Bridges by Elizabeth Rowandale Feedback: Email: bstrbabs@gmail.com Rating: Mature Relationship: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully Additional Tags: Angst, Romance, An X-File Case, Mytharc Summary: A family in a small town in New Mexico appears to be suffering the ill effects of an encounter with Black Eyed Children. While in the desert to search out the truth, Mulder and Scully find themselves confronting more than they bargained for, both in the investigation and in their personal relationship. Early Season 11, turns AU after "This." Past and eventual present MSR. Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully and the search for the truth all belong to Chris Carter and Co. I'm just borrowing them. I promise to return them in no worse condition than Chris would. Beta thanks to Annie, without whom I would probably still be sitting in a corner feeling sorry for myself and refusing to post, and to Erica who has been a wonderful addition to the beta team - I owe you both so much! Author's Notes: Look, I CAN post on a reasonable schedule every now and then!:) Come listen to me whine about the writing process-- I mean, join me for updates on the writing process on Twitter - @Rowan_D Copyright (c) 2018 Chapter 8 Mulder took one more look at the map, determined there would be an easier route to the site if they parked the car about another quarter mile down the road, then he turned off the engine. Scully had already walked a good twenty feet from the car and was making her way up the thorny embankment to the open clearing beyond. Mulder waited another long moment, watched her stop at the top of the small rise, rest her hands on her hips and draw deep breaths of the open air. She had left her suit jacket on the console between the seats, revealing her beige sleeveless silk blouse, her muscular arms slightly tanned already from the New Mexico sun. She clearly preferred to walk, and they *could* make it to their destination from here. Mulder grabbed the case with the Geiger counter from the passenger floorboard, shoved what was left of Scully's lemonade into his back pocket, and climbed out of the car. He met her another ten feet beyond the rise. "Hey," he said. "You all right?" Scully nodded dismissively, not quite making eye contact. "Yeah. It's just...the elevation, I think." Which it clearly was not. At least not exclusively. But Mulder knew when pushing was only going to get him a harder shove backwards. She gestured toward the map still in his hand. "Which way from here?" Mulder held up the map against the landscape. "That way." He pointed at an angle away and left. Scully silently plodded in that direction over the spiky ground. On the other side of a steep-walled arroyo that took a little manipulation in Scully's heels, the terrain changed texture, and the shift seemed to demarcate the beginning of the so-called "Miller's Clearing." Mulder looked at the map again and pointed toward a rise of ground off to their right. "I'm gonna say that over that hill we'd be able to see the state route where we crashed." Scully wandered a few yards away. She kicked at bits of trash on the ground, soda cans and fast food bags. "Definitely looks like people have been hanging around here." Mulder unzipped the case slung over his shoulder, took out the Geiger counter and powered it up. Scully was eyeing the wide expanse of sky visible from the clearing. Mulder could see where this vantage point would offer prime viewing of anything strange in Verdad's air space. His gaze followed Scully's upward, and he was momentarily distracted from the equipment in his hand by the breathtaking view. The canvas overhead held some of the most fascinating layers of dissonant cloud patterns Mulder had ever seen. There was clearly a storm coming, but there was so much layered and contrasting information above them, he suddenly felt like a man unqualified to read a foreign language. He found himself imagining the Native Americans who had first claimed this place as their home, learning the true signals and messages nature gives without the deceptive middleman of science and man-made technology. He almost took out his phone to snap some pictures of the memorable phenomena, but then he realized Scully was already doing the same. She was the better photographer anyway. Mulder began walking the ground, watching the readings on the Geiger counter. Nothing at their current location. He ran a quick check of his own clothes to make sure he was clean now and wouldn't be tainting the readings. He began moving slowly in the direction of the state route. Scully trailed alongside, absorbing their surroundings, the lay of the land and the perspectives. "If this is north," she said, "then White Sands Missile Range is that way." She gestured with an open hand toward a clearly visible expanse of sky over a neighboring hillside. "And the government land stretches far up to the north from there. The military as well as a local branch of NASA perform all kinds of air space tests and training out there. Practice missile and rocket launches. This air space is all owned by the government. No commercial flights. Who knows what they might be doing that would look strange to the untrained eye." "Agreed, Scully. But you and I know better than anyone that just because the government is involved in or aware of something doesn't mean it isn't nefarious, nor