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 SO much more 
presentable to the world, and much appreciation to dear 
Miriam, my Water's Edge beta from way back in the day, now 
back to kick my ass in line once more! Ladies, you deserve 
medals for sticking with this project to the end!! Love to 
you all!!

AUTHOR'S NOTES: We did it!! "Bridges" is now complete!! 
Thanks and love to every single one of you who ever sent me 
an encouraging word. You can't know how much your support 
has meant to me. This has been one hell of a ride. I hope 
you find this final chapter to your liking.:) Peace and 
love to each and every one of you.


Copyright (c) 2019
 
Chapter 20
 
//////////

"How did people move into new houses before Home Depot?"

Scully pushes back the loose strands of hair that have 
escaped her clip, using her wrist, conscious of the packing 
dust. Her mother put more things in storage for her than 
she realized. Or than she actually needed. Though she is 
grateful for some of the furniture. She does not relish the 
idea of starting over to furnish an entire house.

"Local hardware store?" she replies, quirking an eyebrow at 
Mulder who stands in front of the hearth, his hair in minor 
disarray, t-shirt dusty, looking adorable and sexy in all 
his own unique ways. As much as she sees the charm in their 
new house, its age and "personality quirks" have come at 
the expense of an easy move-in. They have already done 
their share of fixes and upgrades.

"A local mom and pop place that, what, closes at six 
o'clock, five o'clock on Sundays, and for lunches any time 
the owner's fishing buddies are in town? Scully, you of all 
people should know that moving-in and home improvement 
crises ALWAYS happen outside of conventional business 
hours. And then there's the range of supplies. Odds are the 
local hardware store will NOT have that extra long hose you 
need to get your dryer to run properly in your older and 
slightly irregular house, and they will have to order the 
damned thing from the warehouse and it won't be delivered 
for upwards of three weeks, and that's if it's not on 
backorder. And if there's no Home Depot, then there's no 
Amazon, so the question is...what to do with all that 
laundry?"

"You scare me sometimes, Mulder."

"Just sometimes?" He tosses her a hint of a smile, and she 
lets a matching grin tug at the corner of her lips.

"Sometimes," she confirms. But the tone holds nothing but 
affection.

The truth is, she has had it for today. She is more than 
willing to call it, scramble together something like a 
nutritious dinner, flop on the couch, and stare at mindless 
TV until she can no longer stay awake. There had been a 
time when she had given great weight to creating and 
decorating her precious home, all her own, after all those 
years of sharing a room with Melissa. In her years at the 
FBI her private haven had been like a tangible piece of 
herself to hold onto, the sides of her beyond Agent Scully 
made corporeal in books and paintings. And when they first 
talked about buying this place, this little treasure of 
Virginia history in its pastoral setting, she relished the 
idea of creating a more permanent sanctuary, of building 
something all and uniquely their own. But after years of 
living out of a suitcase, being able to carry all she was 
responsible for in the back of a rental car, Scully has 
forgotten just how cumbersome things can be. A little part 
of her looks wistfully at the notion of packing up their 
modest bags, jumping in the car, and driving onward to the 
next adventure. But that is probably exhaustion and hunger 
talking. She does want this house.

Mulder's latest trip to Home Depot was for screws to hold 
together the TV stand that somehow made it there minus a 
few essential parts. For now, the TV is balanced on top of 
a packing box.

Scully gestures with her chin toward the Home Depot bag 
resting at Mulder's feet. "What's that?" she asks. The bag 
clearly contains more than a few screws and a bracket.

Mulder whips his head around, looks at her, then follows 
her gaze to the item in question.

"Oh, that, yeah." He stoops down and lifts the bag.

She takes a couple of steps closer, as Mulder pulls a 
framed print from the bag.

