A Dim Capacity For Wings (2/3)
by Aloysia Virgata

DISTRIBUTION/FEEDBACK: Just let me know first on 
distribution. Feedback always welcomed and appreciated at 
aloysia.virgata@yahoo.com 

RATING: R

CLASSIFICATION: MSR

SPOILERS: This is post The Truth, so anything is fair game.

SUMMARY: This story is prequel to another one I wrote 
called Inhaling The Different Dawn is therefore AU.

DISCLAIMER: Breaking seal constitutes acceptance of 
agreement. Proceed at your own risk. Do not use while 
operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. For 
recreational purposes only. Driver does not carry cash. 
And, as always, thank you for choosing Aloysia Airlines for 
your direct flight from 1013 to fanfic.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: When the previews (and early spoilers) for 
IWTB first came out, I wrote a fic based on a conversation 
Scarlet Baldy and I had about how I things might have gone 
between The Truth and IWTB. In that story, I had them 
married because rumors were flying around about a band on 
Mulder's right ring finger. I thought it best to cover all 
my bases just in case. Really though, I never saw them as 
the marrying type and I decided to write a prequel to 
explore a situation in which I could see them getting 
married. So...I basically fanwanked my own fic. *laugh*

Many, many thanks to Scarlet Baldy for patiently editing 
numerous drafts with such care, and to Amal Nahurriyeh for 
squeezing in a look-see of the final draft during a very 
busy time for her. The title is from Emily Dickinson's poem 
that begins My Cocoon tightens-Colors tease-.

Reading the other story first will help this story make 
more sense in places, but it's not necessary to understand 
anything. You can find it here:  
http://undertherug.insatiable-
mind.net/Aloysia/Aloysia_files/dawn.html

Author's Notes continued at the end of Part 3.

***

"I'm going on a picnic and I'm bringing Berger cookies, 
pizza from Paradiso's, licensure to practice medicine in 
the state of Virginia, season's tickets to the Knicks' 
games, a Farouk CHI flat iron, a Maxa Beam flashlight, a 
scanning electron microscope, and some cannoli from that 
mean old guy on Pennsylvania Avenue."

Scully, who is folding towels on the kitchen table, pauses 
to scratch a mosquito bite on her leg. "He went out of 
business right after you left," she says. "Moved back to 
Sicily. You have to pick something else."

"What? No I don't." Mulder, washing dishes, looks put out. 
Whether it's by the loss of the distant cannoli or her 
decree is anyone's guess.

"You do. It's in the rules. You have to pick something you 
can actually have."

"You're cheating."

"I never cheat," she says with a touch of asperity. 

"No, I suppose you don't. You just bend the rules beyond 
the point of recognition to ensure your triumph."

Scully deals him a look full of withering irony.

"Which I've always liked about you," he adds.

"Are you forfeiting?" she queries, rising from the table to 
join him at the counter.

"It's a moral victory."

"Mmm," she says, putting away the clean silverware. "You 
have a lot of those, don't you?"

"You wouldn't know anything about it. Cheater." He scrapes 
cheese off of a dinner plate and flicks the garbage 
disposal on for a moment.

She likes this. She likes the playful sniping while washing 
dishes at her own sink in her own house. They've been 
living on Black Dog Lane for ten days now and the thrill is 
far from wearing off. Scully, without a landlord for the 
first time in her adult life, has happily stocked up on 
home repair books in anticipation of something breaking so 
that she can fix it. 

Her work, while not intellectually stimulating, is 
enjoyable. It keeps her fit and busy and, tentatively, 
she's begun making friends. Lorelei invited her to the 
weekly trivia night she and some girlfriends attend at the 
bar, and Scully - to her own great surprise - accepted. 
Mulder's already begun teasing her about it, asking if 
Arlene's pub quiz is likely to feature categories such as 
Use of Computerized Tomography in Postmortem Exams or 
Implications of Telomere Shortening. The veterinarian at 
the shelter, impressed by her "natural ability," has been 
urging her to go to school and become a vet tech. 

"Let's take a vacation," she says suddenly. "Somewhere 
nice."

"We're pretty much broke," he reminds her. "You went a 
little nuts with the FLERVIKS, although we do now have a 
handsome set of Allen wrenches."

"Well, yes. But I like having long-term goals in mind."

