George Hale (12/17)
by invisiblefriends

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


Chapter 12

The hospital is growing into a political spider web just waiting for its
next victim to wander in, looking for the bathroom. One of the
committees on which Scully sits is losing its momentum. And it is
only nine-thirty. Today one of the members stood up and told the
group that they could all go and fuck themselves if they thought any
changes to administration procedures were going to help the
hospital. Then he picked up a baloney sandwich from the catering
tray and sauntered out of the room.

That's the kind of thing Mulder would have done in his heyday,
Scully thought. Maybe without the reach around for the sandwich,
but it was close.

"Can we call this meeting for the day?" Curt has shoved his chair
back and is now standing. "Ray pretty much summed this thing up
and I have a shitload of work to do."

Scully and a few others could kiss him for this. Trust Curt to put
broken sentiments into full sentences.

The leader of this committee, a bureaucrat through and through,
shakes her head. She knows when she is beat. "Fine. Whatever.
We'll regroup next week at this time."

"Jee-*zus,*" Curt groans as he tosses his head back to the ceiling.
"I get more done cutting my toenails."

He holds the door and follows Scully into the hallway. The rest of
the meeting members slowly follow them. "So you sorry you're not
going to be around for the fallout of all of this?"

"Ummm .... no."

Two interns looking very late for rounds dart down the hallway
between them. Only one of them calls, 'sorry' over his shoulder.

Curt steps out of their way. "Can't believe you're going to take my
Georgie away from me."

"Curt has it occurred to you that you could find your own Georgie if
you go to the shelter? There will be a dog who needs you,
especially if you dote on him the way you do on George Hale."

Curt's face is a study in discovery as they reach the elevator bank.
He stabs the 'Up' button for him and the down button for her. He
looks down at her. "You know, that never occurred to me."

This gets a mysterious smile from Scully.

"What?"

"I was just thinking that getting a dog didn't occur to me until a few
hours before I walked into the shelter."

"Going to miss you, Dana. You and your other half are definitely the.... " 
He thinks carefully on this next word because it's got to be right. 
"The strangest couple I've met."

"'Strange'. Oh, well, thank you, Curt."

The elevator doors open and as she waits for the others to pile out,

"*Good*strange. For instance, you and your boyfriend-"

"He's not my boyfriend -"

"We'll get into *that* discussion at another time. No, there's
something you're keeping all to yourselves. I can't put my finger on
it but I will. I've already eliminated the Witness Protection Program.
You don't look the type. But I am thinking Government."

She tries to sound disinterested. "Government?"

"Dana, you can fool some of the idiots here most of the time but
you can't fool me. I've seen that photograph of you and Mulder
dressed in white-collar duds, hidden from view on your desk. His
haircut and your clothes both suggest something government
related."

She sighs. "Then how did you see if it was so well hidden?"

"Didn't say it was *that* well hidden. So you two go way back.
How far back?"

"None of your business. We met at work. That's all you need to
know. Don't worry about my family, Curt," she says and presses
the button to his floor and then hers. "Worry about your next
George Hale. Seriously, go and get a dog. There's one for you just
as there was one for us."

The elevator stops at the fourth floor. "Best thing you ever did?"
Curt asks.

Scully nods. "One of them. Thanks for getting us out of the
meeting."

"Horror show is more like it." Just as the elevator door closes, he
calls to Scully, "George Hale the scientist did amazing things. Your
George Hale does more."

Tucked in between shoulders higher than hers, Scully smiles
uncomfortably at the attention. But, she thinks to herself, he is right.

She will tell Mulder this sometime but he has probably figured it out
already.

*You will wake up one morning, go about your usual routines;
routines that do and don't include your dog; you will suddenly
realize that you are at the place you only hoped for. You realize
that you have solutions for problems that will crop up because
you realize that you are capable. (You & Your Rescue Dog)*

Life has taken on a new meaning in this household. They are now
Planners - planning for a new home, planning for themselves and
each other, planning for their dog. Planning, they have found, is the
best way to take the next step and not fall flat on your ass.