"There was a kind of local art fair going on in the parking 
lot outside the mall. I saw this, and..." His words fade as 
he lifts the gold frame and props it carefully on the 
mantle. The print is from an intricate oil painting of a 
small cottage overlooking a dramatic seaside cliff. He 
turns to her. "I know you always wanted a place by the 
water," he says. "And someday we'll find that place, we 
will. But I just thought, maybe in the meantime..." He 
trails off and there is an adorable, boyish shyness 
reddening his cheeks.

Her lips spread into a smile. "I love it," she says, 
strolling forward until they are touching distance from one 
another. They've always functioned better that way. "Our 
cottage by the sea."

"In the middle of Virginia," he says, mirroring her smile.

"Thank you," she says, basking in the warmth of his eyes.

He kisses the top of her head and wraps his arm around her. 
"I want you to love it here."

She loops her arms around his waist and leans into his 
chest. "I love it here," she says, and he chuckles softly 
beneath her ear.

Three months later, they are dozing in front of a Simpsons 
rerun, empty plates forgotten beside their feet on the 
coffee table, when Mulder says, "Do you miss it at all, 
Scully?"

She blinks her eyes properly open, lifts her head 
lethargically from the back of the couch. "Miss what?"

"The x-files. Working in the field. The adventure."

She considers this for a moment, studies the longer story 
in Mulder's eyes. "Yeah, I miss it," she says softly. "I 
miss the challenge, the unexpected. The people we would 
meet. The travel. Well, some of it," she amends with a wry 
smile.

He returns the grin, and their gazes linger as memories of 
trashy motels, lumpy mattresses, rusty showers, and two 
station TVs dance between them. They have settled rather 
quickly into this place. There is a great deal to be said 
for a stationary home.

"But I don't miss the darkness," she says.

And Mulder closes his eyes and nods.

More than a decade later, Scully is at their house...his 
house...the house...picking up some medical journals she 
left in their closet...his...the... And while he is getting 
her coffee, she looks at the fireplace and the 
picture...their cottage by the sea...is face down on the 
mantle. Her throat is instantly tight. She tries to swallow 
and her eyes burn. She tells him to forget the coffee, 
she'll get the journals later. She has to go.

//////////


"Agents. Thank you for coming." Sheriff Aster was emerging 
from his office just as Scully and Mulder stepped into the 
lobby of the Verdad station.

The air conditioning was almost too much after the strength 
of the sun. Scully reached out to shake the sheriff's hand. 
"No problem, Sheriff, we're happy to help."

"What time are you leaving?"

"Well, it was supposed to be about now, but weather delays 
have pushed our flight to this evening."

"Oh, sorry to hear that. That's never fun. Though I imagine 
the ins and outs of travel are old hat for the two of you."

"You might say that," Mulder chimed in, reaching out to 
shake the sheriff's hand as well.

"What can we do to help while we're here?" Scully asked.

The sheriff propped his hands on his gun belt. "As far as 
the paperwork, we would really just appreciate statements 
from each of you on what took place out in Miller's 
Clearing last night. The military put in a request this 
morning for a full report from us on the incident."

"We're glad to comply," Mulder said, "but I wouldn't hold 
your breath until you hear back from the military. Chances 
are any reports you give on this will 'suddenly and 
unexpectedly disappear'."

Aster's eyes narrowed, his sun-worn skin crinkling with the 
gesture. "And why's that, Agent Mulder?"

Mulder shrugged. "Just a hunch." He took a sunflower seed 
from the stash in his pocket and began cracking it with his 
teeth.

Sheriff Aster eyed Mulder until Scully said with an air of 
finality, "We'll be happy to give you what information we 
can."

After a moment's hesitation, the sheriff turned his gaze to 
Scully and gave a polite smile. "Appreciate it. Let me take 
you to the back."

As Aster led the way down the hall, Scully shot Mulder a 
disapproving look, and he gave her the innocent puppy dog 
eyes. He offered her a seed.

Behave, she mouthed. But she took the seed.

They spent the next hour relaying all they could recall of 
the previous night's events. Mulder's description of the 
men who had assaulted them held far more detail about their 
questionable origins than Scully's, as she had been 
attacked from behind and held face down in the sand most of 
the time.

