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, to Erica who makes me much more 
presentable to the world, and a warm welcome to dear 
Miriam, my Water's Edge beta from way back in the day, now 
back to kick my ass in line once more!

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This chapter treats the deleted/extended 
scene from "The Blessing Way", in which Melissa shows up 
while Dana is talking to their mother and she and Dana have 
a conversation/argument, as though it were canon. Pardon me 
taking this liberty, but this scene always spoke to me and 
it wormed its way into my personal head canon.


Copyright (c) 2018

Chapter 11

Scully felt as though they might never escape the sheriff's 
station. The paperwork seemed endless and unproductive. She 
had to file her reports as an assault victim as well as an 
officer at the scene. Nate Monroe gave his statement to the 
local police while Mulder and Scully listened. Then they 
stayed to observe the questioning of Vera Monroe. Kayla's 
statement would have to wait until morning, until she could 
be evaluated by child services and assigned a social worker 
to advocate for her during questioning. Nothing happened 
fast in Verdad, New Mexico.

Scully sat shoulder to shoulder with Mulder at a table with 
uneven legs, looking through one way glass into the 
interrogation room where Aster sat speaking with Mrs. 
Monroe. Technically, Mrs. Monroe wasn't accused of 
anything, only giving a statement, but everyone was 
treading carefully to make sure the children were safe.

"He's impressively thorough, I'll give him that," Scully 
said softly as they stared forward through the glass.

Mulder mumbled a tired sound of assent.

But it was true, Aster was meticulously walking Vera 
through every detail of the days preceding the incident, 
just as he had with Nate. Scully had secured access to the 
reports on the last two domestic incidents at the Monroes' 
house and was dividing her attention between the 
questioning and the paperwork in front of her.

"Anything?" Mulder prompted for the third time.

Scully exhaled slowly. She was still reading, but it wasn't 
looking like they would learn anything more than the basic 
framework from these reports. "Reported shouting and thrown 
objects, including some sort of radio antenna off of the 
roof top. Neighbors got scared and called it in."

"Twice."

"Twice. I'm on the second report. So far no clear evidence 
of abuse toward the children. Some questionable bruises on 
Vera but not enough to contradict her story of getting 
banged up cleaning out their garage. No formal charges were 
brought."

"And Nate's not accusing his dad of anything physical. Did 
you believe him when he said his father had never hit his 
mother?"

Scully wrinkled her nose and made a soft sound at the back 
of her throat. "I don't know. It was off."

"Yeah. That's what I thought."

Scully returned her attention to the room beyond the glass 
when she heard Aster begin to ask about what had set off Ed 
Monroe this morning.

On the far side of the metal table, beneath the sickening 
yellow lights of the windowless room, Vera Monroe swallowed 
hard and folded and unfolded her hands. The woman had 
splashed some water on her face and smoothed down her hair 
since her arrival at the station, but her eyes were still 
weary and skittish. "Like I said," Vera began, "Ed hasn't 
been himself, lately. He was so worried about Nate..."

"Because of Mariela," Aster offered, and Vera nodded with a 
clear flinch.

Mulder and Scully had been piecing together that part of 
the puzzle all afternoon in whispers and side glances. 
Apparently Nate and Mariela had been seeing one another for 
months, but Ed Monroe had disapproved of the match-up from 
the start. He had believed the Garcias thought they were 
too good for this town, that Mariela would go off to 
college and try to convince Nate to do the same while Ed 
wanted his son to finish high school then work his way up 
through the ranks at the auto garage. When the Black-Eyed 
Children stories had begun and the Garcias had seemed 
cursed, Ed had put his foot down and forbidden the young 
couple from seeing one another at all.

"I can only imagine how that felt for Nate and Mariela," 
Scully said, half thinking out loud. "Having Nate's father 
separate them right when her life was falling apart, when 
Nate would want to support her the most. They're too young 
to face those kinds of choices."

"I agree. They both seem like good kids. A lot of volatile 
emotions in the mix, here."

"Ed just can't understand..." Vera said, eyes imploring 
Sheriff Aster. "They're really still just kids, you know? I 
didn't see the harm...they have time to figure out their 
lives. They're good kids."

Aster nodded. "I know. I understand. It's hard to know how 
much to intervene. So, had Nate and Mariela stopped seeing 
each other?"

Vera nodded. "Yes. A couple of weeks ago. Ed has had me 
driving Nate back and forth to school and work...making 
sure where he is all the time. He even took Nate's phone 
for a while."