"Isn't 'not getting arrested by our former colleagues' a 
good long-term goal? Because it tops my list at present, I 
have to tell you."

She waves her hand dismissively. "A few dollars into a 
savings account whenever we can spare it. Where do you want 
to go?"

He dries the last glass and looks thoughtful. "I saw an 
article about silicon-based worms in a lake just outside a 
remote Mongolian village. We could go there and drink 
fermented mare's milk. Live in a yurt."

Scully regards him with both contempt and suspicion, long 
years of red-eye flights and hospital stays having taught 
her not to dismiss any apparent lunacy outright. 
"Congratulations," she says. "You're fired from the 
planning committee."

He sits down at the table and starts pairing up socks. "You 
don't think a yurt sounds fun?" 

"I don't believe you even think a yurt sounds fun. It's 
just a systems check, to see if you can still convince me 
to go somewhere insane. I was hoping we might...um. I 
wanted to go somewhere kind of more romantic." She says the 
last word shyly, even as she pictures them lounging in 
hammocks and drinking elaborate cocktails ornamented with 
fruit. She's never really been on a big vacation.

Mulder's looking at her warmly, which makes her feel shyer. 
"How about Paris?" he asks. "Paris is romantic, right? I 
think you'd love it. I used to go with Phoe- ellow students 
when I was at Oxford," he finishes lamely. 

She laughs. "You think I'm jealous of your girlfriend 
from...what? Twenty years ago?" That sociopath who had you 
wrapped around her trigger finger, she doesn't say, certain 
that Mulder knows exactly what she thinks of his weakness 
for leggy, socially maladjusted brunettes.

He cocks an eyebrow at her. "Oh, let's not be coy. You were 
a little weird when she was in."

"*She* was a little weird." Scully clears her throat. "Oh 
Fox, darling, I hope you won't think me rude if I engage in 
a little deranged psychological warfare."

Mulder laughs. "Your RP is impressive as ever."

"Thank you. I own the entire Jeeves and Wooster DVD 
collection. Owned. Own?" The verbs tenses of her parallel 
lives have become slippery.

"Own. I won't torture you with remembrances of past loves. 
So let's forget Paris. We'll pick somewhere neither of us 
has been before. Clean slate, right?"

Scully looks out the window, where feathery moths swirl 
around the porch light like snow. "I guess that rules out 
Antarctica," she observes.

"Alas, it does. And the Arctic Circle. Norway's off the 
list too."

"Don't forget the Ivory Coast." 

"Several hundred dreary little towns throughout this great 
nation."

Scully sighs. "How come no one ever gets eaten by sea 
monsters or beset by vampires in Hawaii?"

"They do. It's an elaborate cover-up perpetrated by the 
State Board of Tourism. I'd take you there and prove it, 
but Hawaii's out too. My dad used to go there on a golf 
vacation in the summer, and he'd bring us along sometimes." 

"Jamaica?"

"Roommate's stag weekend." Mulder sounds apologetic.

"Aruba?"

He perks up. "Never been."

"Good. That'll be the plan then."

Mulder rewards her with an off-key chorus of Kokomo, and 
puts the last pair of socks in the basket. "I got you a 
housewarming present," he says. "I know it's a little 
belated and it's also kind of self-serving, but anyway. I 
hope you like it.

Lingerie, she thinks in abject mortification. He's gone and 
purchased some kind of tacky lace confection and it's going 
to be awkward and horrifying. "You didn't have to get me 
anything," she says a little too fast. "I didn't buy you a 
present." 

"As I said, this one's self-serving. Come on outside and 
I'll show you."

She cocks her head, curiosity stirring in her, and she sees 
Mulder smile to have the upper hand. There's no chance of 
him ever wearying of surprises. She gets up and follows him 
to the sliding glass doors that lead to the back deck.

The silvered pine planks creak a little beneath her bare 
feet, and she slips on the green flip flops next to the 
steps. They both pause to spray themselves with Off!, then 
walk down to the overgrown flagstone path that winds back 
behind the woodshed. The air is tangy with the scent of 
windblown crabapples turning to cider in the grass.