One morning, after a late night of packing, Mulder oversleeps by
two hours. He is not as young as he thinks he is, he must constantly
remind himself these days. Perhaps he was never as young as he
thought he was and he's been living on placebo energy for the last
twenty five years of his life.

It is George Hale's nose nudging his elbow that finally brings him to
life.

Mulder tries to nudge the offending muzzle out of his face. He rolls
over to get a glimpse of the time. It is almost ten-thirty and he's got
to be on the road by twelve o'clock this afternoon. He'll bring
George Hale with him; get him more exposure to the outside world.
An airport will scare the hell out of him but that will have to go
under 'that's life'.

*Woof.*

George Hale means business. Mulder whines as he drags the
covers back and swings his feet onto the cold wood floor. The new
house will be better. No more cold floors. They have decided to
have the bathroom floor heated. Mulder could hear the
Contractor's eyes roll when he told him of the newest development
but he didn't care. Sometimes, grown men need warm floors in the
morning.

While the dog makes his rounds outside, Mulder drops into the old
wicker rocker on the porch with a hot mug of coffee. It is nice to sit
out here sometimes. On a morning like this, the sky is clear, the
breeze floating across, whistling through a few trees. This is what
it's about.

"You know what, George Hale," he calls over to the dog.

George Hale looks over.

"I'm not going to sell this place."

George Hale, realizing there is no food involved in this plan,
continues his sniffing.

"I'm going to keep it as a weekend place. I can build a pond in the
back. Fill it with fish, a few frogs. Build a dock. Scully and I can sit
there at the end of the day, having a beer, watching the sun go
down."

Mulder stretches his legs onto the porch railing and puts his hands
behind his head to enjoy this brainstorm. He smiles like the
contented man he is at this moment. "I won't bring it up with Scully
until she asks what I'm doing with the house. She's been a little on
edge with this move so I'll wait a few years."

Mulder is used to cottages, summer retreats that were always in the
same place year after year. Scully never had this growing up so she
doesn't miss it. But Mulder does. He dearly wants a place to call
the other home, the kind that once gave him a sense of family.

During one of their recent arguments, Scully suggested that maybe
he wanted to hold on to this house so he would have a plan B in
case things didn't work out in DC. A place to hide when life and all
its inherent miseries became too much.

Mulder had given this some thought this over for a moment and
shrugged. "Isn't that what cottages are for?"

She hated it when he pulled these out of his hat. "Yes," she
returned, "but those are usually near bodies of water that are more
than the three feet of puddles around this place."

"Relaxation is not about maintaining the norm, it is about... ."

She let him go on and on until he started to bore himself and the
discussion about cottages was laid to rest.

So, this morning, Mulder is feeling confident about the possibilities
about what Scully will and won't agree to. The night before, she
made a remark that rocked his world.

*"Maybe this time I'll let you carry me over the threshold,"* she
had promised when they were going through the logistics of moving
day at the table, pen and paper in hand.

The Falls of Arcadia. Undercover as Husband and Wife.
Pretending to move into a new house. He had whined flippantly that
she hadn't let him carry her over the threshold; she responded with
a don't-mess-with-me glare. She had been unusually sharp with him
on that case - still stinging from his behavior towards an old flame
who, he would have admitted, wooed him with unwavering support
in his quest while Scully and her rational questioning were shoved
out the door. He knew he had been an asshole. Apparently, she
knew it too. She wouldn't give him an inch in the Falls of Arcadia;
last night's remark gave him a yard. It was nice.

A truck turns off the main road and starts down the long path to the
house. Mulder can make out the UPS letters under a shitload of
mud. Delivery men are iffy about coming to the rural boonies. Either
they don't give a shit about how their truck looks or they give too
much of a shit.

Mulder stays where he is, sitting like the grand old man on the
porch while the driver mumbles something about 'morning' and
hauls a heavy looking box out of the back.

Mulder usually recognizes one or two of the drivers but he doesn't
know this one. The other drivers all know Mulder as the hermit, in
an old pair of track pants and a tee shirt that says, 'Medicate Me',
who can't stop his on-line shopping habit.

"Sign here and it's all yours," the driver says, dropping the box on
the bottom step.