Aster paused in the questioning. He shuffled the papers on 
the table in front of him and rubbed a hand over the 
stubble on his chin. He was no doubt as weary of all of 
this as they were, but he was doing an admirable job of 
keeping up the pace. Scully found her gaze settling on the 
back of Aster's neck. She could make out the slight sheen 
of the brighter scar tissue in the harsh light.

*Water stains. Cold. Staircase. "Bring her now." Something 
like rubber on her upper arm, strokes of undersea fingers. 
"Bring her now." Wide black eyes in the far corner. Let me 
go!*

The table screeched on the tile as Scully jerked back to 
the present.

"Whoa, Scully? You okay?"

Her heart was racing, blood rushing in her ears. She 
swallowed hard, locking her gaze on the files in front of 
her, seeing only a meaningless blur. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. 
I'm sorry."

She could feel Mulder's gaze burning into the side of her 
head, willing her to look up and grant him some kind of 
connection. She wanted to close her eyes, but she didn't 
want the unwelcome images to replay.

"Scully?" Mulder's hand moved beneath the table and rested 
on her thigh. "Hey...."

She shook her head sharply. "I'm fine," she repeated. She 
forced an intake of air and turned her focus to the room 
ahead of them. "We should hear this part," she said, just 
the slightest tremor in the undercurrent of her voice. The 
quick twitch of Mulder's fingers against her thigh told her 
he had heard it. But Aster *was* asking something important, 
and after a beat of hesitation, Mulder looked away and 
brought his hands up to rest his elbows on the table, 
fingers clasp in front of his mouth.

"All right. What about you and Ed?" Aster asserted. 
"Explain this to me, Vera. What's really been going on 
between the two of you? How did you end up on the wrong end 
of a sawed-off shot gun?"

Mrs. Monroe closed her eyes. She hooked an errant strand of 
her dark hair behind one ear, scratched at her throat. For 
a moment the woman looked pointedly past Sheriff Aster's 
shoulder at the mirror in the wall and Scully was certain 
she was smart enough to realize she was being observed and 
likely by whom.

"You can't tell the kids about this," she said, turning her 
gaze on Sheriff Aster with a directness and determination 
she had yet to demonstrate.

Aster nodded. "Fair enough, there shouldn't be any reason 
that's necessary."

"You know Ed and I have been together since my last year of 
high school. Ed had already graduated a couple of years 
before me. And he was already working and saving up for a 
place of his own. Well...I still wanted to go to college. 
He had thought I was going to go to the local community 
college, but I got a chance to go up to Albuquerque to UNM. 
I went up to school, and Ed didn't like it but he said he'd 
wait for me. I only spent one year up there, but...well, I 
met someone else. I was just...all caught up in the 
excitement of the whole college scene. This guy was a lit 
major, wrote poetry about me, you know how it goes. I'm not 
proud to say it, but...I cheated on Ed. And near the end of 
the school year, I found out I was pregnant. I came home 
and I told Ed everything. The guy up at school had 
disappeared when the next pretty thing in a skirt came 
along. Ed tried to stick by me. He even said he'd raise the 
baby, but we never had to face that."

"You never had the baby?" Aster prompted kindly.

Vera shook her head. "No. The doctors couldn't really 
figure out what happened, though. It was like I was 
pregnant, and then I just wasn't. They said something about 
my body reabsorbing the fetus or something...I never really 
understood. Anyway, eventually Ed forgave me. I moved back 
home, and a year later, we got married, and then Nate came 
along."

"So what does this have to do with what's going on now? Why 
did everything go to hell between you two just recently?"

Mrs. Monroe shifted in her chair, tugged at her clothes and 
glanced around as though she were afraid she was being 
watched by more than the law enforcement behind the glass. 
She lowered her voice and Scully found herself leaning 
forward to listen. "The thing is, Sheriff...those Black-
Eyed Kids? I'd been seeing them back then, too. Back before 
I lost the baby. Some weird stuff happened during that 
time, and Ed...I don't know, he started talking about 
aliens, abductions and the like. It was all the thing back 
then on the TV shows and in books, you know? That show 
about the conspiracies... With me losing the baby and all, 
Ed thought maybe it wasn't...natural. I don't think I ever 
really believed it. But then a few months ago, some kids 
showed up at our door late at night. They wanted to be let 
inside, but I wouldn't do it. It was really late, and those 
kids wouldn't say who they were or where they were from. I 
talked to them through the door, I offered to call someone 
for them, but they just kept asking to come in, said it was 
important. And they wouldn't give me a phone number. I 
almost let them in before I could stop myself, but I 
didn't. I think it brought it all up again for Ed. Made him 
think I was doing something behind his back or something. I 
haven't been, I swear. But it's always been there, you 
know? You forget for a while, but then...there's always a 
weak spot."