does it mean it doesn't involve alien technology." Scully remained silent and kept walking. A distant roll of thunder echoed off the Organ Mountains. The Geiger counter crackled lightly, but still read nothing of significance. "So what did you think of Ed Monroe?" Scully asked, glancing over briefly to catch his gaze as they walked. Mulder wrinkled his nose. "I'm not sure. Inconsistent vibes, he's hard to get a read on. I've no doubt he knows more about all of this than he's offering." Scully huffed at that. "I think that's a given." "Why, what did you think?" "I think his son was quick to assume he was in trouble with the law." "Yeah, I noticed that, too. I think we need to ask Aster for some details on those recent domestic calls from the Monroe family, give us some more perspective on what's relevant to our case and what isn't." Scully nodded, rubbed absently at the back of her neck, and he wondered if it was still really hurting her from the crash. "I was thinking the same." They walked farther. "What do you think Mrs. Monroe was afraid of?" Scully asked. "Besides Mr. Monroe?" "That was pretty obvious, right? I may be making premature assumptions here, but she felt to me like a woman well- versed in keeping secrets she's been firmly instructed to keep. With consequences if she fails to do so." Mulder agreed. In the distance he could just see the line of the state road. "An easy conclusion to jump to. I lost a little perspective myself once Ed Monroe started looking at you...like he looked at you." Scully stared at the horizon and let that go. After a few more paces, she said, "Do you think Mrs. Monroe has seen the Black-Eyed Children herself? Or knows someone who has? Someone she thinks has been affected by them?" Mulder eyed her with a bemused expression until she noticed and frowned at him, her freckles bright from the sun. "What?" "No 'alleged' Black-Eyed Children, Scully? 'Supposed'? 'So- called'? You're acknowledging their existence now?" Scully rolled her eyes and reached out and snatched her lemonade out of Mulder's back pocket. "Mulder, the people in Verdad aren't completely delusional, they are seeing SOMEthing, even if it's a bunch of middle-schoolers dressed up in Halloween costumes. Just because I'm acknowledging a physical entity doesn't mean I'm conceding to its supernatural or alien nature." "If you say so." She took a drink of her lemonade. "You haven't answered my question." "Do I think Mrs. Monroe has had some personal experience of this phenomenon? Absolutely, something has spooked her good." Scully took a breath as if to reply, but just then the Geiger counter gave them a spark of a genuine reading. "Hello," Mulder said. Scully stepped closer, focusing on the readout from beside him. Mulder resisted the nagging impulse to pull out his progressive lenses to get a clearer read of the display; he hadn't told Scully about those yet. "Which way is it tracking?" Scully prompted. Mulder paced the ground, following the variable readouts. "I think it's more this way." They trailed along, following what seemed to be a relatively linear track along which the readings were notably stronger than those of surrounding ground. The path led at an angle to their right, ultimately aiming to intersect with the state route a bit farther east than their original trajectory. When they reached the top of the ridge along the road and looked up from the small screen, they found themselves roughly two hundred yards west of the tree around which they had wrapped their first rental car. In the distance Mulder could make out the crime scene tape from Joseph Garcia's crash. Mulder and Scully stood at the side of the road for a long beat, getting their bearings, the Geiger counter still giving a consistent reading of elevated radiation over the 6 to 8 foot swath that formed an invisible brush stroke across the desert ground. In wordless synchronicity they made their way across the road when it was clear of traffic and followed the toxic path until the readings abruptly stopped in a patch of underbrush about 40 feet beyond the far side of the road. Mulder searched the ground in either direction, but the signal grew weaker each time he moved away. Neither of them could suppress the impulse to stand at the end of the "trail" and look up. Scully stood, hands on her hips, now empty lemonade bottle still dangling from between her fingers. "Mulder, I thought aliens were out of vogue, these days. Aren't we supposed to be chasing another kind of government conspiracy now?" "Yeah..." He looked back over the clearing from which they had come, down at the ground, back to the sky. "I'm not so sure the aliens got the memo, Scully." ***** "It could be something underground. A leakage of some kind. Contaminated ground water," Scully said as she opened the car door. Mulder tossed the Geiger counter onto the rear floorboard. "All true. Whatever the source, we need to get Sheriff Aster out here to investigate. Those kinds of numbers shouldn't be coming up in an area open to the public." "If that same swath of radiation was there yesterday and we drove through it, that could be where we got the radiation on our clothes." Scully sank into the car, and Mulder followed before he replied. "Yeah, but it doesn't seem strong enough to spread to our clothes when we were inside the vehicle with the windows closed, moving that fast." She shook her