Mulder leads her down through the stand of cottonwood trees 
at the back end of Leonard's Pond which is fed, in part, by 
the stream that circles the edge of their property. The 
water is purple and orange with the reflected sunset, the 
surface alive with tiny splashes and eddies. "Happy 
housewarming," he says, pointing.

She gives him a questioning look. 

He presses his finger to her chin, steering her head to the 
left where a bright red jon boat bobs in the rippling 
water. There are white letters on the side and an Evinrude 
outboard on the back

"You got me a boat?" She squints at the letters, then grins 
broadly. "Pequod," she says. 

He shrugs, jamming his hands into his pockets, looking 
pleased and embarrassed. "I know it isn't exactly a 
whaleship, but there aren't many whales around here and 
besides, I didn't need Greenpeace gunning for me along with 
everybody else."

Her face hurts from smiling. "You got me a boat," she 
repeats, walking along the water's edge to the little dock 
where the Pequod is tied. It's stocked with a few rods and 
a sturdy long-handled net. She sees a tackle box under the 
center bench and thinks of Mulder as an Indian Guide in New 
England, tracking woodland creatures and fly-fishing for 
striped bass.

"It's used," he says, with an air of self deprecation. "But 
I patched it up pretty good and repainted it, and the motor 
works great now. The guy I bought it from is bringing the 
boat trailer over tomorrow morning when he gets his new 
one, but I wanted you to see it in the water first anyway."

Scully crouches down and runs her finger over the glossy 
paint, listening to the small waves lap at the sides. She 
closes her eyes and breathes deeply, drawing in the smell 
of wet rope and wood, the music of living water.

"I'm glad you like it," he says from behind her. "I thought 
we might take it for a spin on Saturday and catch something 
to go with that raspberry pie Vera promised."

She gazes at the boat again, smiling. "I love it," she says 
softly, hearing the thickness in her voice. "Thank you." 
She gets to her feet, stepping close to him. Her fingers 
absently fiddle with his buttons as she stares up and lets 
him read her eyes. It doesn't make her uncomfortable 
anymore, acknowledging the breathless thing that crackles 
between them, but the words are still skittish when she 
tries to summon them. 

//Never show 'em your hand, Starbuck. And never show 'em 
how much you have to lose.//

Scully reaches down and twines her fingers through his, 
their once-smooth white collar hands now callused and 
scarred. "Come on," she says, pulling him back to the 
cottonwood grove. Clusters of aspens mingle throughout, 
their tremulous leaves fluttering in the light breeze. 
Green-gold light filters through the canopy, dappling them 
both with shadowed camouflage, and through the trees she 
sees a kestrel swoop to the pond, snapping up something 
bright and thrashing. She is overcome by the fitness of 
things, by the ruffled saprophytes on fallen trees and a 
fat raccoon snatching crayfish with its clever paws.

She sits down against an evergreen trunk, the bark scraping 
her back, the lime green fuzz of moss soft against her 
calf. Mulder sits next to her, folding his long legs to the 
side. The sun catches the silver threads in his hair, 
highlighting his skin like a rustic god from a Waterhouse 
painting. 

Scully leans over and kisses him, and his work roughened 
hands make her shiver when they ease under her shirt. He 
fumbles at her bra with boyish haste, his mouth warm at her 
neck while she tugs first at the fastenings of his shorts, 
then of her own. Her underwear are still hooked around her 
left knee when he pulls her onto his lap. Scully settles 
against his thighs, drawing him inside her as he braces his 
hands between the hard wings of her scapulae. 

She traces the outlines of his features with a nail, 
marveling at the fine lines of his mouth, the way his 
eyelids are creased with all the delicacy of a paper crane. 
There is nothing hurried, nothing urgent, both of them old 
enough to know that harder and faster often makes for 
better porn than sex. Her lips are parted slightly, drying 
with her quickening breath, and her tongue slips out to 
moisten them. Mulder meets it with his own, hand sliding up 
to cradle the back of her head as he tips her down against 
the cool, damp earth.

Her hair is tangled in the undergrowth, infused with the 
spicy oils of crushed ferns and pennyroyal, and Mulder is 
above her with his eyes closed and the tendons of his neck 
in bas relief. The moment is vivid, lush with sensation and 
color and she knows in some deep down way that if she lives 
to be very old, she will recall it in minute detail. She 
focuses on the interweaving of their bodies, his arm 
crooked beneath her head, her knee drawn like a bow against 
his hip. They move with practiced certainty, drawing ragged 
sighs and whispered entreaties, muted counterpoints to the 
sharp violins of the crickets.

