There are Two Things I will Carry in my Pockets at the End by Lilprincess8584 Feedback: lilprincess8584@hotmail.com Distribution: Anywhere, just let me know and keep my name attached. Summary: A little bit of Scully introspection over the years. Pairing: MSR Rating: G Spoilers: Implied IWTB Timeline: Post-The Truth through to start of IWTB Disclaimer: They aren't mine. I wish they were. They are the property of Chris Carter and 1013 productions. 'Nuff said. Title taken from the gorgeous song 'Oh My Darling' by Basia Bulat "There are two things I will carry in my pockets at the end oh, my darling, you are one of them the way you look when you have a story to begin, oh, my darling, that's the other half" There are two things I will carry in my pockets at the end Daisies - June 2002 Crowds and crowds of daisies, grouped, pushing and turning their heads to the sun, drinking in the last rays as the early evening steals its way into the duck egg sky. They are tall daisies, not the dwarf ones your sister used to make into chains for you when you were small. When you were innocent. They are tall, proud, look-at-me daisies. Daisies to make you tall and proud when you look at them. Daisies to make you pretend. You turn to him, your voice unusually reverent, and say "I want to pick huge handfuls of them. Gather them in armfuls." You wonder if your lips even moved in the hushed stillness of the car. He looks at you, quizzical but humouring you. He does that a lot at the moment. "Why don't you?" You don't know if it is him speaking, or the devil on your shoulder, but you drink in the suggestion anyway, reflecting on it, inspecting the prism of its possibilities. "Because they wouldn't be whole anymore." He nods once and turns back to the road. You wonder if you will be ever whole again. People collected a part of you, of him, taken into their arms, probably with more reverence than you would show your precious daisies, and you no longer feel whole. Is that the same? You imagine the feel of the daisy petal against your finger, smooth. Soft like the downy mass of newborn hair you imagine you feel as you drift to sleep in another ghost of a motel room. Coffee - February 2003 Island-like, it sits in the middle of your pillow when you return from mailing yet another cleverly coded message to your mother, who expects every day to hear bad news, reassuring her that you are in fact still surviving, battling through each day. Of course you don't go by your name anymore, and you're not even sure who that long-lost woman is now, but you're sure the message gets through nevertheless. Shining, it glints - treasure, gold and silver - in the light of the dirty bedside lamp. You can hear the shower running in the tiny bathroom, accounting for the flickering of the main light in the room. You close your eyes for a moment, shutting the intrusive brightness off at the switch, picturing the rivulets of water making their way down his strong back, taught and knotted with ever-present anxiety. A packet of coffee beans; the plastic-coating unable to mask the Cuban-rich scent as you lift it, delicately, from the perpetually scratchy pillowcase. After years of reheated caffeine from the bullpen cafeteria, and now months of truck stop sludge, the smell is almost too much, assailing your nostrils and making you close your eyes in heady anticipation. He places his hands on your shoulders, slippery and cooling in the barren room. You jump slightly and he chuckles in your ear, quiet and deeply masculine. "Boo". "Try that again and I'll hurt you like that beast woman." You are unsure of why your voice is so breathy. You wonder if it might be a residual response to the light-headed feeling the coffee beans gave you but you're not convinced. Later, as you come back to your senses to find yourself on the lumpy motel mattress, his unkempt hair spilling over your chest as he sleeps, you flex your fingers, finding you have been gripping the packet of beans throughout. A lifeline. Magic beans. You wouldn't sell these for a cow, or a golden harp. He chuckles again, the caramel sound trickling through your body in the chilly, unfeeling room. You turn your head to him, wondering if you have spoken aloud, thinking him asleep still. He has turned to look up at you through heavily lidded, sleep- laden eyes. "When I can, the first place I will take you will be a coffee shop, on a Sunday morning, and we'll read the papers and you'll sprinkle cinnamon onto the top of your latte. Full fat." It is a promise, drowsily uttered but more sincere than a wedding vow and he knots his fingers through your hair, chestnut now, and long, splayed on the pillow. You drop a kiss on his head and are rewarded with a soft snore, quiet in the still night. And for a while, you forget that you are running to stand still. Phonecalls - March 2003 There is a phone buried at the bottom of your bag, under an untouched sky blue blanket from a long lost crib, the towel reserved for dying your hair and his purple Georgetown running shirt. He doesn't run and you're sure that if he ever had to be involved in another chase he'd wind up red-faced, sweating and gasping for breath, despite the workout he gives himself everyday. But you keep it anyway, ensconced in it the nights that it is cold and you are sitting up, reading while he sleeps soundly beside you. Insomnia doesn't seem to plague him like it used to. Now it is you who survives on minimal sleep and tar- black coffee from the machine in the reception. Sometimes you make him wear the shirt as he pads round the motel room. Iowa, Nevada, Georgia. It doesn't matter where you are, they are all the same; mini-fridge, cable TV (he insists), coarse brown comforter, mass-produced paintings and a leaky tap somewhere in the bathroom. He wears it for the afternoon as he trawls the copy of the Midnight Inquisitor you have picked up at the store. After a while he lifts his eyes to you, cocking his head to one side and locking his gaze with yours. "Long enough Ma'am?" You crawl closer to him on the bed, dragging a heavy medical journal behind you. Your hair, blonde now and scrabbled into a messy bun at the nape of your neck, comes loose and falls down to touch his ring finger, curling a wedding band around it as you lean in to smell the faded material against his chest. You inhale, taking in the bitter tang of sweat and the slight autumnal spiciness of his soap, and nod. The shirt is returned to you and put back in the bag, ready for those nights when you need to be surrounded by him. The phone is still beneath it, silent and austere for just under a year. The sim card in the phone is set to receive calls only, and only one person has the number registered to Laura Petrie. The one person as silently austere as the phone itself. The Sunday afternoon (at least you think it is Sunday) when the phone rings, he is in the shower. You vaguely hear something crash to the floor of the cramped tub and find that you are rooted to the floor, eyes trained on the bag as all the sounds in the room seem to mute to further exaggerate the volume of the chirping tone. You are still staring at the open closet door when he comes out of the bathroom, hair standing on end, eyes deer-in-the- headlights wide. He hurriedly shoves the bag towards you as he wraps a towel around his waist. You know that he cannot answer the call, and yet you desperately wish he could. Trembling, you pick up the cell and press the retrieve call button. Dimly, you are aware that your ex-boss is on the other end of the line, gruff and masculine and overpowering as always. He is brief and you manage to utter a few words in response to his swiftly issued message, including a whispered "Thank you" before hanging up the phone. You turn to face your partner, taking in his expectant face as the blood roars in your ears. "They've stopped looking for me." It is no more than a whisper and you shock yourself, looking down as if surprised that those words have tumbled out of your mouth. You're not sure they've fallen out in the right order and wonder if you didn't mishear the caller, if your mind had somehow registered the wrong message. "I can go back into society he says." He looks back at you and you start to shake. His silence is deafening and you wish he would say something. Anything. You find yourself lowering your gaze again, filling the silence, babbling to cover his incredulous lack of response. "They're dropping the charges against me and...and the others involved in your rescue. He says they'll turn a blind eye to me re-entering my life..." You trail off as that word hangs in the air between you. Life. He coughs once and you raise your head, meeting his eyes again. "He says they'll still want you, but that they're not actively looking anymore". You can't read his expression and wish there was something you could say that would make this fair. Make this an acceptable way to exist. He moves and you let out a breath you didn't realise you had been holding. He goes to say something and then rethinks. Instead, he moves towards you and gathers you into his arms, pulling you down so you are half perched on the side of the bed. He rests his forehead on the crown of your head, eyelashes blinking soft against the path where your roots are coming through again. Strawberry blonde as you get older, the flaming red of your youth replaced by fiery auburn in your early 30s, and now a lighter, more indecisive colour coming through. "You can go back to red now." His mumbled statement is quiet against your hair and you nearly reply. You stop, sensing his acceptance. The logistics will work themselves