"No door to door?" Mulder asks, scribbling his name and handing
back the clipboard.

"Not today, buddy. This one's heavy. And I need to be in Virginia
in two hours."

The time. Mulder peers at the man's watch. It is later than he thinks
and he needs to move now.

He waits for the truck to disappear from his sight. Then he
tentatively wanders down the steps to have a look at the box. He
hasn't ordered anything in a week so either he has signed for
someone else's crap or he is ordering things in his sleep.

Mulder picks up the box and takes it inside, with George Hale on
his heels. It is so heavy that it almost falls to the table from his arms
before he can move his other crap away. George Hale's wet nose is
getting in the way. Mulder cuts through the mountain of packing
tape at the top of the box and yanks the lid with all his might. He
stumbles backwards as piles of files slide down to the floor in all
directions.

They are old folders from his office that managed to slip their way
out of the building and into the Lone Gunman's care. When Skinner
first brought the book deal to his attention, Mulder had asked him
to see if they could send some files to refresh his memory.

He pours through each one with a realization that he is looking at
photographs of long, lost relatives; relatives, he now realizes, he
never wants to see again. There are many gruesome files,
photographs that are worse. Some have to do with the government,
some with human anomalies, most riddled with evil.

All of the colour folders were coded appropriately. Wine for blood
red; murder cases. Yellow folders for Government. Green for Alien
Sightings. Purple were for files he had to keep but never wanted to
see again because they were the ones that hurt the most. Family.
His. Scully's. He can see the edge of a purple file, sticking out at the
bottom of the box.

The memory of William's little fingers jumps to the front of his mind,
and Mulder knows he will never be able to use anything from this
box or any other parts of this world ever again. No wonder Scully
didn't want to be reminded of the evil that once became the centre
of their world together.

"Jesus," he sighs, and steps back to catch his breath. This reaction
is not what he had expected.

Some of the files come from the early days. Some before Scully
joined him. Most of them unsolved. Two of them involved children;
one of whom died. He doesn't want to tell William about those
cases, not about the ones that involved children who became
victims of the evil that was out there.

He has been trying to find the words to tell William about his Aunt
Samantha but can't make it past November 22, 1973. This date
feels like a giant canyon that he is neither equipped for nor strong
enough to cross. He has been giving up faster and faster each time
he tries to start on his sister, he moves onto something - anything -
else. All because he doesn't know how to tell one child the story of
another child's disappearance that will end in the story of her death.
It shouldn't be this hard, he thinks to himself. This is his little sister
who, had she lived, would have been William's Aunt Samantha.
The sister who was Mulder's biggest pain, funniest family member,
often his biggest ally especially when his parents dark moods began
to surface. She had a shriek that could land him into trouble simply
by being in the same room. An evil laugh that made the rest of them
laugh. And she was his friend, and would have grown up to be his
closest friend until Scully. And William would have loved his aunt.

I can't tell him any of *this* he thinks. And I can't tell him our story
*without* any of *this.*

Mulder slams the cover back on the box. It was so easy to forget
the horrors that once made up his day to day life until they came
back to you fifteen years later disguised as archives. He remembers
packing these files safely, thinking he would want to keep them
forever. Now, he doesn't want them in his house.

Bored, the dog is bouncing around behind him. The dog makes a
noise and begins to walk backwards in excitement, his tail hits a
mug and sends it into the air. It lands in the corner in four or five
pieces

"Damnit, George Hale," Mulder snaps without thinking. He sighs
and leans forward to pick up the files. He finds packing tape in his
office and tapes the box tightly. Mulder walks the box to the shed.
With any luck, migrant paper eating mice will find it and destroy it.
His day has just turned to shit. For now, he will try and put it out of
his mind. It is almost one o'clock and if he and George Hale don't
get to the airport in Washington by three thirty, his plan will have
started without him. Oddly enough, that doesn't seem to matter as
much anymore.


