking about how it wasn’t going to happen to her again, pacing the Artic Deep research drop ship, crates of supplies my only comfort, checking that vial over and over again. I was so convinced that the vial was cracked and bleeding, I could swear I was feeling the cold amber liquid leaking on me. But the truth was I was cracked and bleeding, Scully feelings where leaking out of me at a rapid rate, I had to get there and save her, she didn’t deserve that fate, not a second time. And that guilt returned because I damned every living thing on this planet for her, years later I would know and I would do it again. I would give her everything. And that included everyone’s future.
When did I become so selfish?
So one night in Costa Rica I make a promise to her because I can’t live without her. Kissing her shoulder, tasting her skin, waking her up. I promise with all the blood in me that I will find our son.
We where at the end of our running but not yet at the stage of fighting back. More and more at the age of settling in of choosing to accept defeat when I began to notice her, to notice her perfection. She never got sick. Never complained about being tired, granted Scully never complained about most things but some logical bitching…anything to tell me how she was doing? No. Nothing. I said we gotta move and we moved.
The mirror never lies. I am vain enough to admit to needing and using Just for Men. I admit to paying close attention to ads about aging men and the help they might need to fulfill their wives. But my Scully she never changed. No wrinkles, no silver in her hair, no fatigue. Scully is never tired, sleepy yeah sure. Yet in the core, the dead center of her, she never wanted to stop. And me, all I felt was tired, bone weary. Scully was exhausting me. Life on the move, the countdown to the end. I wanted to get out of the damn car. Scully wanted to keep moving.
So it finally hits me. What dear old dad did to her. How William made it into this world. He switched her to perfect. Scully will never die. Clyde Bruckman was right. It was the only thing that made sense. That woman, Marjorie Butters, Scully said she hadn’t looked her age…I tested my theory. I shot her. I wasn’t sure what aging had to do with pain and death but I had to know. I was taking a leap of faith. A big huge leap.
Costa Rica again. It was our second trip there. I can’t say for sure what day it was….maybe a Friday possibly a Sunday…there was a thing about us on Sundays…anyhow, she had returned from sunning on the beach and she was tanned perfect. I was walking a fine line with being a full-fledged drunk. She frowned and accused me of being bored lately. With nothing to, with no secrets to run to or from I said she was right.
She walked over to me with that sweet smell of the beach. Suntan lotion wrapped in the of the salt ocean and that scent that is just Scully. She made a crack about the gray showing at the sideburns I was growing. “Just like Elvis,” she had said running her hot fingers along my jaw then she kissed me. I pulled the gun from my belt and she was very shocked.
Our cabin was dead silent. I remember her dead silence was mixed with confusion. I remember my eyes were burning from the Johnny Walker (my father liked scotch.) I remember my hands were shaking. I remember that the gun felt heavy in my sweaty hands. Seagulls calling each other, waves beating on the shore, tourists helicopter rides, Scully and her confused deep intake of breath. Lined up in my crosshair of fucked up guilty feeling love; she didn’t know what to say at first. Then she asked me what was up in her own special way.
“Mulder?”
“Scully…I…you don’t ever get old. I mean what…how old should you be? 43 right?” was it a question or a realization?
“Mulder what the hell is wrong with you, where the hell is this coming from?”
“Maybe…wait, what is the date?”
“Mulder. Mulder look at me. Put the gun down.” I snapped the safety off. “OK! Mulder put that gun down right now!”
Merry Christmas Scully?
“You know exactly what I mean Scully! You know what he did to you. You know that’s how you were able to have William. You know all of this!”
“You’re crazy. Mul-”
“Don’t Scully!” I pulled the chamber back to load the bullet. “Don’t give me that bullshit rationalization crap. I am going to shoot and you’re gonna be fine. Its all about trust. You trust me right Scully?”
“Mulder of course…I do…but this isn’t the way!” I ran my finger over the trigger. “What if you’re wrong huh? Could you live with it?”
Could I live with it?
Yes I could. I ruined her life. She’ll never agree with me. But I did. I know I did. I dragged her into my world and when she tried to leave I pulled a little harder. As many times as I saved her I’ve damned her. I left her alone to face them all while I hid like a coward. She lost everything just for walking into that office and shaking my hand. If I was wrong I was setting her free. All that awaited her; the reward of our being together was a mitigating alien apocalypse. All that she could have been had she not known the truth, all her dreams and hopes, all of it gone because of me.
This is the worst kind of guilt. I love her so damn much. I love her and I would have freed her from all of it if only she could have died.
“I’m sorry Scully…”
A bottle of scotch while she swam.
Bang.
Red.
Red.
Red.
She falls to the sagging wooden floor clutching and gasping for air. There was red on white…tan. I couldn’t blink or breathe and then she blinked and breathed. Color returned and there was red no more. She lies there for the longest time, her jaw set, fists crunched in a tight ball. She stood and stared at me for the longest time. Then she punched me in the gut and stormed into the bathroom. She turned the shower on as I walked into the bathroom. Standing under the water in her blue bikini stained with blood. She told me to get the hell out.
“Get the hell out of here Mulder!”
I walked over to the red stained floor. The bullet was alone with a small puddle of her blood covering it. It was an hour later when she came out. Naked her skin taunting me, perfect again. No sign of a wound. She crawled into bed wrapped her body around mine and laughed the kind of laugh when you are damned.
“Mulder, what the hell am I going to do without you?” she said into my arm. Her soft full lips grazing me with every word. I turn and face her. Her eyes searched all over me. Her lips where soft when I kissed them.
“You’re going to live. I’m going to find our son and you’re both going to live.”
She hugged me tight and fell asleep. She was tired. I didn’t know how I was going to live without her. But there wasn’t anything really to fear. One day I was going to die and nothing was going to change that. Scully was going to live forever my dear old dad had seen to that.
The End.
Author’s Notes: I never know what to say at the end of writing so i’ll be brief. For one I enjoyed writing this very much. Second I want to thank everyone who read it, everyone who sent a comment. Last but not least Happy Holidays everyone. Watching The Ghosts Who stole Christmas is fast becoming a yearly tradition in my houses, so I’m off.
Further Disclaimers:
2 – “Already Dead” by Beck used without his say.
3 – “She’s Lost Control” by Joy Division, “Shake the Disease” by Depeche Mode and “Hell is round the corner” by Tricky used without their say as well.
10 – “I feel speed” used without Love and Rockets knowledge. “Break my stride” used without Matthew Wilder’s say either.
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