When the formal paperwork was done, Aster brought Scully 
the last of the information she had requested on the loose 
ends of their own investigation. He excused himself for an 
urgent phone call, leaving Mulder and Scully alone in the 
interrogation room with the pile of paperwork.

Scully pulled the stack in front of her and began sifting 
through the pages. "They got the results back on the 
radiation tests on the burn on Joseph Garcia's arm."

Mulder leaned in as she spoke, giving a cursory glance 
toward the open file. "What's it say?"

"Inconclusive," she said, tossing Mulder a knowing look.

"And you don't think that's accurate," he confirmed.

She shook her head. "This report cites 'insufficient tissue 
samples'. I saw that burn, Mulder. There would have been 
plenty of tissue from which to gather the sample. Dr. 
Johanson didn't strike me as so incompetent as to botch 
that kind of specimen retrieval."

"So you think..." Mulder popped another seed into his 
mouth.

"I think this is a case of 'we can't get a clear result 
that makes sense to us, so we're going to push the blame 
back onto the coroner's office.'"

"So, you think there was something odd about the result?"

"I think we don't know anything unless the test is run 
again. Preferably by the lab at Quantico."

"And they've already buried the body."

"Exactly."

They let that sit in silence for a moment, neither of them 
willing to suggest any further emotional trauma to the 
Garcias. Mulder gestured toward the pile of papers. "What 
else is in there?"

Scully rifled through the stack. "The automotive analyses 
are running about a month behind schedule. But they sent a 
preliminary report on both cars to work from."

"Anything?"

Scully shook her head. "Nothing. No signs of tampering or 
defect. Nothing they would attribute to radiation damage."

"In other words, we still have a big pile of nada. And a 
couple of sore necks."

"That would be my professional assessment. Oh, and here's 
the transcript we requested of the last texts sent to and 
from Joseph Garcia's phone." Scully handed over a piece of 
paper.

Mulder quickly scanned the printout.

"He was discussing groceries with his wife," Scully said. 
"I don't know if that makes the tragedy better or worse."

"Maybe it just makes it real," Mulder said, returning the 
paper to the pile on the table.

Scully resisted the urge to pull out her phone and see what 
her last texts to Mulder had been. Once, when he had gone 
missing on a case, her brain had fixated through a full 
twenty-four hours of frantic searching--police stations, 
stale coffees, canvasing the woods, door to door 
interrogations of neighbors of the suspect--on the fact 
that the last words she had spoken to Mulder had been, 
"Stop stealing my hand lotion."

They had done all they could in this place. When Sheriff 
Aster returned, he walked Mulder and Scully to the lobby. 
He could no longer put off the traffic light outages that 
demanded his attention.

"I sure do appreciate all you've done for us here," Aster 
said with a nod. The words were clearly more than lip 
service.

"I'm not sure we did that much," Mulder said as they paused 
by the door.

"Believe me, you did. This isn't the kind of investigation 
any of us has experience running around here."

"Give us a call if there's anything else you think of we 
can do," Scully said. "Our best to the Garcias. I hope 
things look up for them from now on."

Aster nodded. "I do, too. That family deserved better."

As Mulder was pushing open the door, Scully moving up close 
behind, the Sheriff called out, "Agents?"

They turned in unison.

"Off the record," Aster said. "What's really happening in 
my town?"

There was a long moment of silence, and Scully could feel 
the deputy's ears burning from behind the front desk.

At last, Mulder said. "The important thing to remember, is 
that you're not the only one it's happening to."

Aster accepted this with an air of defeat that Scully hated 
to see. She had grown fond of this man and his 
professionalism and determination in the time they had 
worked together. But she knew the look of a person who 
could not accept the truth of his own memories. She saw 
that look in the mirror every day.