Aster nodded, straightened the papers in front of him on 
the table. "I understand. I appreciate your honesty."

Scully drew a slow breath. Her pulse had returned to 
normal, and the cold sick feeling that always accompanied 
the images was receding. Focus on work had always been her 
grounding point. "I don't know, Mulder," she said softly. 
"I'm starting to think there's not much of an X-File, here. 
Just a lot of messed up and damaged people looking for 
something to believe."

Mulder nodded. "Maybe. Maybe none of this ties together in 
the end. I guess the question is did they have help getting 
this messed up?"

Scully exhaled heavily and tilted her head in 
acknowledgment. "I think we've all had a little help."

*****

It was past dinnertime when things started to slow down at 
the station. Scully was flagging and broody and barely 
responsive to direct questions, and when Mulder said they 
should call it a night, get some food, and head up to 
Miller's Clearing to look for UFOs, she actually seemed to 
welcome his plan. Which was both pleasant and mildly 
concerning.

Scully asked to stop at their motel and get cleaned up and 
changed and Mulder couldn't blame her after what she had 
been through a few short hours ago. He knew her well enough 
to know that despite her outward cool, she fervently needed 
to wash Monroe's cruel touches off her skin and rebuild her 
zone of personal protection. Scully was warm and welcoming 
and easy to touch for those she loved, but she was very 
particular over to whom she granted such privilege. 
Violations took their toll.

Mulder had intuitively understood this very early in their 
partnership. It had made him want to shoot anyone who 
touched her without permission. The list of perpetrators 
had grown far too long over the years, and Mulder was 
pretty sure he was going to hell purely for the imagined 
retribution scenarios catalogued in his dreams.

Scully emerged from her room, hair still slightly damp, 
make-up light and freckles showing, dressed in slacks and a 
burgundy short-sleeved v-neck. He gave her a soft smile, 
brushed his fingers for just a moment against her rib cage, 
following her curves through the fitted cloth. She met his 
gaze and softened for a breath, returned his smile with 
tired but sincere eyes. Then she turned toward the car and 
said something about food. They grabbed a quick dinner at a 
sub and salad place in Verdad,

The sun had dropped behind the mountains by the time Mulder 
slowed their car at the edge of Miller's Clearing. The 
radiation zone was cordoned off, but he was able to find a 
place to park on the rugged ground about 30 yards off the 
road and just outside of the designated risk borders. Their 
vantage point seemed to afford a workable view of the 
rumored area of activity along with a fair amount of 
shelter from cars on the main road. No other thrill-seekers 
appeared to be trying their luck this evening; the police 
tape had no doubt scared them away. So it was just Mulder 
and Scully, a slightly upgraded rental car, and the desert 
sky.

The night remained warm enough to be comfortable, so Mulder 
took his trench coat from the car and spread it over the 
hood for them to sit on as they waited. The darkness grew 
thick and pervasive in a way the city could never 
accommodate, and Mulder turned on a soft "simulated 
candlelight" app on his phone and plunked it down on the 
car hood between them. As fatigue settled in, they both 
found themselves leaned back against the windshield, 
staring up at the crazy expanse of sky and stars.

"Mulder?" Scully said from her corner of the shadows, and 
Mulder realized just how long it had been since either of 
them had spoken.

"Yeah?" He kept his neck tilted back, eyes remaining on the 
blinking stars.

"When I lost my Mom," Scully continued, "you and I were 
still in a weird place. But you looked beyond that and you 
were there for me. Even though I didn't handle the loss all 
that well, at least professionally."

Mulder lifted his head and turned to face her in the patchy 
shadows. She kept her eyes on the stars.

"You didn't call me on my professional slips or hold them 
against me," she said. "You were just there. And that made 
a huge difference for me. And I was so wrapped up in my own 
stuff and everything it brought up again about our son, 
that I don't think I ever really said thank you. So...thank 
you, Mulder. For being there for me."

"Always." The word rolled off his tongue with a simple ease 
that belied its strength. There were so few things in the 
world of which Fox Mulder was truly certain, but being 
there when Scully needed him was as fundamental to his 
existence as breathing.

Scully drew a slow breath, then she lifted her head to look 
off into the black distance of the night. After a stretch 
of comfortable quiet, she asked, "Do you think the Black-
Eyed Children are symbolic? A parable of sorts?"