*"There is no specific method of determining when a rescue
dog was separated from its mother. In healthy cases, dogs in
general are separated within six months, after the initial
socialization has taken place. The dog will no longer recognize
its mother as such. She will become another dog, should they
ever meet again. Once the dog is taken way, it eventually
adjusts and eventually will become a stranger to its mother
(You & Your Rescue Dog)"*


By the time Scully gets home, she has headache in full gear. She is
glad to see the truck is gone because conversation with Mulder -
too strained for her liking these days - isn't something she wants to
get into. They were up late having another argument. He has been
obsessed with cleaning out his office at all hours. She has been
obsessed with sleeping through the night without the banging and
other noises behind the wall.

She has wondered in the private corner of her heart if this move
back to civilization could be the thing that tells them if they will
spend the rest of their lives together or not. This might explain the
feeling that she has had as though she was crawling day to day
across a shaky ladder, methodically moving one hand in front of the
other, without looking down, so that it all won't topple to the
ground. Does Mulder think the same way or would this even have
occurred to him yet.

The decision to move doesn't seem as brilliant as it once did. She is
now scared shitless. Mulder seems to be thriving, fearless in the
face of Major Life Changes. Then she remembers that his entire life
has been one life change after another. He learned how to cope a
long time ago, starting from age twelve.

"Don't forget," Curt had reminded her. "The leading cause of stress
related illnesses stem from those three life changes, death, new job
and moving."

"Yes, thank you, Curt, I am well aware of the statistics of stress
related illnesses that life changes can bring on and should Mulder or
I crumble into pieces, you'll be the first person we call," she sighed
tightly.

"Fox is taking his daily vitamins, I hope." He then darted into the
men's room and left Scully standing in the hallway wondering who
she pissed off to have this kind of day.

Mulder has left a note saying that he and George Hale have gone
into town for more dog food and would be home soon. *Soon,* on
a note with no departure time, means pretty much nothing and
Scully crumples up the paper into a tight little ball and kicks it
across the room. Why in God's name is he leaving notes about a
dog food run she thinks, removing her coat and tossing it onto the
first chair she sees.

The place is spotless except for the boxes and her things so she
can't even be pissed at him for leaving his crap everywhere. He has
even opened the venation blinds he hates so much to let in the
daylight. With the light hitting the shabby furniture, she thinks the
blinds are a good idea.

Now, she can barely keep her eyes open. Scully is tired these days
and any second of sleep that is lost is, in her mind, lost for good.
Right now, all she wants to crawl under the bed and never come
out. Mulder can bring her meals and take them away; he can send
down clean sheets once a week. If she's feeling charitable enough,
she'll give him a tussle or two but other than that, she will live alone
and unbothered under the bed with her books and a nightlight. It
worked for the Peacock mother and now Scully knows why; your
own room service and nobody else in the house is brave enough to
bother you.

He has started locking the door to his office. Normally this would
barely register. Now, living in chaos, it is simply irritating as hell. His
packing frenzy started with his own office and has told Scully that
he was organizing the mess according to his own special process.
In short, please keep out. She doesn't like it in there anyway. Too
many reminders of the fact that this room was Mulder's world for
what seemed like forever and she was the unwelcome intruder. This
room is the enemy and the enemy can piss off.

"Hey, Scully," she hears from the front door.

"Shit," she groans from the bedroom where she is lying with an ice
pack over her eyes. Mulder has his strange-voice. Something is up.

"Scully, you here?"

"Yessssss," she growls.

Footsteps come into the bedroom but they are not Mulder's heavy
thump when he doesn't take his boots off. These are lighter, almost
tentative steps.

"Dana?"

She knows that voice. Scully whips the ice pack from her eyes and
sits up. Her heart jumps. "Mom!"

Mrs. Scully opens her arms and Scully falls into them as if she were
twelve years old.

Mulder stands at the doorway, beaming, with large suitcase on
wheels at his side.

She is wiping her eyes. "Oh my God - what are you doing here?

"Surprising you, I hope."

Scully looks between her and Mulder and finally clues in. "What -
How - did you two plan this?"

"It's all Fox," her mother says, almost proudly. "And Walt."

It takes a second before Mulder and Scully register that *Walt* is
*Skinner.*

Mulder quietly slips out of the room and listens to the joy that is
spilling out of both Scully women.

"I think...." he begins to George Hale as he wanders into the front
room and drops onto the couch. "...I think I made her happy."