When he opens his eyes she can see herself reflected in 
them, a dryad in the wood. Her life, for all its many 
poverties, is rich in this instant. Love, deep and 
boundless, catches her up in its arms, coaxing from her 
throat all the things she thought she must never say.


***


Those first weeks after they started running are a dark 
smear in her memory, when the anger hummed like electricity 
and resentment coated the very air with a greasy film. The 
sex was frequent and often loud because they'd earned it, 
goddammit, even if it was had partially to punish each 
other and partially to punish themselves. Sometimes the 
rickety bed would squeak as he moved behind her, her eyes 
fixed on the cheap paneling as her hands gripped the 
particle wood headboard. She liked him looking at her 
tattoo, reminding him she'd belonged to other people before 
she'd run with him into the wasteland. Other times she 
clutched his weight against her, bruising her hips with 
his, biting her lip until her mouth was bright with the 
cold metal taste of blood. 

She was never on top, hating to be conscious of him looking 
at her - the faint stretch marks above her pelvic bone, the 
waxy star of scar tissue that shone on her belly. The way 
he made her pupils dilate and her white skin bloom to rose. 
Every night with him was a one night stand, unacknowledged 
by daylight as she draped herself with a sheet to walk from 
the bed to the rattling shower. She felt his eyes on her, 
knowing that he was taking stock of her idiosyncrasies, 
profiling her intimacy issues and her tendency to 
compartmentalize.

She'd curse him quietly as she scrubbed him from her skin.

It was a scorching July morning - five weeks after her life 
ended - and Mulder was sitting on the bed eating Raisin 
Bran from a scuffed plastic mixing bowl. She came out of 
the bathroom wrapped in a towel and curls of steam, 
smelling of Ivory soap and Lubriderm.

"I love you," he said, making her freeze.

She looked at him in silence for far longer than courtesy 
permitted.

"I just thought you should know that," he went on. "I 
thought you should know that it's why I left you and why I 
came back and why I can stand living like this." 

He didn't elaborate on "this," but she could fill in the 
blanks. //Without my son. With a bounty on my head. With 
the knowledge that Doomsday clock is ticking down. With a 
woman who will only let me touch her when she can't look at 
me.// Pigeons squabbled at the window, the air conditioner 
clattered and whined, but all she could hear was the 
deafening silence in the room.

"Okay," she said, not wanting to bear the responsibility of 
his pronouncement. Didn't he understand that it panicked 
her to be needed, to be expected to need in return? That 
it's why she ministered to the dead? To confess her 
feelings for him aloud, to surrender another piece of 
herself when she was so close to broken was more than she 
knew how to give.

She caught a slice of her reflection in the mirror, 
disliking what she saw. Whippet-thin, long wet hair 
dragging out her sharp chin and nose, her eyes too big and 
dark-circled. She looked like an old time consumptive 
heroine, one of those feverish ingenues who reclined 
delicately on brocade cushions, fading like flowers as they 
spat blood into point lace handkerchiefs. 

The mirror showed Mulder on the bed, unshaven and unhappy, 
hurt weighing down his eyes and lower lip. She imagined she 
could fall through the image like water, and that on the 
other side Looking-Glass Scully could be kind to him and to 
herself. I'm better than this, she thought angrily, though 
the anger was vague and undefined, wandering through her in 
search of a target. It stopped briefly at her father's 
grave and resented him for the lesson of her proud 
austerity.

"Mulder," said the Captain's daughter as she settled on the 
bed. She touched his wrist with careful fingers, feeling 
his heart keep time with her own. "I'm here because I want 
to be with you. I know..." she cleared her throat, blinking 
rapidly. "I know I'm not very good at conveying that. But 
I'm here."

He set the bowl of cereal on the night table, then turned 
to her again. Leaning forward, his forearms grazing her 
shoulders, he gathered her dripping hair at the base of her 
head, wringing it out so that a thin trickle of water ran 
down her back until the towel drank it up. His bare chest 
was warm against hers, his breath tickling the sweep of her 
neck. He twined her hair into a thick braid, then took her 
by the shoulders and held her at arm's length.