out. It's one step forward. Bookstores - December 2003 You finger the cellophane wrapping on the front of the calendar. Glass-smooth against your palm, it ripples as you move your hand over it, soothing it as a mother sooths a child's back as it slumbers. Kittens gambolling after wool. You idly wonder who buys this tat. You look at the finger print you have left on the surface of the wrapping. You are tempted to leave your mark on everything in this store. You can now, free to leave as much work for dusters and polishers at the end of the day as you desire. A stab of guilt jabs your heart, sharp. You think of him, left behind, holed up in his small room, becoming more mad-professor like each day. He has no fingerprints outside of those four walls, has no identity or personality outside of your unremarkable house. Home, you correct yourself, it is a home now. 2004. The numerals on the calendar shout at you as you take them in. 18 months since you left your first life behind. It doesn't sound like much when you say it like that. You try it on your tongue, the words leaving in a rushed whisper. "18 months." It is nothing. Try again. How about 78 weeks, give or take a few days? Better, but still not enough to make this anvil in your chest seem worth carrying around. "547 days." There it is, a testament to the journey that has seemed to last a lifetime. It doesn't erase anything. It doesn't make it better. But 547 days is a long time to be carrying around these embers of fiery fear. Dates didn't really matter when you were moving. You told the season from the sun and the weather, the occasional newspaper. You judged the time of year from the sky and the color of the fields. Bright with sunflowers; Summer. Empty and ploughed; Autumn. The month didn't matter, as long as you survived through another season without detection. For so long only one date mattered, one time to aim for. Now... Now you are static, settled, and suddenly time has taken on its importance, rearing its ugly head to mock you as you go through your daily life. Home, hospital, dinner, bed. The stasis is constant, comforting. For you at least. You move towards the back of the shop, trailing slightly-clammy fingers along the shelves as you go, reveling in the delight of your identity. Christmas shopping. Two words to strike fear into the heart of any sane person. If you had your way you'd do it all online, but you don't want to risk giving your address out to the world and his wife. He has his P.O. Box in Richmond, something entirely unlinked to you, and nothing to tie the two of you together. You imagine your Christmas present will come via this P.O. Box, muddled in with local newspapers from around Central America and letters to M.F. Luder and George Hale. Your list is short this year, and yet miles longer than it was the previous holiday season. Your Mother, Brothers, ex-boss and him. Short. Methodical. So very you, and not you all at once. One name missing. One name you cannot utter but in the stillness of the night. Thanksgiving this year was small and sullen. Despite your attempts at cheer, he was deep in his solitude, shutting himself away, first in his room of research and then later in the bedroom at the top of the ramshackle house you now called home. When your patience had finally snapped, you followed him upstairs to find him fingering the baby-blue blanket, trapped in the top of the closet until then. You touched the top of his head, always surprised to see the slight graying of the hair around his ears. "What is there to be thankful for?" His whisper was the first admittance you'd had of his occasional desolation. He knows this is for the best, that you have no other choice if you are to continue together, and that there is no alternative to that idea, despite his attempts at convincing you otherwise. You didn't speak, settling for gesturing around the room before bringing his hand to your heart. Us. The unspoken word resonated around you and he nodded once, before going quietly and thoroughly to pieces in your arms. All gifts are done but his. You finger the texts. Milton, Shakespeare, Keats. Last year you received a dog eared copy of 'The Handmaid's Tale'. You have no idea where he got it, or why that book of all the other books he knows you love. Maybe a sign not to give up? Maybe a reminder that life isn't too bad relatively? Who'd moan about living out of motel rooms if they were forced to live the lives of the women of Gilead? You don't know, you didn't ask. His familiar scrawl on the inside of the dust jacket read simply "December 25. 