She offered Aster a tight-lipped smile, then followed 
Mulder into the golden heat of the afternoon. Another case 
that left more questions than answers. Sometimes it felt 
like all they ever did was watch the disasters unfold, then 
document the tragedies for future posterity.

*****

Mulder found it hard to believe so many flights could be 
backed up so far by storms when the sun was shining with 
unchallenged and arrogant authority over El Paso.

He and Scully stood with their carry-ons, leaning on a wall 
of windows, basking in the searing sun as they were 
deliciously soothed by the industrial airport air 
conditioning. They watched from their out-of-the-way perch 
as their estimated boarding time posted at the gate crept 
later and later with alarming regularity.

"I'm still not convinced, Scully," Mulder said. "I don't 
understand what happened to the Garcias. I don't think we 
ever explained it."

"I think we explained everything we can. Everything that's 
explainable."

"So you're saying the rest defied explanation, and was, 
therefore, by definition paranormal?"

Scully rolled her eyes. "I'm saying the rest was all 
together normal. Just weirdly coincidental, leading us to 
believe there was something more sinister at work. 
Something more than everyday military secrecy at a nuclear 
testing facility."

"Did we ever hear back from Veronica Garcia's doctor?" 
Mulder asked.

Scully shook her head. "No. But I don't think there's 
anything paranormal about not being able to get a doctor to 
call you back. I think we know all we're going to know of 
what happened here, Mulder."

"And you're happy with that?"

"Happy? Happy might be the wrong word. At peace, perhaps."

"And what about your own experiences? Your memories?"

Scully folded her arms across her chest. She sat back 
against the hand rail bisecting the window, ankles crossed, 
and frankly looking more like something on the cover of a 
women's glamour magazine than a travel-weary federal agent. 
She gazed off toward the far end of the terminal, eyes 
narrowed and brow furrowed. "I don't know. I don't if it 
was connected."

Mulder huffed out his incredulity. "What? How could it not 
be connected? You said the Black-Eyed Children spoke to you 
about Emily."

"They never used her name. I might have--"

"Scully, you told me you remembered *seeing* one of the 
Black-Eyed Kids during your abduction."

"Traumatic memories are notoriously unreliable. The brain 
fills in the gaps with what's familiar. I'd been staring at 
pictures of these Black-Eyed Children for days before the 
memory surfaced, so..."

Mulder began lightly but deliberately tapping his middle 
finger on the side of Scully's head.

Scully swatted his hand away, but she tangled her fingers 
with his as she lowered their arms, squeezed for a moment 
before she let go. He got the meaning. *Yes, Mulder, I'm 
ludicrously talking myself out of it, I know that, but I'm 
not ready to talk about this one so just let it 
ride.* After all these years, he had at last become 
functionally fluent in Scully as a second language.

"What's your theory?" she asked, turning to look up at him 
as she shifted the topic. Gaining confidence as she took 
back control. "Do you believe our paranoid artist? Do you 
think the Black-Eyed Children and the abductions are 
connected? Do you think they're both products of government 
experiments with advanced genetics?"

Mulder shook his head. "That's one theory, and it may yet 
be proven true, but we don't have enough proof so far. I'm 
confident the two are connected, yes, but I'm keeping my 
options open as to how and why."

Scully took that in, still puzzling the pieces in her head. 
"Fair enough," she said.

And then it happened. A flash like a visual gunshot in a 
beam of sunlight. A drop of scarlet blood trailing toward 
Scully's lip. She immediately lifted a hand to her nose, 
brushed at the liquid, looked at her finger, and cringed. 
"Dammit..."

"Scully?" His voice fell flat, as though the terminal no 
longer carried sound.

"No, it's okay, I just--"

Mulder didn't know when he pulled the handkerchief out of 
his pocket. But he was helping her bunch it to her nose. He 
still carried the handkerchiefs. Twenty years had passed, 
and he still carried the handkerchiefs.