"How so?"

He watched her elegant profile in the simulated candlelight 
as she continued to gaze into the patterns of shadow, 
drawing out her thoughts into words. "If you learn about 
the darkness, it's more likely to tempt you. It asks for 
entry into your life. If you let that negative or...dark 
energy into your life, it permeates and taints everything. 
It damages your health, your relationships..."

A beat passed and the wind shuffled around them and toyed 
with the corners of their make-shift blanket. Mulder 
reached out a gentle hand and touched Scully's cheek with 
the backs of his fingers, "And you don't want that darkness 
in your home," he whispered.

Scully caught her breath, surprised or maybe touched by his 
recitation of her own words. Her gaze locked onto his and 
Mulder's fingers moved to cradle her cheek, her auburn 
locks ruffling across his wrist in the breeze. And for a 
moment she was there with him, and they were them again, 
and everything was spoken without words and without walls. 
Then Scully's eyes glazed bright in the sparse light, the 
reflection on a light sheen of tears, and she blinked and 
looked away. Mulder let his hand fall with a soft thud to 
the metal between them.

The quiet held for a long moment before Mulder said, "How 
would that explain the connection to the sightings of 
lights in the sky?"

Scully drew a slow breath, responding to the return to 
logical discussion. "Well, not every BEK encounter is 
connected to UFO sightings. They don't even always run in 
batches, do they? Aren't there isolated encounters?"

He nodded. "All true."

"So what's your theory?" Scully challenged, giving a quick 
glance his direction. The intimacy had been replaced by a 
slight edge of impatient irritation which Mulder found more 
reassuring and familiar than grating.

"I don't have a theory, yet," he replied with an easy 
shrug. "Or I have too many theories. I'm just...staying 
open-minded for now."

"Well, we're running out of 'now', Mulder. Skinner's not 
going to let us hang out in Verdad forever."

"Sad, but true."

"You want to stay?"

He gave her a lazy smile. "I'm pretty content right now."

He couldn't read the further implications of her exhale.

*****

No strange lights had appeared in the sky. Only a 
mesmerizing and almost claustrophobic covering of stars. 
Mulder and Scully had been quiet long enough that Mulder's 
eyelids were starting to droop, and he could feel the 
slight slackening of Scully's normally careful posture. She 
was curling tighter as the night wind grew colder.

Mulder nudged her boot with his and she turned slightly 
toward him. He could just make out her questioning eyebrow 
in the dimness.

"What happened this afternoon?" he asked, voice gentle and 
soft, appealing to their timeless connection, begging 
sincerity. "In the observation room. Did you get dizzy?"

He waited a beat to see if her walls would rise or if the 
shadows and fatigue and gentle air of intimacy would keep 
her open. He could hear in her breath that she was still 
letting him in.

Scully shook her head. "No. Well, yes, but...not because 
there's anything wrong. I'm fine." For once he could hear 
that she meant it. Physically, at least.

He shifted against the car until he was angled more 
directly to face her, his attention no longer focused on 
the relentlessly peaceful sky. He reached out and squeezed 
her forearm for just a moment before speaking. "So, what 
happened?"

Her pause stretched with the endlessness of the desert 
night, gaze on her lap, and he waited calmly for her to get 
there.

She cleared her throat and tried her words. "I saw 
something...or...thought I remembered something. It doesn't 
make any sense, I can't...I don't know."

"Something else from your abduction?"

"Maybe."

"Scully, you know you can tell me. Even if it doesn't make 
sense. I can shut off my investigative side for this if you 
need me to. My mad search for the truth. I'll just listen 
and be your friend."

To his surprise Scully gave something like a scoffing laugh 
on her exhale and whispered, "'Friend.'"

"Friend. What? Is that a bad thing?"

Scully drew a deep breath. She pushed up from the 
windshield and sat cross-legged, face to the sky, eyes 
closed. "No, it's not a bad thing," she said, but the 
weariness in her tone hurt to hear. "It's not a bad thing," 
she repeated. "I'm just...tired." She opened her eyes and 
gazed out at the night that was too dark to confirm a 
belief in anything beyond the two of them and their dim 
light and the car beneath them. "There's nothing here, 
Mulder. Let's go home."

He didn't feel like there was anywhere else he needed to 
be.


*****

They sit on the log in silence for a long time. She is no 
longer leaning on his shoulder, but his hand remains on her 
thigh. She has been letting him do things like this again, 
lately. The wind off the water has turned colder but Scully 
has made no move to rise. Mulder wonders if it feels like 
once she moves from this place, once she completes this 
final ritual, Margaret will be well and truly gone. He 
knows she is not ready to let go.