2002. Still my touchstone." Dickens, Twain, Bronte. Your mother once referred to him as a modern day Heathcliffe, stormy and obsessive and oh so very much in love. You mocked her then, viewing her whimsy as trite and predictable. Now, you often miss that tempestuousness, wish that description could still stand in its entirety. Shelley, DuMaurier. Keep moving. Your eyes fall on Browning, lodged between his adoration, Elizabeth Barrett, and Robert Burns. Paracelsus. You pick it up, the brown cover reflecting in the harsh light of the bookstore, bright against the December dusk. You are once again surrounded by fields that stretch for miles, starting yet another new life. You hope he feels it too. Once home you open the front cover and scrawl just the date and your name. Your real name. Valentines - June 2005 Every so often you let him drive. Not far, and only if he hasn't had a shave in while. You wear a hat or a scarf on your head to mask your hair and the two of you leave the fortress together, bound as one physically, for once. You may be free but, until you hear otherwise, he is a wanted man, and your trips in tandem are infrequent and quiet, drawing as little unwanted attention as possible. Today he won't tell you where you are heading as you leave in the warmth of the June morning, bathed in sunlight as you cross from the porch to the passenger side of the car. Your light cotton skirt rustles against your bare knees as you walk and, absently, you wish you had a job outside to help warm up the color of your skin. You have spent too many years around death to appreciate the hue of snow white tone and long for the constant lust for life that seems to light his body from inside. He starts the car as you wander down to open the gate, flip- flops loose on your feet and strands escaping the band tying your hair back. You look back to see what is taking so long; you are uncomfortable having both of you out in the open like this. He leaves the house for a second time, checking the front door as he jogs to the car. He is carrying your broad sunhat, with the chocolate ribbon around the dome, and you watch him toss it into the back seat, along with the picnic blanket he stowed in there the first time you attempted to leave. Intriguing. You secure the gate after the vehicle, watching him flex his muscles behind the wheel of the car. You cannot imagine how these outings feel to him. Snippets of the real world now and then. His only real anchor to reality are the stories he watches on CNN at night, and the reports you bring back to him. The road stretches ahead of you and you start to doze, your head coming to rest between the seat and the window. In that state of half-sleep you can almost kid yourself that you are back on the road. You never got out of the car and 6 years haven't passed since you had this exact conversation in the car with him, almost begging for this normalcy, this routine way of life. You jerk your head upright as he serves to avoid a possum in the road. "Lunch?" He flashes you that mischievous grin. You realise he is revelling in this. You glance at the clock and register that you have been driving for nigh on 2 hours now. "Hey, I thought we weren't going far?" The panic tinges the edge of your voice and you imagine it is purple against the cool blue of the car's calming atmosphere. He flashes you a brief sideways look, possibly tinged with his own color of slight resentment. "We're not." And he raises a finger to point at a sign as you enter a town so typically American you have to laugh. Harpers Ferry Town, WV. You drive through the town, stopping only for him to replenish supplies of sunflower seeds and ice tea, and for you to pick up subs for the two of you. "No bee pollen?" He asks. You flash him a grin. "No, they were all out. Had to make do with these instead." You waggle the pack of glazed doughnuts at him and he grins back, memories of years of Police Stations in towns identical to this, caught between hating and loving the journey and the chase. You drive further out of town, coming to rest on the banks of the river. There are hikers on the trail and children catching butterflies in nets and entrapping them in jam jars covered in tinfoil, popping the lids with holes to help them breathe. You wonder idly if you work as his own private set of gills, helping him breathe when he is trapped in your tiny, unremarkable home. He settles the two of you at a bench to eat your picnic and he caresses your knee with his spare hand. You peer up at him from under the brim of the over-sized hat; your only nod to the fashion magazines so often left in the Doctor's lounge at work. He swallows the last bite of his meatball sub and swipes at a smudge of low fat mayo on your chin, throwing you back to 1994 in a rib house when every touch sent a frisson through your spine. You wonder if that effect will ever lessen. You assume not, after 12 years together so far. You take care not to lower your eyes shyly this time, but hold his gaze. He moves to sit on your side of the bench so that