Scully gathered the cloth from his hand, dabbed at her 
nose, but he kept his hands reached toward her, unable to 
move. His heart was in his throat and he could have sworn 
every other soul in the airport had disappeared into the 
sunlight.

"Scully, you didn't let them in, right?"

"What?" She glanced at him, distracted, brow creasing in 
confusion.

He spoke more insistently, hearing the harshness slip into 
his tone, but unable to quell the urgency, the panic. "They 
didn't come into your room? The Black-Eyed Children. Or 
into the car? Did you have any direct contact with them? 
Were they gone by the time you opened the door?"

"Mulder, no--"

"You were exposed to the radiation, could that--?"

"Mulder!" She raised her voice enough to get his attention, 
and probably that of a few other bystanders if there were, 
indeed, still other people in the world. Scully grabbed at 
his wrist, willed him to look at her eyes, not her nose 
(where the bleeding was stopping, it did seem to be 
stopping), and he complied; he always complied.

"Mulder, it's the dry air! And the elevation. It happened 
before, there's a raw place in the lining." She shook her 
head. "It's just the desert. I'm fine. I'm fine." She 
stroked his arm. Stroked down his sleeve, grasped his hand.

For a moment he was too frozen to process her words. As the 
sounds gradually took on meaning, he blurted out, "You're 
sure?"

"I'm sure. I'm fine."

He pinned her with his gaze, absorbed the truth in her 
eyes, and when it finally settled into his bones and 
brought him back to the present, the letdown was rather 
drastic. "Oh, my God. Oh, my God, Scully..." There were 
people around the terminal, again. Voices buzzing without 
words. He was lightheaded, and he blundered a few steps to 
drop gracelessly onto a molded plastic chair. He propped 
his arms on his knees and let his head hang forward. 
"Jesus..." he breathed, covering his face for a moment, 
then rubbing down his cheeks.

Scully immediately dropped to a crouch in front of him, 
their bags forgotten by the window. He could see the doctor 
cogs ticking in her brain, feel her visual assessment. Her 
expression was part worry, part amusement, and maybe a 
little bit touched. "Mulder..." she began. "Are you okay?" 
She rested her hand on his chest. "Your heart's racing."

He drew another much-needed breath. Breathing, yes he'd 
forgotten about that for a bit. "Jesus, Scully, you scared 
the crap out of me."

She rested a hand on his knee, the other coming to his 
shoulder. "It's okay. Honey, I'm fine. I promise."

"'Honey?'" He lifted his head, dropped his hands from his 
face. "How pale am I?"

Scully's expression was somewhere between confusion and 
hurt. "Wel--na--you're okay...I...I used to...I called 
you...." She seemed unable to find a sentence in her choppy 
sea of words.

"*Used to,*" he clarified. He meant only to sound firm but 
knew he was bordering on resentful.

Scully took this in, still crouched before him, hand 
resting supportively on his knee. Even now, when his focus 
was primarily on clearing the last of the spots from his 
vision before passing out in the fucking El Paso airport, 
he could not help but see that she was breathtakingly 
beautiful in the sun. Her eyes were so blue they seemed lit 
from within, freckles bright and playful, jaw line elegant 
and brave and deadly. She had managed to wipe away any 
trace of the blood from her skin. He had yet to fully wipe 
it from his brain. "Well, when we weren't," she began, "in 
a relationship, anymore, exactly. And then we started 
working together again, I couldn't be in the habit of..." 
Her lids lowered with the increasing sobriety of her words. 
"It's another way I've been keeping you at arms' length, 
isn't it. Pretending we could go back to before."

Mulder relented. He truly had not said this to make her 
feel bad. He was barely making sense at all right then. 
Overhead they were announcing another delay to their flight 
in Spanish. "Scully, you can call me Mulder, you can call 
me Charlie Brown if you want to, as long as you're okay."

"I'm fine," she said, patience and kindness warming her 
tone. "I'm just fine."