head. "It's not. We must have walked back that far at some point when we were outside the car." "Maybe." Mulder started the engine but left the car in park. They stared around them in thought, as though the vigilante cacti or the turbulent sky might hold some of the clarity they sought. "I do think we should come back here tonight," Mulder said, "see if we can catch a glimpse of those lights everyone's talking about." "Maybe. Unless they cordon off the area to contain the radiation." "Even if it's closed to the public, we should be able to get close enough to see the sky without entering that zone of ground." Scully didn't reply. She seemed lost in thought, gaze on something far distant. Mulder shifted into drive and looped the car onto the road, heading back in the direction from which they had come. ***** The rain was still light when Mulder pulled the car into the motel parking lot, but the mix of rippling and ominous clouds overhead portended something more profound. Mulder wasn't honestly sure what should come next in their investigation. He and Scully had gone back to see Sheriff Aster and mapped out for him where they had found the elevated radiation readings. Aster was putting together a crew to send out to investigate the site. Veronica Garcia's doctor still had not called to talk to Scully. They still hadn't interviewed Donna Garcia, but the woman was dividing her time between sitting by her son's hospital bed as the boy fought for his life and preparing for her husband's funeral. All just days after having buried her mother-in- law. Mulder felt like they should gather all the information they could without Donna Garcia before intruding upon her suffering. Especially, when they really had nothing concrete in a traditional investigatory vein to ask or pursue. Skinner was going to want an actionable progress report soon or he was going to call them back to D.C.. Right now, the unidentified radiation was probably their best bet to extend their stay in Verdad. Potential tampering with their own rental car would carry weight as well. On the drive back from the station, Mulder had suggested they stop at a sub shop for lunch. Scully had agreed, but in the end she had only taken a few bites of her veggie wrap, then folded her food back into its foil packaging to take to the motel. He had downed most of his own sandwich while she sipped her tea, but more out of habit than a healthy appetite. She had remained quiet and distant on the remainder of the drive, and for the life of him he couldn't figure out what had changed. They got out of the car in the motel parking lot. Scully shrugged into her suit jacket and slung her messenger bag over her shoulder. The winds were becoming a distracting presence against which Mulder had to exert real effort to close the car door. He was starting to see why most online discussions he read of Las Cruces started with some reference to wind. "Jesus!" he called out as a particularly enthusiastic gust nearly knocked him back a step. Scully squinted against the onslaught, glancing his way in acknowledgment of the crazy, then started making her way cautiously toward the motel. As they approached their room doors, the wind slowed, but the rain picked up its pace. Like on most buildings in Southern New Mexico, what should have been a rain cover over the walkway was really just a framework of open boards over which a tarp or awning could have been mounted. But of course nothing was mounted there, roofs and awnings were fodder for wild winds to rip away. So there was still no protection from the elements. A rumbling of thunder drew Mulder's attention to the view beyond the parking lot. "Whoa..." Scully's gaze followed his in response to his tone. In the far distance, the lightning was growing rapid and intense in a way Mulder had never before witnessed. Scully took a few steps closer, her gaze on the far-off spectacle, arms folded tight across her chest. Electric light flickered over the mountains like a strobe show at a punk rock concert. Nothing like they would ever see in D.C.. "Wow," Mulder said softly, moving up behind Scully's right shoulder. "That really is something, isn't it?" "It is," Scully breathed, words hovering in the pregnant pause between gusts. "Almost unreal. Is that really lightning? Not something man-made?" "I think so. You can't even hear the thunder for most of that from here. It's disorienting how far you can see." "I can see why people think they're seeing strange lights around here. The weather itself is a little eerie." Mulder nodded. "You can feel the static in the air. Do you think the lights people are seeing might be some kind of natural phenomenon? Ball lightning or red lightning or something?" Scully drew a thoughtful breath. "It's always possible. I've certainly never seen anything quite like this. But then, I wasn't raised in the desert. At least not this kind of desert." She shivered slightly as another particularly wild bout of flashes lit the afternoon sky. Mulder instinctively brought his arms up around her to shelter her. Scully immediately stiffened and took a half step to the side. Mulder's arms fell away, cold glazing his stomach at the unexpected rejection. "Whoa. Scully, what's going on here?" Scully shook her head. She turned toward him, but her gaze never rose above his knees. "It's nothing. I'm sorry. I just...I just can't do this right now." "Do