the two of you are gazing out over the water, geese reflected in the glass of the surface. His arm snakes round your shoulder and comes to rest, toying with a lock of your hair. "Happy Valentines Doc" You have the sense not to point out that it is June rather than February, content to accept that this man will never do things by the book. Non-Fat Tofutti Rice Dreamsicles - September 2005 Despite the fact that it is September, your clothes are sticking to you as you walk down the halls of Our Lady of Sorrows. You ponder the fact that had Mary been living in heat anywhere near that which you are experiencing today, there would be no wonder she was sorry. Blasphemous thoughts. And in a hospital too. The devil on your shoulder is back, chiding you, and you're not surprised to see he has your lover's form. Of course your partner would be the devil on your shoulder. You chuckle to yourself as you unlock the door to the white Ford parked in your physician's parking spot and slide in, marvelling, not for the first time, that this car has remained so unmarred in the 2 years since you bought it. Note to self: Being the sole driver of a car and retiring from the business of being at the heart of a global conspiracy may have its perks. You turn up towards the drive of the house, unlocking the gate, entering your own private Alcatraz. He has locks, wire and chains all over the gate, and yet nothing but an ordinary Yale lock on the door. His long-deceased underworld friends would be disappointed in him. Silence greets you as you open the door to his lair. Unsurprising; there is only so much noise one man can make while holed up in a cavern of clippings and articles. This time is different though. You are met only with the rustle of papers, the perpetual ticking of the clock and, as you turn to exit the room again, the cold, slightly accusatory gaze of his sister; pinned up and frozen immortal, aged 8, on the back of the door. Padding out into the living area you take stock. Two and half years after being given yet another chance at life, and you have a room full of second hand furniture and a hairy life partner to show for it. You're not sure you could be more content right now. But it is still too quiet. You hunt high and low, a modern-day Grand Old Duke of York, and still come up empty-handed. Just as you panic, noting the lack of struggle, lack of bloodstains on the carpet, echoing the shadow of your sister's last fight in a now-distant apartment block in Georgetown, you hear the sound of the gate. Fleeing to the window you watch him stroll up the path, his Stonehenge Rocks cap pulled low over his eyes and his forearms bronze in the September heat. Despite his captivity, his olive skin never seems to lose its sun-kissed shimmer. He is gingerly carrying a paper bag with suspicious liquid stains on the side and a corner missing from the top, ripped through with moisture. You open the door just as he reaches for the handle and he shifts, deftly side-stepping your otherwise well-aimed attack on his chest. He laughs, full and belly-shaking and you feel a trickle of desire make its way through your stomach, settling just south. He reaches into the bag and pulls out a near-perfectly preserved ice-cream cone. "Did you bring enough to share with the rest of the class?" You enquire, head cocked to one side as you watch his tongue slide over the top of the froth of off-white cream. "Ain't no non-fat tofutti rice dreamsicle..." he murmurs the words as he draws the other cone from the bag, dropping the stained packaging to the floor. "You still want some?" He touches the top of the cone to the tip of your nose and you stand perfectly still, letting him lap it off. When your senses register normalcy again you are lying on your back on the rug by the fireplace, a slightly dairy-sticky partner hovering over you, licking ice cream residue off your chin; a Cheshire cat grin on his perfect lips. Later you rescue the paper-napkin residing in the bag still on the porch, slightly sticky with the remains of your late summer treat. Birthdays - May 2006 You don't usually linger on birthdays anymore. Cards go out to the requisite people and you head up to Washington by yourself each year to visit your mother. He sends his best wishes but he knows as well as you that even if it was safe, the matriarchal judgement of your mother is more than your fragile relationship can bear after months of his being cooped up. He doesn't resent you, rather the situation. Yet every time your respective tensions come to a head your irrational side, the side that used to terrify new med students and office personnel who moved too slowly in another hospital, during another vigil, feels that he is digging at you, niggling to get a reaction. Who can blame him? But this year's birthdays are different. This