*****

Between the delayed flight and the lost time flying east, 
they didn't hit Reagan National until far after midnight. 
The halls of the terminal were dim and eerie, the shops 
darkened and uncomfortably still. He and Scully each 
ordered an Uber, and Mulder took advantage of the shadows 
and Scully's fatigue-dampened inhibitions to kiss her 
goodnight before sending her off in her ride.

The next day they were hit with a mountain of casework that 
had piled up while they had been gone. A case from a year 
prior was getting ready to go to trial, and there were at 
least a dozen possible x-files coming in from local law 
enforcement that Skinner had lined up for them to screen 
for worthiness.

On the second night, Mulder and Scully managed to sneak in 
a pleasant dinner at one of their favorite haunts, no work 
talk allowed. At the end of the night, they made plans for 
another meet-up on Saturday night.

On their third night back in D.C., Mulder was sitting in 
his living room, some sort of generic ghost hunting show 
running at low volume on the television, when he heard a 
large car pulling up the driveway. He rose and moved to the 
window near the door, pushed back the curtain, and in the 
day's last light, he saw Scully's monster of a sports 
utility parked in front of the house. Mulder pulled on the 
aging, dusty boots he kept beside the door, and by the time 
he stepped outside, Scully had emerged from the car, a 
duffle bag over her shoulder, and she was hefting a rolling 
suitcase from the backseat.

"Hey," he said, taking the few steps down from the porch. 
The night air had turned markedly cool. Scully was back in 
her long winter coat, no doubt missing the desert warmth.

She whipped her head around when he spoke; she must not 
have heard him while she had been leaning inside the car. 
"Hi," she said. She let her rolling suitcase drop to the 
ground with a thunk. Over her shoulder, shadowy shapes 
showed more items loaded in the far back of the vehicle.

Mulder stepped up, cradled her elbow and leaned down to 
kiss her cheek. Her skin was cool. "Didn't expect to see 
you tonight."

Scully looked up at him and he could feel the buzzing 
nerves, the suppressed anxiety. Clearly, he was missing 
some information. "Yeah," she said. "I'm sorry I 
didn't...call...I--"

"Scully, you don't have to call."

"No, I know, it's just..." She gripped the handle of her 
suitcase, stared up at him with her unfathomable blue eyes.

He lifted his eyebrows, prompting her to go on. "Are we 
going somewhere? A case I don't know about?"
"No, there's no case." She raised an eyebrow, held her 
silence for a moment, then she said simply, "Can I move 
home?"

*Oh, God, Scully.* Mulder closed his eyes, let go a heavy 
sigh.

He reached out his hand, and she reached back. He swung 
their linked hands between them. "Scully, there is nothing 
I would like more. But you don't have to do this. If you 
don't want to live together, if that's too much for you, I 
will still be here for you, wherever you need to call 
home." They held gazes in silence. He couldn't quite follow 
her internal train of thought. "But if you really want to 
be here," he continued carefully, "I will *always* want 
you."

Scully nodded, but her eyes were filling with tears, and 
she still wouldn't speak. The intensity in her gaze was 
almost devastating. Mulder took the heavy bag from her 
shoulder and set it on the stone behind him. He stepped 
close, slipped a hand beneath her open coat and rested it 
on her hip. "You really want to be here?" he asked gently.

She nodded. Bit her lip. "I really want to be here."

The evening breeze ruffled her hair, fluttered it across 
her cheek. He reached out and smoothed the rebellious 
strands behind one ear, caressed her wind-chilled cheek 
with his thumb. "You want a home where we fight to keep out 
the darkness."

Scully took a long moment to consider her words, her gaze 
fixed upon his dusty boots. "Mulder, the theory says that 
the Black-Eyed Children are coming to learn, right? 
That...they want to understand how human parents care for 
their children. They want to learn empathy."

She looked up at him, awaiting confirmation.

"That's one theory, yes. That the aliens themselves are 
learning how to successfully raise the hybrids, what their 
human sides need."