what? What are we doing? Scully, talk to me. I thought we were okay this morning, now you're ducking my touch? That's a new one. Talk to me. Did I do something?" Scully cringed and hugged herself tighter. The rain was sprinkling down through the open slats and peppering their clothes. "No." She drew a hard breath, let go a deflated sigh. "No, I just...this is just getting hard. Working together like this." "Working together. Working together is hard? I thought that was the one thing that wasn't hard for us. The one thing we were always good at. What are we talking about?" He leaned in a little closer, dipped his head, aching to claim her evasive gaze, reclaim their unbreakable connection. "Dana?" he prompted softly. She flinched like he had struck her. When she finally looked up at him, the intensity of the pain and...something else...betrayal? fear? in her gaze almost made him wish she had stayed hidden. "Isn't this hard for you?" she said against the growing rustle of the rain. "Hard *how?* Tell me." "Standing here. Being together. Every day. Halfway. With the rest just...dangling right there, right where we left it. Right where we can't have it, anymore. Do you just not want it, or...are you okay with this?" 'Stunned' felt inadequate for the empty burn that filled Mulder's core, but it was all he had. She had left him breathless and wordless. How many years had it been since she had said something this vulnerable, this honest, about the two of them? About how she really felt? And now they were suddenly right in the middle of it all, in a rain storm outside a cheap motel in Verdad, New Mexico. The raw openness her words engendered in him was quickly replaced by a flood of self-protective anger and resentment and the next words across his lips were fueled by an anger and bitterness he both regretted and relished. "You're actually saying it out loud? Admitting you used to be with me? That we used to be a family? For more than a decade? And you're asking *me* if this bothers me? If I want that? That is all I have ever wanted, Scully! But believe it or not, there's a limit to my patience. And at the risk of sounding like a teenager, here...*you* broke up with *me!*" Scully looked away across the empty parking lot, breath shallow and rapid, tongue toying with the backs of her teeth. "'Broke up with you,'" she parroted. Another moment of breath while he waited. The rain was starting to stick her blouse to her skin, and the pale from the cold clashed with her flush of anger. A trickle of water chilled the nape of his neck. "Mulder, I left because you were dealing with endogenous depression and you refused to get treatment. We were living on the edge of this...bottomless black pool, and you were pulling me down, and I had to make sure one of us kept sight of land. I left because my being there wasn't helping you. I left because I had to, not because...I didn't...love you..." And when her voice broke from anger to aching pain, his own fresh resentment sloughed away on the rainwater. Mulder closed the space between them and reached out as he had always done. Taking care of her the only way he knew how. None of this was supposed to be about hurting her. "Okay. Okay. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Come here, you don't..." But she pulled back, again, lifted a hand to block his touch, and he couldn't hide that it would have hurt less if she had slapped him. "No! No, Mulder that's it...that's exactly it." "What's it?" he asked, suspended between anger and desperation. "I don't understand." "This. *You.* You being...kind and understanding and...you making me laugh and making me feel...beautiful and like myself again, and...you acting like the person I fell in love with, only better, because we really talk now, but..." Her eyes shimmered with tears, and her lips quivered as she fumbled for words. "But what? Scully, what? Talk. To. Me." He put everything he had into the words, willing the depth of feeling to carry to her across the space she had imposed between them, fighting to honor her intimacy barrier. He felt like they were suddenly 20 years back in their interaction. "It's all because you're working, again," she said quietly. "Because you're putting the work first, again. Instead of me. And it's so easy to miss, because I'm part of the work, too, right now, so it feels okay. But when it stops...I won't be enough, anymore. I won't be enough to keep you who you are. Who you should be." Mulder couldn't wrap his head around what he was hearing. "Scully...that's just not true. That's never been true." "It is," she said simply. And there were so many years of resignation and pain in her two words, he felt suddenly too heavy to stand. "Scully." He took a step closer, didn't touch, but intruded upon her space, breathed her air. She did not step back. Rain clung to his eyelashes. "Mulder, you want me in *your* life. That's what you've always wanted. And sometimes it's my life, too. But sometimes that life's not mine, and it's not me. And you're not able to come into *my* world. Or create a new one between us. With me." "You don't want to be here? You don't want to be back on the X-Files?" She looked up at him, painfully open for a fleeting moment. "Right now? Yes. I do. But I won't always. And you will. In some form or another." Mulder sighed, brow furrowed, pain keeping his muscles unaware of the damp and cold. He