"I couldn't see you before," he said, brushing a few loose 
strands from her face.

"I'm hungry," she told him, feeling naked without her veil 
of hair. "I want to go get a burger."

"We'll be okay, Scully," he assured her, making goosebumps 
rise where his breath touched her skin. "We're always okay, 
right?"

Scully rested her hand on his knee. She felt herself 
filling up with something other than nothing.

***

Mulder's out in the barn, loading up the blue pickup with 
two-by-fours to patch up a section of fencing. They have a 
nice piney smell, and make satisfying clunking sounds as he 
stacks them. He hears light footsteps from behind the truck 
and turns as Vera emerges around the corner, her black 
riding boots caked with mud.

"Morning, Andrew," she says in her melting drawl. Vera is 
not blessed with beauty in any conventional sense of the 
term, but her voice regularly makes people weak in the 
knees. Mulder thinks it sounds like buttermilk biscuits and 
sun tea. She sings at Arlene's sometimes too, music 
rippling out of her like a wind-plucked harp.

"Morning, Vera," Mulder replies, sliding another board into 
place. He brushes his hands off against his jeans, watching 
the dust filter lazily earthward in broad shafts of morning 
light.

"I ran into Audrey from the post office over to the donut 
shop this morning and she said there's a certified letter 
there for you." 

He snaps to attention. "What?"

"Yep. Audrey says it's from Washington, DC. Which she 
probably shouldn't have told me, but she did because her 
damn tongue's hung in the middle and flaps at both ends." 
Vera holds out a paper bag slightly stained with donut 
grease. "Here. I got you a cruller." 

"Thanks," he says, fighting surge of panic as he accepts 
the bag, wondering if Vera can hear his heart pounding like 
the hoofbeats of her Thoroughbreds. Mulder feels like his 
throat is closing up, like the air is thickening and 
condensing into something toxic and unbreathable. 

"Um." He looks up, forcing a smile onto his face. "Don't 
mention the letter to Lauren, would you? I...this is about a 
surprise for her." Surprise, Scully! We're fucked.

Vera smiles at him, twisting her long salt and pepper hair 
into a knot at the nape of her suntanned neck. "I won't 
breathe a word. Oh, hey. Y'all should send out some moving 
announcements," she suggests. "I've been wanting to throw 
you a housewarming party."

"Oh, well, you don't have to do that," he says, hoping his 
distracted tone will be mistaken for awkward gratitude 

"Yeah, yeah. Andrew, go get the letter now. The fence can 
wait. Lauren moved Black Cadillac and Santeria to the front 
paddock last night, so there's no hurry. Surprises are more 
important." She jerks her head at the truck and winks.

Her voice is coming from a long way off, down a metal tube 
or a tunnel. He mumbles something vague and grateful before 
climbing into the pickup. She gives a friendly wave and 
heads into the tack room. Mulder watches her, watches her 
starting out a regular day without knowing she just handed 
pastry to a dead man walking. 

Mulder drives along the rutted dirt track that leads out to 
the road, his skin crawling and his heart feeling as though 
it might explode. The two by fours rattle behind him like 
the sound of another vehicle following close behind. Get a 
grip, he orders himself. You don't know it's anything bad. 
It could be totally innocuous. Something from the IRS or 
the Census Bureau.

The miles disappear under a steady hum of panic and, 
suddenly, he finds himself parking at the red brick post 
office. He gets out of the cab, swallowing hard as he opens 
the heavy door.

"Well, well. Look what the cat drug in," exclaims Audrey, 
patting a hand over her sleek black ringlets. "Morning, 
handsome. I reckon you're here about that letter." She 
drapes herself over the Formica counter, resting her chin 
on a slim brown hand. Audrey used to be a local beauty 
queen, and likes to cast soulful glances at Mulder from her 
stunning brown eyes. Scully finds Audrey amusing.

"Can you give it to me please? 

"I was hoping you'd ask me that eventually." She winks at 
him, tongue poking through her teeth a little.

His body is tingling with impatience, and state-mandated 
death is the only thing stopping him from leaping over the 
counter and sorting through the mail himself. He grits his 
teeth. "Audrey. I am in a hurry. And don't say anything to 
Lauren about this if you see her." //And if you do I will 
get your ass fired// hangs unspokenly in the air between 
them.