year he would be five. Your son. Two words that say so much, and yet so little. You can feel downy auburn hair beneath your fingers still, see pouting lower lips and wide Sargasso eyes framed with lush black lashes. You raise the blanket to your lips and think you can smell him still, caught in the gaps between the fibres. You know it is fanciful, hungry for that lost contact, but you can't stop. It is like a drug as May approaches. His father, your lover, is feeling it too. You can feel his fingers itching in his sleep, aching to toss a baseball to his son, or shoot hoops out back of this unremarkable house. You both spend the month in a stupor, imagining a boy, sturdy on his legs and a back fine and proud. When he grows he will be broad across the shoulders, like his Father, tall but with your strength and slight stockiness. You cannot bring yourself to say the word "Dad". It is too familiar, for a boy who is anything but familiar to you. You still dream of him as yours though. On the 20th you cannot find the energy to rise in the morning, and call in sick. You can hear the pity in the voice of the receptionist, recognise her assumption that you have no one at home in that lonely house to look after you when you are ill. You let them continue with that belief. It is easier this way. When you drag yourself out of the mass of comforters, drawing back the heavily flowered drapes, you can see him out the back of the house, dribbling the ball back and forth. He wears the Georgetown shirt, worn and greying now, and still your favourite item of his clothing. You think back to a younger, more innocent man and sigh. He seems to hear you and directs the look, the one reserved solely for you, at the pane of the window. You know that the positioning of the sun means that he cannot see you, that the reflection of the late afternoon light will cause nothing but glare, but he knows you're there and that you need him. What hasn't occurred to you before now is that he needs you today too. You pad down the stairs as he enters from the back of the house, trekking in dirt and shucking off the shirt as you meet him in the kitchen. There is a lone brownie in the middle of the table on one of the many odd and mismatched plates. A long time ago the dark woods of the house, so reminiscent of his seemingly ever-dark apartment, and the hodge-podge nature of their collection of possessions, would have killed you. You remember, when you moved here, longing for the smooth lines and muted magnolia of your apartment in Georgetown, with its matching forest green plates and mocha mugs. Now you cannot imagine being elsewhere and wonder where that perfectionist in you has gone. He draws out a lone candle and places it in the middle of the brownie, avoiding your eyes as they pool with unshed tears, and lights the wick reverently. He gathers you into his arms and holds you into his chest and whispers nothings into your ear. Together, you watch the flame burn through the wax and feel your heart break with every candy stripe of blue that disappears, succumbing to the white heat of the fire above it. You only catch one phrase before he leads you out of the room and into the quiet sunlight behind the house. "We celebrate." Curtains - August 2006 He stirs in the night to find you standing by the window. You can feel him blinking blearily in the milky light of the moon outside the slightly fogged pane, fancy you can hear his eyelashes flutter against his cheeks as his eyes adjust to the sudden wakefulness. "I hate these curtains" He chuffs, one hand over his heart and the other resting above his head. You don't need to turn to know his positioning, it is ingrained on your brain, as familiar as the smell of milk powder that assaults your senses in the middle of the night, or at the counter in the store. You finger the patterned fabric guarding the edges of the room. The fabric is coarse, shot with frayed and faded silk flowers, sick and wan in the pre-dawn lightening of the sky. It is old, smelling of other people, other histories, and other loves and you let it fall, reminded of softer cotton, topaz and knobbled with washing, smelling of lotion and talcum powder. He watches you, mimicking your breathing as you savour the memory for a fraction of minute. He watches you as you turn from the glass, your shadow bouncing from cowering by the door to towering above the dresser, tall and proud, like your daisies from so very long ago. He watches you as you unlatch the door and pad across the hall to the stairs. And you imagine he watches you well out of his sight as you steal away from your shared pain. When you come home from work the next day there are fresh curtains, buttercup yellow and bright as childlike eyes of wonder, at the window and a vase of your daisies on the sill. He sighs as you