George Hale (2/17)
by invisiblefriends

Feedback: bettyteddyandray@gmail.com
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After IWTB, life goes on.


Chapter 2

"Mulder," she calls, careful not to let the screen door slam
behind them.

"Hey, Scully," His tired voice floats out from the office with
forced lightness. She knows that tone. He has had a crappy day
and her surprise won't help.

Scully gently opens the door to his office. "Turn around. I have
someone for you to meet."

Words Mulder hates. Someone to meet. *Someone new to make
you doubt who you are again.*

He finishes a sentence - the best he can come up with in an hour - 
by typing *shitshitshit* He jams in an exclamation point after the 
last *shit* and hits *Alt Tab.*

Then, he slowly turns around.

Scully is standing in the doorway smiling - beaming almost -
with a leash in her hand. Attached to the leash is a thin, timid,
tan pit-bull. He has a wide ring of white fur around his muzzle.
A patch of white marks his chest. His eyes are chestnut brown.
There are old scars on his head. And he is shaking.

"This is George Hale," Scully says proudly.

Mulder looks back and forth between Scully and the dog. "I
thought you didn't believe in re-incarnation, Scully."

She throws him a look of appreciation and steps into the room.
The dog stays at the other end of the leash, safe where he is. "I
adopted him from the pound."

Mulder still isn't getting this. He and the dog are trying not to
look the other in the eye. So far they both doing well.

"And you called him George Hale."

"They had named him George. I added the Hale. He reminded
me of your George Hale."

"Um... Scully ..." Mulder chews his lower lip thoughtfully.
"When did you decide to get a dog?"

The least spontaneous person he knows is still smiling. "Today."

She crouches in front of the dog. This time, he doesn't flinch.
When she brought him from the shelter to the car, he stayed as
far away from her as he could. When she bent over to secure his
leash, he jumped as if he expected to be hit. Her heart jumped as
high and she knew, for the millionth time, that she was doing
the right thing.

"Today. Just like that?"

"Well, I was passing the shelter at Walkers Mall and..."

"Walkers Mall is twenty miles west of here. You work east."

Gently, she moves her hand along George Hale's thin back. "It
doesn't matter. He's ours now."

Mulder's sense of reality is slowly shaking. This is the kind of
thing he would do; this is the kind of thing she would have
thought about for longer than a twenty mile drive; this is the sort
of decision she would have argued with him for at least a week,
and still would have been unsure of, even if she had said, yes, go
ahead.

"Come and say hello, Mulder. He won't bite."

"Why the hell would you get a pit-bull? Do you really want to
get mauled when you look at him cross-eyed? That's what they
do, Scully. They are trained to fight."

"It is not what they do. Stop being difficult. Just speak to him in
a quiet, kind voice. They said he was a little wary of men, but
that he can get used to them."

Mulder rolls his eyes. Crouching, he takes three steps towards
the dog. "Hey, doggie," he says in a polite whisper.

George Hale moves two steps back.

His duty done, Mulder returns his attention to Scully. "Again,
*why* did you get a dog?"

"He was slated to be euthanized tomorrow if nobody claimed
him. There is no real mystery to this, Mulder; he needs a home,
and we need a dog."

"We do? News to me, Scully."

"As a matter of fact, we've needed something like this for a
while."

"Oh. *We* or *me*?"

"Us. You and I."

Mulder turns away from the two strangers in front of him and
wanders into the living room. He tosses part of a newspaper out
of the way and drops onto the couch. "Me."

"Us," she corrects. "Come on, George Hale," she tells the dog
kindly and pats the side of her leg. She hadn't used this gesture
since *Queequeg.* It comes back without a thought. "Mulder,
not everything I do is about *you.*"

"Sure it is." Mulder drops his feet onto the coffee table and rests
his hands behind his head. "It's all about me: your Shut-In
partner. Boyfriend. The recluse. The one all the neighbourhood
kids point at and say, *'There goes the crazy man.'*"

Considering there isn't a child within a ten-mile radius, Scully
will not fall into his trap. "I'm going to take him for a walk."

"I'm happy this way."

She waves her hand towards him "Happy as in sitting there?"

"Happy as in 'I'm fine and I don't need you to get me a dog."

"Good, because he's not just for you. I live here too." Scully
watches Mulder settle back into the cushions and fold his arms.
She doesn't let the seed of doubt at the back of her mind gain
any ground. She has done the right thing. "We're going out."

*We.* They are a *'we'* now. He has been replaced by a dog
named George Hale.

Scully and George Hale walk past him without another word.
She closes the front door and lets it slam, forgetting that she has
a timid dog with her.

"Sorry, Sweetheart," Mulder hears her say from the front porch.
It is the same voice Scully uses when something is wrong and
she can only empathize with her heart.

It is the same voice she used with William.

"Dammit," he groans and hoists himself to his feet.

Scully can hear his footsteps behind her - they are hesitant,
hurried steps. Then, she can hear Mulder sigh that sigh she
knows too well as he catches up to her. "Do you really think a
dog is a good idea right now?"

Another wall is going to go up and another argument is going to
emerge from the silence. Well, not tonight, she has decided.
This is George Hale's first night with them, and this dog is not
going to be exposed to any of Mulder's negative energy. Or to
her own.

"You have a lot on your plate at work - why would you want to
come home to ...this?"

Trust Mulder to - accidently, she knows - reduce what the
hospital bureaucracy did to Christian, and what they want to do
to the children who follow, to *'a lot on your plate.'*

"Besides, what do either of us know about having a dog?"

Her head turns sharply. "*Queequeg* was a dog."

"Cannibal dog," he mumbles under his breath. "Is that why you
got this dog, Scully? To get back at me because my alligator ate
your dog?"

She stops walking and looks up at him. "Why would you bring
that up now?"

It's a tricky question. The subject of Queequeg hasn't entered a
conversation in years; Scully never spoke much about 'the
alligator incident' and - had Mulder given this any thought - he
would have brushed the observation off.

"I don't know. Because we were talking about dogs - and you
*brought up the name,* Queequeg?"

She mumbles something into her scarf.

"Excuse me?"

"That was a *long* time ago."

He would still like to know why 'a long time' ago subjects
became off limits but he will honour the rule by dropping the
subject. She once made this clear those were days and hours and
seconds she doesn`t want to relive. These days though, the past
and all its inherent horrors are beginning to haunt him since he
signed that damn book contract. Maybe Scully has the right
idea. Maybe very selective amnesia is the way to go.

He nods towards the road. "You forgot to close the gate."

Scully tries to ignore this observation, and the impulse to tell
him what he can do with his gate. As they walk in near silence,
Scully makes the occasional 'good boy' noises when George
Hale stops to pee or looks up at her. They were clear about this
point at the shelter; when a dog looks at you while you walk, it
means he knows you are the alpha.

Alpha Scully, she thinks. *Special Alpha in Charge Agent
Scully.*

"What's so funny? Mulder asks at the strange smile on her face.

"Nothing. Come on, help me unload his things from the car."

He reaches in and hauls out a huge square dog bed. "He gets his
own furniture?" he whines and dumps it into Scully's waiting
arms.

"Keep it up, Mulder, and you can have a bed of your own too."

Mulder pretends to smile as he dives into the backseat and pulls
out a massive bag of dog food. It is awkward and heavy. He
didn't bring his coat and it is still damp cold outside. Another
reason for staying put inside the house for the rest of his life.

"I thought it was supposed to be warmer these days," he whines,
slinging the bag over his shoulder.

"Mulder," Scully says plainly. "Life was supposed to be *a lot*
of things."