"Asking me to keep secrets from your girlfriend? You ought 
to be ashamed, you bad thing."

"I believe there are at least four laws in place governing 
the destruction, obstruction and delay of mail," he informs 
her.

Audrey stands huffily, turning to retrieve a manila 
envelope from a shelf, then slaps it down in front of him. 
She holds out a pen, letting their fingers touch when he 
takes it. "Sign, please," she murmurs, pointing at a blank 
line on the green return receipt. Mulder reminds himself to 
sign Andrew Zeller, and takes the envelope without another 
word to Audrey.

He walks back to the pickup, his thumb worrying the edge of 
the Certified Mail sticker. The handwriting on the envelope 
is smooth and fluid - no crappy Bic pens here - and the 
imprint suggests it was written on a blotter. There's 
something hard and flat off to one side. Dread and 
curiosity mingle as he tosses it on the passenger's seat, 
where it sits like a pin-pulled grenade.

Mulder drives back to the horse farm, turns off the central 
track into a small clearing where a short but steep hill 
leads down to the compost heap. He shuts off the engine and 
picks up the envelope again. He stares at it, wondering if 
he should rig up some kind of hazmat suit, and then decides 
that if anyone were really trying to kill him, they 
wouldn't bother with anything as unreliable as sending 
biotoxins through the post office.

Darkly comforted by this assessment, he tears the envelope 
open, tipping out two passports, two driver's licenses, and 
two American Express cards onto the seat. A quick 
examination reveals that these items bear names Fox W. 
Mulder and Dana K. Scully. Hands shaking, he withdraws a 
sheet of paper, folded into thirds. He can see the FBI seal 
through the cream-colored stationery.

He unfolds the letter and reads.

Mr. Mulder, 

It is my privilege to inform you that all charges against 
you have been dropped. Recently declassified CIA documents 
have come to light linking you with a deep-cover operation 
to detect and neutralize enemy operatives infiltrating the 
highest levels of our government. Knowle Rohrer, as you are 
obviously aware, was named as one such operative. All 
parties involved regret that the highly classified nature 
of these documents prevented you from speaking of them at 
your trial, but respect your integrity even at the risk of 
your own life. You and Dr. Scully - who will have all the 
credentials of her profession restored - may, if you wish, 
be fully reinstated as Special Agents with the Federal 
Bureau of Investigation. All of your seized financial 
assets are now available to you.

Prior to and during your absence, an international 
collective of experts has been working on perfecting the 
vaccine you and Dr. Scully encountered five years ago to 
make it viable for widespread distribution. Clinical trials 
are extremely promising, and your continued involvement in 
such intelligence would be welcome and appreciated if you 
wish to participate. Enclosed are valid forms of 
identification, as well as credit cards in your names, 
which you may activate when you see fit. Funds for lost 
wages, estimated travel and living expenses, as well as 
compensatory restitution will be made available to you upon 
your return to Washington, where the Director and myself 
both wish to meet with you and Dr. Scully.

If I do not hear from you, there will be no further contact 
made.

Regards,

Alvin Kersh 
Deputy Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation

Mulder gapes, scanning the letter twice more in a daze. The 
FBI letterhead is the same stuff he and Scully had reams 
of, stored in a plastic bin in their office. He touches a 
finger to the imprint of Kersh's familiar signature. It's 
real. It's all real. They can stop hauling hay and manure. 
He can take Scully to Aruba, where they will spend a month 
drunk and ordering room service. She can see her nieces and 
nephews - if her family will speak to her.

If they follow the rules.

The subtext is clear - stick to the party line, you can 
come home a hero, and heck, we'll even let you help save 
the world. He suddenly feels cheap and used and so very, 
very fucking angry that they threw him out with the trash 
and then had the balls to send him this...this...*thing* in 
the mail. 

He has an unexpected swell of loneliness at the thought of 
leaving Black Dog Lane. They have a life here now. He and 
Scully have played pool with Lorelei and her husband Dwight 
a couple of times, and he's become a regular feature at the 
baseball games. People sent them casseroles and pies when 
they moved into their little blue house with clematis 
climbing up the siding. Scully is the uncontested champion 
of Arlene's weekly trivia contest. What in the hell is 
waiting for them back in DC? Margaret Scully moved to San 
Diego after learning what had become of William. Life here 
is real - settled - but he has a powerful longing to go 
back to the familiar as well. 