gazed down at her with a world of history and feeling in his eyes. There were so many old arguments here, so much heavily trodden ground, and so few real answers. All he knew was that Scully was not optional. She was never second. In the seemingly unanswerable silence, Scully turned and took a step toward her motel room door. "What can I do?" he said into the rain. "What do you need from me?" She spun back to face him, fingers flexing and gripping at nothing, words tight and rapid. "Mulder, you can't fix it. It's an endless loop. I got out of it for a while, and now I've let myself be pulled back in, and I need to stop the slide, and..." "Were you happy?" he asked, feeling like he had to raise his voice to carry across the space and through the wind and maybe over the years. "When we were apart?" "What?" She frowned at him, thrown by the shift in the thread. "When we weren't *together* together, and we weren't working together...were you happy? Tell me honestly, Scully." She let go a pained and pensive sigh. "I was...I...it was peaceful and...the work was satisfying, rewarding, and...I was finding my footing..." "Were you happy?" "Of course not." Her gaze dropped from his to the pavement in something too much like defeat. "Do you think I would be happy without you? Working the X- Files without you? Scully, you're the only reason I'm still doing this." She shook her head slowly. "No, I'm not. Why? Why am I the reason?" He dared a half step forward. "Because it's the only way I can have you next to me, again." Scully closed her eyes. Her hair was pulling into scattered waves in the dampness, the curls grazing her temples. "God, Mulder...I know you believe that's true. And I do believe you want me here. But if you think...that you wouldn't be pursuing this...without me..." She shook her head once more and turned away. "Maybe," he conceded. "Maybe you're right, maybe I would keep fighting. But I wouldn't be as good at it, and I wouldn't have such hope left, and I sure as hell wouldn't feel like a whole or functional person." Scully fell quiet. He could see the internal war, tumultuous and ragged behind her carefully stilled posture. And he had seen it all before, more than once. In the hallway outside his apartment, at the bottom of the steps of their erstwhile home in the country. He was always asking her to come back. To come home. And she was always in pain. "I never wanted you to stay because *I* need you," he said, moving yet another step closer so he could gentle his voice. "You should only stay if I make your life better. If you need me just as much as I need you. That's always what I've wanted." "*If*...," Scully repeated, incredulity and tears thick in her voice. "If..." He could see the disaster coming, see what she had heard and what she thought he meant. But he didn't know how to stop it or change it. His words were true, and they needed to be said, and now there was no way to take it back or hear her out or help her understand. Scully lifted a hand to her forehead and turned away. "Oh, my God...I can't...I can't do this..." She took three rapid steps toward her door. "Scully! *Scully!*" She had swiped her card and she was inside and gone, door slammed behind her. Mulder stood facing the cold green barrier with the silver 106 up against his nose. He futilely tried the handle and pounded with an open hand. "Scully! Scully." He closed his eyes and remained where he stood, unable to bring himself to walk away. A moment later, Scully shocked him by yanking open the door. She was standing close, and her voice was a dizzying mixture of passion and cold when she said simply, "You keep saying I left you. You left *us* first." Then she shut the door. And all his fight drained into the rainwater. He stood in the windblown chill with his eyes closed and his chest tight as the dampness infiltrated and hollowed his bones. ////////// Six months after Scully moves out of their house, Mulder is invited to the wedding of a mutual friend from the FBI forensics lab. Mulder stands at the bottom of his driveway with the small pile of mail from his box, the early spring wind chilling his bare arms and feet, staring at the invitation and knowing Scully will be invited as well. He doesn't want to say no just because he is in the habit of avoiding people. He doesn't want to say no because he thinks Scully will be there. He doesn't want to hurt her by showing up and he doesn't want to hurt her by looking like he's avoiding her. Always best friends, she said. Nothing works as well on the ground as it does in words. He decides the easiest way is to confront the elephant in the room. He texts Scully two days after the invitation arrives and asks if she is going to the wedding. She replies right away, says yes, she's going. She is very happy for Patricia and Steve. So he asks if she has a date or if she wants to go together. As friends. She takes sixteen hours to text him back. But she says yes, they should go together. It will be nice to see him. Two days later she forwards him an email with a link to an article debunking the existence of Bigfoot. He sends back a link to an article about a footprint cast that cannot be identified by zoologists. Mulder picks up Scully outside her apartment in Georgetown. He sees her before she sees him. She's standing in the afternoon sunlight, gazing across the tree-lined street, her hair up in a French