She nodded. "Well, if everyone is afraid of them...if 
everyone pushes those children away...they'll never learn. 
I think sometimes...you have to approach the darkness in 
order to bring light into those shadows."

He offered her a wistful smile. "That may be true, but 
Scully, you've already done your share. More than. You 
don't have to sacrifice any more. If you want to live in 
peace, you deserve to."

"Resting in peace is for when you're dead," she said. "Life 
is movement. Action. And what I *deserve...* is to live 
with the person I love the most in the world. And who 
hopefully still loves me the most."

"You know the answer to that."

She nodded, squeezed his hand. "I always wanted to be 
here," she said, words so soft he could barely hear. "But I 
just...I was scared. I got scared." Her voice was quivering 
and deeply intimate. Her chin trembled. She drew a wet 
breath, and a rogue tear spilled across his thumb.

"It's okay," he soothed. "We'll figure it out. Together."

"Together."

Mulder stroked her cheek, then he leaned in for a lingering 
and tender kiss. He could taste her tears. Her hair blew 
around them like a feathery shelter. "Don't be scared," he 
whispered.

She shook her head, tucked herself into his arms, and held 
on.

"Come on," he said, as the light dimmed and the wind gusts 
grew icier. "Let's get you and your stuff inside."

They carried everything into the house. Mulder discovered 
she had packed quite a lot for this first gesture. He found 
this oddly comforting.

When Scully had warmed up just enough that he could pry her 
out of her coat, he went to the kitchen to make her some 
hot tea. He returned to the living room with their mugs and 
found her standing at the mantle, carefully righting the 
gold framed print of their cottage by the sea. She dusted 
off the treasured object with her sweater sleeve. Then she 
carefully placed the picture just as it had always been. 
Mulder set the mugs on the end table. He stepped up and 
wrapped his arms around her from behind.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry."

"Sssshhhh..." He kissed her hair. "You still want to find a 
place by the water?" he asked, nestling his mouth against 
her ear.

"Maybe some day," she said. "But right now, I just want to 
be right here. It's our home."

*****

Work got crazy, again. They spent three days in Minnesota 
(fucking freezing Minnesota, dear God) chasing after a 
werewolf that turned out to be a crazy guy in a furry suit, 
albeit a murderous one, so time well spent.

When they were home, they barely managed to eat, change, 
and catch some sleep. But it proved surprisingly simple to 
fall back into a comfortable norm. They each knew their 
tasks around the house, knew what to expect from the other.

On Scully's tenth day back , she was sitting on the old and 
beaten-up couch, her back to one of the ends, hair tied up, 
blanket across her legs and laptop balanced on her knees. 
She had gotten properly absorbed in an article she was 
reading. A small notebook hovered on the back of the couch 
where she was scribbling occasional notes. She had been 
getting more and more interested in genetic evolution of 
late, wishing she could apply some of the...unorthodox 
evidence she had gathered in her years on the x-files to 
the current field of research. She had actually been 
contemplating shifting her focus to research for a while 
now. Perhaps when her body would no longer play up to her 
standards in the field she would go back for her PhD, try 
to contribute something lasting to the literature in the 
later years of her life.

She had gotten so engrossed in what she was reading, she 
hadn't even realized Mulder had returned to the room until 
he crouched down beside her. She looked up at him , mildly 
startled, and broke into a smile. She pulled out one of her 
earbuds. "Hey," she said softly.

Mulder's eyes crinkled in response, but he did not speak. 
He reached up and tenderly pushed back the tendrils of hair 
at her temple, rested a hand on her leg. There was a depth 
and intensity in his eyes that made her forget Dr. Dario 
Valenzano and the short lifespan of the African Turquoise 
Killfish.

She lifted her hand to encircle Mulder's wrist, frowned, 
asking her question with her eyes as much as her words. 
"What?"

Mulder shook his head, still looking at her with a 
sincerity and reverence that quickened her breath. He 
blinked slowly. Then, he shrugged one shoulder and said 
softly, "You're here."