He realizes when Scully finally speaks, that her thoughts 
have carried her back to their recent case. Back to the 
monster born of trash and dark thoughts. "Maybe he really 
did make a monster. Maybe we all did. It seems like...if 
you feel something strongly enough, or if you want 
something badly enough, it can create a kind of reality of 
its own."

"How do you mean?" Mulder prompts softly, watching her pale 
profile in the fluttering wind. He wants nothing but to be 
her support right now, her pillar, and he almost feels 
guilty for taking in how beautiful she is here in the grey 
and fading light.

She seems oblivious to his attentions. "I mean, we all have 
those moments, those divergent paths, that we've explored a 
thousand times in our minds." She falls quiet for a long 
while, gazing across the water. He knows she is not done 
talking; she is puzzling together her words. He waits. 
"Like the night I saw Melissa, just a couple of days before 
she died," she says. And there it is, the curve ball, the 
wild tangent her brain has traveled on without him and with 
which he will need to catch up. "When I thought you were 
dead," she clarifies, "and I'd been suspended, I'd gone to 
my Mom's for comfort and guidance. And Melissa came over, 
and she was being her usual self and saying all the things 
I didn't want to hear or wasn't ready to hear. And I got 
angry and I pushed her away. And in her own way she was 
only trying to help, to show me she loved me, that she 
cared what I was going through. But I saw it as selfishness 
and disregard for my feelings. And ever since that 
night...in my head, thousands of times, I've turned around 
and walked back into that room, and just told her to shut-
up, and thrown myself in her arms and told her to just not 
talk and just be my big sister for a few minutes and make 
me feel better. And I know she would have. She always would 
have. She would right now. But if I'd done it then, it 
would have made me feel better and her feel better, but my 
stupid pride and close-mindedness kept me from doing that. 
But I have played out the other version of that night so 
many times it starts to feel like somewhere, somehow it 
happened. And like maybe she actually knows that I wanted 
that. That I wish it had happened."

Mulder nods. "I'm certain she does."

Scully looks at him directly, blue-ice fire in her eyes. 
"But it didn't happen, Mulder. It's wishful thinking. It's 
wishful thinking that she should know that. But 
maybe...maybe if we want something badly enough...we can 
will it into some kind of alternate existence. Like that 
trash monster. I don't know. I'm probably not making any 
sense."

Mulder shakes his head, gives a reassuring squeeze to her 
thigh. "No, Scully, you are. And you know I'd be the first 
person to point out if you weren't. But believe me, I, more 
than most people, can understand wanting to go back and 
change the essential mistakes in our lives. I understand 
the power of those emotions. And the complete powerlessness 
in the face of their invariability. I agree, some things 
can't be changed. But maybe, in some ways...some can. Like 
you said with your sister -- I believe she's still 
connected to you. And I believe she was so in tune with 
your emotions when she was here, maybe even more than you 
were at times, that it's not at all beyond possibility that 
she might still be now that she's in the spiritual plane. 
So, in effect, she may very well have felt that moment in 
her afterlife the way you wish she had while she was still 
here."

Scully looks at him a long time, a whirl of intellect and 
emotion dancing in her gaze. "I want to believe that," she 
says at last. "Even if it messes with my head to accept 
those concepts. I don't know if I do believe it. 
But...thank you."

"I'm happy to believe it for you until you're ready," he 
offers with a smile.

The warmth spreads to her lips and for a moment they are 
Mulder and Scully, quietly connected and holding onto one 
another, apart from the rest of the world.

"Maybe that's enough," she whispers.

They have walked most of the way back to her car, his arm 
around her shoulders, sheltering her from the biting wind, 
when she says, "Can I stay at our house tonight? I 
mean...just to sleep, I know it's not fair to ask--"

"Shh, shh, shh." He presses his lips to the top of her 
head. "Of course you can stay. Of course, you can. I wasn't 
expecting you to be anywhere else. Unless you'd rather I 
ride the couch at your place, if you want to sleep in your 
own bed?"

She shakes her head lightly. "Either way."

They slow to a halt beside her car and turn to face one 
another. He strokes her hair. cradles her cheek. "You 
stayed with me after I lost my mom. I'll stay with you."

She holds his gaze for a long time, and he feels in the 
moment that he is in the one place in the universe he knows 
he is supposed to be.

*****

(end Chapter 11)