settle behind him. All he needs is the touch of your lips at his temple. Boxes - December 2007 One thing you have learnt from all your years with this man is that he is not to be trusted when quiet. He is plotting something, carrying out some devious plan, or is just plain in trouble. Tonight it is deviousness. You can feel it in your toes. He is hidden somewhere in the house when you get home from work and there isn't a sound. The TV is shut off, the door to his make- shift basement stands open, revealing only newspapers and a glinting Buddha winking from the desk. You suppress the childish urge to stick your tongue out at it as you make your way to the stairs. He is seated on the floor by the fish tank, the spaceship bobbing behind his head, providing a metronome to his obviously deep thinking. In front of him is a box, one that has been on the top shelf of the closet since you moved in, and one that requires you to stand on the stool from in front of the dresser every time you want access to it. It is the box on which the baby blanket (now ensconced on the end of your bed, a reminder of your son and his short time with you) used to sit, blocking wandering eyes and hands from prying into it. You don't see him as prying. He is turning each item over in his hands and you can see him cataloguing, referencing, piecing together the puzzle of each memory. A head of a daisy, its petals paper thin and wispy. He lifts it to his nose and breathes in the long gone sent of a bright June day, 4 years ago. Windows down and rolling America along side the car. The silver wrapper of a Cuban Coffee Company packet, tarnished and crumpled with age and your touch every now and then. He doesn't need to lift this to his nose to take in the rich scent. You see his eyes flutter closed, the memory of this promise weighing heavily on this brain. "Don't worry. I know you'll take me." Your whisper startles him and he looks up, sheepish. You cross the room to him and together you talk through each piece of memorabilia of your new life, your life after 2002. A sim card, handing you back your life, perhaps rescuing both of you. A receipt for a book, talking of love and life. A chocolate ribbon, pulled from a wide brimmed hat after a slow burning Valentines. A paper napkin, still smeared with sweet smelling dessert. A molten candle, nothing but a puddle of wax in a near perfect circle. A swatch of ugly curtain, pinned back to back with a tiny corner of yellow, snipped from the very top, by the pole. And pictures. Always pictures. But two that don't belong in this box anymore. You draw them out and stand them side by side on the sill, framing the now ever-present daisies. You two, standing over a case file somewhere in the backend of Idaho, FBI printed in Yellow and stark against the black of your regulation Kevlar. And your son. Cooing up from a crib decorated with snowflakes. "Smiling" His statement is hushed against the growing peace in the room. You don't know if he means you or the picture. You no longer care. Visitors - January 2008 You turn away from the young family, hoping your eyes don't betray the desolation you feel. "We're going to run more tests" is the coward's way out. Fobbing them off with false hope you have no right to provide. You force yourself to watch their faces fall, make yourself suffer alongside them because that's what you deserve for your lie of omission. You feel rather than hear the presence behind you as you offer wordless apologies, to both your patient and your God. You turn as the tall man, almost regal and resplendent in his tailored suit and black trench, opens his mouth to speak. You don't need his introduction, you know where he's from and your number is up. You flash to your partner, the man you love, and wonder what you can say to deflect their interest for an hour, a day, so he can flee. You do not expect the message this courier brings. A message of peace, of retribution. "Dana Scully? I'm looking for Fox Mulder." Finis "and I will never lose them, no i'll never never show them like a prize I will keep them out of sight and I will never give them up to any ceiling promise or a lie, they are mine until I die, until I die" AUTHOR'S NOTES: I have soooo many people to thank for making this fic happen. Firstly, thank you to my beautiful betas, Whalez and The Enigmatic B. Excellent feedback and some kindly shouting over spelling mistakes. Mummy M for letting me schlep round her livingroom in a writing- coma for two days while I wrote this. Mr Lilprincess8584 for reading the first bit without being completely bored with the XF obsession by now. There are a few features thrown in here for the girls (and boy) of the Inner Circle. So for: Beckie: A Georgetown running shirt. Wales and Bethan: A mention of The Handmaid's Tale. Jo: A lack of smut.