twist, loose tendrils fluttering in the wind. She is dressed in a pale melon-colored gown. Ankle length or just above with thin shoulder straps and a fitted bodice. Mulder doesn't know all the technical terms, he only knows the dress is silky and flowing and beautiful -- she's beautiful. She is self-conscious when she dresses up, though you would never know it to watch her. She used to stick to high necklines and conservative little black standards. She has blossomed into herself through the years. A thin shawl rests at her elbows, and she holds onto a gold clutch purse. Four inch strappy heels finish off the look, and a delicate gold anklet catches the sunlight. Mulder almost runs into a fire hydrant trying to park. The first few hours of the event go surprisingly well. Being next to Scully is the most natural thing in the world. Awkwardness can only hold so long between them before they fall into the inexplicable comfort in one another's space that has been with them since she first arrived in his basement hideaway. They don't have much explaining to do to their mutual acquaintances. No one has understood their relationship for years and the questioners gave up a long time ago, surprised only when they are not side by side in one form or another. At the reception Scully has a few glasses of champagne and maybe not enough food to keep it from going to her head. The buzz softens her, and she smiles more and laughs a little, and they get caught up in the warmth and the sparkling lights from the chandelier and the inviting music. As the night goes on, Mulder convinces Scully to join him on the dance floor. They dance well together, they always have. Partners know where and how the other is going to move. And Scully loves music more than she ever lets on. Mulder was shocked the first time he saw the extent of the music folder on her private laptop. He doesn't know why she considers this such intimate knowledge of her, but she guards her music time like she is writing in a diary. She smiles and even giggles a little when he swings her onto the dance floor. They get roped into a couple of line dances Scully knows better than he does (lots of cousins' weddings, she says), and Mulder laughs as Scully attempts to direct him. He is once again impressed by what the woman is able to accomplish in four inch heels. Many of the other women are already down to bare feet. In the dim light at the elegant venue, with Scully softened from the champagne and smiling and her hair gradually working more bits loose and flowing from its twist, he sees a priceless glimpse of the young agent he first knew. When her rare smiles were genuine and sweet and not tinged with underlying sadness like everything since she lost her sister, her health, her daughter, their son. The celebratory mood quiets as the music shifts, and Scully falls into his arms for a slow dance. It's a song he knows she likes, and he lifts his eyebrows with a glance upwards as it starts and she smiles and nods, the champagne loosening her customary guarded acknowledgment of this tender pleasure. His hand is comfortably pressed to the silk at the small of her back, and she gradually moves in closer against him. As the music continues its enchanting and haunting strains, the mood slows palpably. Scully is undeniably close, their bodies melding together as they always have. He can feel the familiar heat building between them, the remembered intimacy. Her breath is caressing his throat, and her fingers rest against the nape of his neck. Their bodies can't hide what their words tangle and shadow. Then she breaks his heart when he feels the shift in her breath and realizes Scully has started to cry. Her tears are silent, secret. She hasn't stopped moving to the music. Mulder tries to ask her with his eyes what is wrong, but she just tucks in closer, buries her face in his neck. They finish out the dance as she cries soundlessly into his open collar, his pulse against her forehead, his mouth in her hair. Mulder shelters her as close as he can, protecting her from the crowd, from the night, from whatever it is that hurts inside. He cradles the back of her head, keeps his arm solid and unyielding across her back, supporting her with all he has. He keeps his lips pressed close, whispering small comforts she probably cannot hear, and her nails dig into the cloth of his shirt in acknowledgment. When the music stops and the band announces a break, Scully turns and slips out of his arms. She never looks at him, never speaks a word, just vanishes through the crowd and out the door of the ballroom, like Cinderella at midnight. He tries to follow, but she is good and thoroughly gone. He tells the bride and groom she wasn't feeling well. They joke about too much champagne and he tries to smile. He leaves fifteen minutes after Scully and drives home. He texts from his driveway to ask if she is okay. Twenty minutes later, she replies, "I'm fine." At six o'clock the next morning, his phone buzzes and the screen reads, "I'm sorry I left you." The floor shifts beneath him and he feels like he has been punched in the gut. He stares at the five words as he slides down and sits on the wood planks of the floor beside his bed. He tries to breathe. For all the years after, he never has the nerve to ask if she meant only "....at the wedding." They don't speak again for a month. ////////// (end Chapter 8)