On their couch. Living their life. As they had for so long. 
And had not in so long.

Scully drew a long breath, relaxed beneath the steady 
pressure of his touch. She held his gaze without waver, 
lifted her chin and let her lids slip to half mast. "I'm 
here," she said, voice low and steady.

She closed her eyes and leaned in, shifting until their 
foreheads touched. She pushed her laptop behind her legs 
and lifted a hand to cradle Mulder's cheek. She kissed his 
eyebrow, his temple. He kept his eyes closed and continued 
to breathe in this intimate space with her.

"I'm here," she whispered, lips brushing his ear. "I'm 
here."

After a long moment simply existing in each other's 
presence, Mulder kissed her tenderly on the lips, then he 
pushed to his feet saying, "Get back to work, Dr. Scully."

She watched after his retreating figure, feeling the 
lingering vibrations and the significance of the exchange. 
Then she pulled her laptop back onto her leg and tried to 
remember what she had been reading. She heard Mulder 
rooting about for the supplies to make tea.

*****

Sunday mornings might have been what he missed the most. At 
least the Sundays when they weren't off on a case, or 
running from one town to another. Sunday mornings in their 
home. When they would wake up to sunlight instead of an 
alarm, luxuriate in the simple pleasures, explore, touch, 
share.

This particular Sunday morning, Mulder had awakened Scully 
by trailing kisses in circles over her breasts. She had 
smiled before she even opened her eyes, kissed his lips 
before she spoke.

When they both had been thoroughly lavished and satisfied, 
Mulder had settled with his head in Scully's lap, and she 
had started reading headlines to him from her Kindle.

He was more tuned into the soft skin at the side of her 
ribs than the state of the world. But he realized the 
second time she asked, that she had changed subjects. 
"Hmmm?"

"The clippings on the table," she said. "What are they 
about?"

Oh. He had been researching an x-file. He had pulled out 
some old clippings from a storage box in the den, left them 
on the table last night.

"Oh, those?" he said. "That's nothing. Just an old x-file I 
was taking a look at."

Scully nudged his shoulder. "Come on. What are you onto?"

He shifted against her, rolled until he was resting his 
head in her lap, looking up at her. "Do you...you really 
want to know?"

She pursed her lips. "Were you going to bring it to me as a 
case?"

"Well...yes. When I had enough to show you."

She lifted an eyebrow. "So?"

"Well, I didn't think you would want it to intrude, outside 
the office."

Her eyes softened and she offered a muted smile. "Thank 
you," she said clearly. "And sometimes that is going to be 
true. But you're excited about this one, I can see it. So, 
tell me."

He stared up at her. "You want to hear? You want to hear 
about an x-file?"

"Like I said, Mulder...right now, I want to be on the x-
files. So, show me what I'm getting into next."

He held her gaze for another long moment, then he pushed up 
and gave her a lingering kiss that made her smile. He 
flipped around, reached down beside the bed, and came up 
with a Chromebook, already open to the relevant file.

"You gotta see these pictures, Scully. I sent this to Kyle, 
he went over this stuff with a fine tooth comb, he can't 
find any evidence of alteration."

She settled against the headboard beside him, still only in 
silk and black lace, but focused and professional in 
manner. "What am I looking at?"

"You are looking...," he paused for dramatic effect, "...at 
the first legitimate, documented sighting since 2011 -- of 
the Fresno Nightcrawlers!"

"The Fres--the what?"

Mulder blinked. "You haven't heard of the Fresno 
Nightcrawlers?"

"No. Mulder. No, I haven't. But I'm about to, aren't I?"

"Hey, you asked me to show you this."

"Yes," she said, a sweet and self-satisfied grin creeping 
across her lips. "Yes, I did. Mulder?"

"Yes?"

"What are the Fresno Nightcrawlers?"

"Get ready for this, Scully, 'cause these things are creepy 
as hell."

*****

#

(End of Chapter 20, End of "Bridges")