He went along with Scully's dreamworld of absolution, 
though he never thought they'd actually be exonerated. But 
he realizes now that he had formulated a hazy fantasy in 
his own mind. There would be a helicopter, formal 
apologies, something in the papers about FBI AGENT FALSELY 
ACCUSED! But this?  A bribe and a cock and bull story about 
the CIA thanking him for electrocuting an alien clone? 
Mulder and Scully, Andrew and Lauren...he's strung between 
two truths like a spider web, and all he can catch are 
lies.

To live the lie, you have to believe it.

Flashes come, some real memories and some only things 
imagined, all blurring together at the edges. Scully chip-
implanted, cancer-snared, and gut-shot. Scully with her lip 
split and her eye blacked, Pfaster smashing her porcelain 
face against the glass. Emily dying by inches behind the 
window. Dead sisters, dead fathers, curls of cigarette 
smoke, the gray fingers of cadavers, and Scully with a 
scalpel and a gun. Her stricken face, her tired eyes and 
all of it replayed in a hundred, a thousand hotel rooms. 

He is afraid to risk going back to it even tangentially 
because, truth be told, he doesn't trust himself to stay 
away. He misses his badge, he misses his gun, he misses 
being backed - however grudgingly - by the might and main 
of the federal government. They owe him now. Owe him big 
time, and he is sorely tempted to cash in on that and ask 
some very serious questions. The vaccine tantalizes him. 
But he cannot let it touch her again, that broken life that 
took and took and took and left them both with nothing.

Mulder crumples up the letter, stretches his arm back with 
the lazy grace of an athlete, and is about to toss the wad 
of paper through the open passenger's window and down into 
the compost heap when he sees the sun reflecting off of 
Scully's shiny new AmEx. 

He drops his hand to his lap and smoothes the paper over 
his thigh. 

She can be a doctor again. An FBI agent, if she wants. 
They'd probably make her Surgeon General if she asked, just 
to keep her mouth shut. He knows at this point she'd swear 
on the proverbial stack of Bibles that Jesus himself 
descended from Heaven and commanded the CIA to have Mulder 
dispose of Knowle Rohrer, Jimmy Hoffa, and the Tylenol 
Killer if it meant she could go home. She still does not 
always see things as he does.

He remembers the small bundle of his son, imagines Scully 
handing him over to strangers because she didn't know what 
else to do. The old life touches them every day, no matter 
where they go. He shoves the letter, the identification, 
and the credit cards into his pocket.

Mulder rests his head against the steering wheel and, for 
the first time in years, he cries.

***

There's a note stuck to the door when he gets home late 
that afternoon. 

Ishmael

Hope you're in the mood for bass
Come down to the water when you get this

Starbuck

He goes back down the steps, walking around the side of the 
house and down the path to the water. Out towards the 
middle of the pond, Scully's sprawled in her boat wearing a 
black bathing suit and a pair of green shorts, her fingers 
lazily skimming the water. Her face is half obscured by a 
pair of sunglasses, her legs draped carelessly across the 
center bench. A fishing pole lies half-propped at the end 
opposite her, balanced between two small coolers. 

Tell her. Tell her now. Get her out of that piece of shit 
boat and aboard a plane.

But he can't. Not yet. I'll know when the time is right, 
Mulder thinks, rationalizing at warp speed. The moment will 
present itself.

"Woman!" he yells. "What do you mean with this shirking? 
I've been working hard all day, dammit. Fetch me a 
martini."

She raises her fingers from the water, flips him off, and 
then rests her hand across her stomach. 

The person in the boat, he knows, isn't Scully anymore. Or 
Dana. She's a new entity altogether, formed from this 
patchwork of tragedy, and he's not quite ready to risk 
giving up her freckled nose and easy laugh. Mulder tugs his 
shirt over his head, unbuttons his jeans, and drops them 
both to the grass before wading into the pond in his 
boxers. The water is warm, and he submerges himself 
entirely as he swims. He quickly covers the distance to the 
Pequod and pulls himself partially up on the side, chin 
resting on his folded arms as he treads water.

"Hello," he says. "I've come for the grog and wenches."