He makes the mistake of seeing the broom and dust bin in the
corner, where George Hale' tail had send a mug flying that morning.
The box. The files

His stomach turns and another image of William drifts to his mind.
Why did that box have to arrive today? Why did that box have to
arrive at all? He is being haunted again, only this time, without his
consent.

Mulder gets to his feet before he loses his momentum. He tells Mrs.
Scully that he's going to put her luggage in the spare room. Scully
and her mother follow. "Since when do we have a spare room,
Mulder?"

"Since this morning."

Mulder opens the door to his office.

*"Mul-der..."* Scully breathes with amazement.

There is a bed in the corner, covered with a floral print duvet cover.
There are curtains that match. On the bedside table are two Martha
Stewart magazines. There are fresh towels on the dresser. A water
jug next to them.

The clutter has disappeared and something resembling a magazine
layout, as done by an ex-FBI G-man, has appeared in its place.

"You did all this?"

He nods.

"Mom ... this room has never looked like this ...."

"Fox, you may have found your new calling," Mrs. Scully remarks,
clearly impressed.

"I can't believe this," Scully is still shaking her head. "You did all of
this - my mother - this room - When?"

"Can't give away my secrets Scully."

Scully wanders over to the bed and picks up one of the magazines.
"I thought I saw you buy those in the store."

"And that surprised you coming from me?"

"You know, Mulder, sometimes I don't know what to think when it
comes to you anymore." She gently nudges him away from the
doorway, out of earshot of her mother. "Do... do you know how
angry you got me? All of that banging, moving things. That's what
you were doing?" She looks around the room. "What happened to
all of your things?"

"Threw most of them out. The rest is packed in the front room.
Boxes marked eyeliner."

"You thought of everything."

He says mysteriously, "*Almost* everything." Mulder quickly leans
closer and whispers into her ear. "Sorry to put your mother in the
room next to ours."

"Well, for what you've done, you may just get lucky tonight," she
whispers from corner of her mouth.

"Fine, but don't beg, Scully, it doesn't become you."

Her mother misses the good natured elbow that digs into Mulder's
ribs. She only looks at her daughter and thinks that she looks
happy, standing next to this man who still seems to make her smile.


"Mulder, when did you make this?" Scully guides a fork full of
something good into her mouth. "Mulder?"

His mind has drifted back to the shed and the box again. He snaps
to attention. "Sorry - a couple of days ago."

"You have been busy."

"Have to get up early to get something past you, Scully."

They are having what Scully will call their first family dinner - human
family Mulder will later contradict. He doesn't like the thought of
George Hale, who sits patiently at anyone's feet thinking a crumb
might fall, being excluded, even for semantic, un-
anthropomorphizing reasons.

While Scully and George Hale showed her mother around the
property, he produced a recently purchased set of tableware and
made up the table well enough for royalty, which, as far as he was
concerned, wasn't that far from the truth.

When they return, there is a bottle of wine waiting for them, freshly
cheese and h'or deurves. By the time he has dinner on the table,
they are beyond impressed.

"Are there any more surprises we should know about."

He picks up his glass of wine. "No, I don't think so. Did you tell
Dana where we went?"

Mrs. Scully almost forgot the sightseeing tour after Mulder picked
her up from the airport. "I saw your new house. Dana, it's beautiful.
I knew which one was yours the minute we drove onto the street."

"I would have taken her in but I didn't have the key," Mulder
explains.

It is probably the only thing that hasn't been done perfectly. He has
done everything right and hasn't missed a single detail in making this
reunion perfect for both of these women. That's what Scully would
tell him for the rest of their lives together. On that day, for that
surprise, when she was on her last strip of patience, he had come
through in unusually classic Mulder style.

Every now and then, Scully will catch his eye across the table and
give him that smile; the one he would walk over every killer alien
just to glimpse.

They talk, catch up, act like normal people with a normal guest.
Every so often, Mulder thinks about the box and wonders what
else is in there he should have forgotten about and probably never
will. But he is brought back to earth by these two women and their
joy at being reunited. This is what it should be about, he thinks.
This. Not a box of history.