The Fox and the Star
by Stephen Greenwood

Rating: G

Setting/Spoilers: Post-IWTB, pre-Revival. I've purposefully been 
avoiding Revival spoilers since the end of September, so if 
anything here is accurate it's pure coincidence.

Word Count: 662

Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine; the book mentioned isn't 
mine. I have nothing.

Summary: Mulder reads Scully a story

Feedback: nothingbutnet@hotmail.co.uk, or at AO3 - please also 
contact me before archiving/translating.

* * * * *

He calls her in the middle of the day when he's fairly sure she'll be
in her office on her lunch break. She's made a few changes lately but
some habits die hard and she continues to eat alone at her desk, the
doors closed; that hour is hers and hers alone, barring a medical
emergency, but the rules have never applied to him and he knows that,
despite everything (because of it), she still can't bring herself to
push that red reject button when her cellphone displays his name. It
gives him hope and that, he thinks, is what might break him.

"Scully."

"It's me."

"Wimpy Kid!" a young voice screams in his other ear, the one that
isn't courting his phone, and he winces as he watches a harried
father race after a small boy.

"Mulder, where are you?"

"I'm at a bookstore," he says, picturing the frown on her face. "I
saw something that made me think of you. I just wanted to read it to
you."

Silence.

"It's short," he adds.

"Mulder, I have records to update and patients to see, and half a
sandwich that's glaring at me because it's been sitting here wilting
for ten minutes while I provided a telephone consultation. I'm really
busy."

"You can eat while I talk. It doesn't bother me."

She sighs, and he catches it even over the Saturday afternoon noise
of the bookstore's children's department.

"Fine," she says. "Five minutes."

The chair he's sitting on is made for smaller people, those who
sipped from a bottle saying 'Drink Me!' or Lilliputians, and his
knees are closer to his ears than his ankles but he reaches around
them and opens the book on the table he can't fit his legs under, and
begins to read.

He tells her the story of a fox who lives in a dark forest, whose
only friend is the star who lights his way and watches over him while
he hunts. But one night Star is gone and Fox, scared and alone, has
to face the world by himself.

"I wish you could see the drawing, Scully. Fox looks so forlorn; he
can't do anything without his partner. He's never had to live without
her before. He can't cope without her. He doesn't know who he is if
she isn't there."

She's quiet for a moment, and then, "What happens next, Mulder?"

He smiles and recites how Fox gathers his courage and strays from
his den, asking the trees and the rabbits and the thorns if they've
seen his star, "because even though she's gone he's always thinking
of her, Scully," but nobody knows where she is. Just when he's about
to quit, he reaches a clearing and looks up and sees the sky is full
of stars, and his heart is full of joy.

"He knew that somewhere out there was a star that was his," Mulder
reads. "All of Fox's happiness was bound to the flickering light of
Star. And so it had always been."

He closes the book.

"You're my Star, Scully," he murmurs.

"Mulder..." 

He hears the catch in her voice, forces himself not to say anything.

"Are you sure that's a real book? You didn't just make that up?"

He laughs. "I wish I had. They do say you should write what you
know, after all."

Before she can reply he hears someone say her name and then there's
a brief conversation he can't make out. He grips the phone a little
tighter but it's a poor substitute for her hand and it doesn't, it
can't, convince her to stay a bit longer.

"I have to go," she says, and he doesn't think he imagines the tinge
of regret on her end of the line, knows he doesn't imagine it on his.
"Thank you for reading to me, Mulder. It's a nice story."

"Anytime, Scully. Have a good afternoon."

He pockets his phone and takes his book to the checkout.

* * * * *

Author's note: The Fox and the Star is by Coralie Bickford-Smith. 
It recently won the Waterstones Book of the Year award. I fudged the 
order of some of the lines to better fit my plot, as it were, but 
otherwise it's described as is. It truly is the most gorgeous book.