She slides her sunglasses partway down her nose and offers 
him an amused look. "I'm busy here. The bar and brothel are 
closed for business until further notice."

"I'm prepared to board your craft," he informs her, rocking 
the boat back and forth. "And I take no prisoners."

She laughs. "Come on in then. I don't want you dumping out 
all my fish to prove a point." 

He hoists himself into the boat, squelching as he settles 
on the bench. "Hi honey, how was your day?" he asks in a 
falsetto as he takes one of her feet and massages the arch 
with his thumb.

"Mmm," she says. "If I say it was terrible will you keep 
doing that out of sympathy?" She presses her toes into his 
palm and he shivers a little - the casual intimacy between 
them still throwing him for a loop now and again. How the 
hell did they get here? How did his hand go from barely 
brushing the waist of her sleek black jackets to being 
curved around the instep of her suntanned foot?

"I'll do it just to be nice. So how was your day really?"

"It was great, actually. I took that new mare out for a 
bit, then helped Lorelei with the chicks. Adopted out six 
cats and that donkey from the shelter. Came home, caught 
dinner. Got boarded by a pirate." She flexes her foot 
experimentally, then nudges the other one into his hands. 
"You?"

Got exonerated by the federal government and cried like a 
girl. Also apparently decided to lie to you indefinitely. 

He shrugs. "Eh, you know. Fixed the fence. You bringing 
those horses back down later?"   

"No. Vera wants me to come to her book club."

"You're funny."

She pokes him in the stomach with her toe. "I'm serious. 
What, you don't think I can be in a book club? I used to 
have a life, back before you knew me. Girlfriends. We 
engaged in social behaviors. I thought I might try it 
again, see what it's like."

Mulder laughs like he hadn't actually forgotten this. "So 
what has the Oprah commanded you all to discuss?"

"Hannibal," she replies. "It's about a female FBI agent who 
gives up everything to go on the run with a former 
psychiatric specialist wanted for murder. Can you imagine?"

He flicks her ankle. "Cute. What are you really reading?"

Scully squirms a little. "The Da Vinci Code," she mumbles.

"I'm sorry, what was that? I couldn't hear you over the 
sound of your cerebral cortex screaming for mercy."

She glares. "The point is that we're putting down roots 
here, and it feels good. It feels like we finally have a 
home."

Everything is going wrong, he thinks. She's supposed to be 
restless and unfulfilled so I can save the day with that 
evil fucking letter. She's not supposed to be going to book 
clubs. "What about your Berger cookies and Virginia medical 
license?  What about my cannoli?"

She laughs. "I'm not giving up on the belief that this will 
end. But in the interim? Things are good. They're better 
than good. I'm happy here, all things considered." She 
cocks her head thoughtfully. "And I can buy cookies online, 
now that we have an address to send them to." 

He smiles carefully. "So would you give it all up today to 
be a pathologist again?"

"Interesting question. I'd have to say no."

He can actually feel his jaw drop. "No?"

"I mean I wouldn't want to be a pathologist again. I 
just...I'm done with the FBI for good, and there would 
be...I don't know. Too many memories, I guess." She looks 
nervous. "If I ever got to practice medicine again though? 
I'd, um, I'd like to see if I could start a residency in 
pediatrics. If, if, if..." She finishes with a small laugh. 

Jesus. She wants to be a pediatrician. Any freshman in 
Psych 101 could figure that one out. Tell her NOW, says the 
voice again. This is your moment. Be her goddamned hero.  
But his throat closes up. 

"You will," he manages to choke out, the words thick and 
strangled-sounding. "I promise."

Concern flashes across her face and she sits up. "What's 
the matter?"

"I think I have one of those late summer colds coming on." 
He coughs a little for effect. "I'll take some NyQuil 
before bed tonight."

She eyes him up suspiciously, but lets it go. For the 
moment, he knows.

"Okay. Well, we need to head ashore. I want to get the fish 
on the grill and hop in the shower."

"You hop and I'll make dinner," he says. "And I want to 
hear about the book club when you get back. All the gory 
details."

"I would," she replies. "But the first rule of Book Club is 
-"

"-you don't talk about Book Club," they finish together, 
grinning.

He reaches around behind them to start the motor and steer 
them back to shore.

***

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