Ginger
by Aloysia Virgata

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

RATING: PG-13 for language

CLASSIFICATION: Vignette(s)

SPOILERS: Pilot - IWTB

SUMMARY:  Five Times Dana Scully Cut Her Hair

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: Many thanks to Leucocrystal and Paigehunt 
for the kind words and amazingly fast beta turnaround time.


***

I.

She winces when the door opens, peering into the hallway. 
"Missy?"

Hey!" calls her sister's voice. A slam, and then footsteps 
echoing as she moves through the apartment. "Come on out 
and let's see how -- oh, Christ. Dana, what the fuck did 
you do to your head?"

Dana glares at her sister's artfully tumbled curls, her 
gauzy floral dress. "It's not *that* bad." Is it? She 
touches the patchy hank of hair that's meant to be 
sideswept bangs.

Missy sighs, edging past her into the bedroom to inspect 
closer. "It is. It really, really is. You look like a 
calico cat."

Dana bristles but knows it's true. Her shoulders slump. "It 
was supposed to be Warmest Toffee."

Her sister waves a ringed hand dismissively. "People pay 
good money for your natural hair color, you realize. I 
don't know why you'd dye it." She tosses her own auburn 
head for effect, beaded necklace clicking. "And bangs! 
Dana, you can't just start whacking away at your hair like 
that. Thank goodness you had the sense to leave them fairly 
long so I have something to work with. And what did you 
use? Poultry shears?"

Surgical scissors. "Never mind that. Can you fix it or 
not?"

"Of course I can fix it. Come on, let's get you into the 
bathroom."

Dana follows her meekly, grateful that at least she had 
someone to call. Her tight GS-10 budget does not allow for 
emergency trips to the salon, not with what she's shelling 
out on her new post-Academy wardrobe.

Missy steers her to the closed toilet to sit down before 
shrugging her tote bag into the sink. She rummages through 
it for scissors and clips, then removes a paisley smock 
that she fastens around Dana's neck. "Tell me about the 
brown. The first brown. The decent-looking one."

"One of those 'lasts through 24 shampoos' things." She'd 
been unwilling to firmly commit to life as a brunette, and 
the results had only somewhat masked her stubbornly red 
hair with a drab chestnut.

"Okay, that's good. Now, what's the deal with this shit?"

The dye had been on sale at CVS and she'd had visions of 
something richly hued and elegant like the woman in the 
picture. Something that would transform her into a 
sophisticated professional instead of The Short Redheaded 
Newbie. The results are... unfortunate. But the fact 
remains that she needs some serious mojo to free herself 
from Fox Mulder's career-sucking paranormal vortex.

"Permanent," Dana says. She bends down to fish the 
packaging from the trash and wordlessly hands it over.

Missy scrutinizes the color on the box, then squints at her 
sister. "Short, blue eyes, pointy nose, disapproving 
expression, FBI agent, spends all day in the basement with 
a crazy man. You can't pull it off without being ironic. 
And you're too annoyingly earnest to be ironic."

The blush is hot on her cheeks. "You don't really think I'm 
trying to-"

"Doesn't matter. Other people will. I mean, it won a 
boatload of Oscars and everything." Missy pulls out a few 
bottles, squirts them into a bowl, and mixes everything 
into a thick paste with the scent of rotten eggs. "I'm 
going to cut it while this brews and then we'll start 
stripping out the color. Your hair's probably going to be 
fried for a while, but I'll give you some stuff for it. And 
Dana?"

"Hm?" Her eyes cross as the scissors loom millimeters from 
her nose.

"Get better clothes. You look frumpy. No one automatically 
thinks ugly girls are smart. But everybody thinks beautiful 
ones who try and hide the fact are idiots." She runs a comb 
through Dana's hair, finding the part.

Dana had no idea her sister considers her beautiful. She is 
childishly pleased. "I have to dress professionally for 
work. Suits and heels. I can't swan around in kicky little 
sundresses like some people." Honestly, she doesn't know 
the first thing about fashion and lets her mother go 
shopping with her for work wear as a conciliatory gesture. 
She wore hand-me-downs as a kid, jeans as an undergrad, 
scrubs and sweats through med school and the Academy. The 
bulk of her new clothes had only their price tags and her 
mother's approval to recommend them.

"Tilt your chin down for a sec. Yeah, hold it like that." 
Missy twists up a few sections of hair and starts snipping. 
"Professional, fine. But buttoned up like a Victorian 
spinster? You have a nice little body. It wouldn't kill you 
to let people know. Is your nutjob partner hot at least?"

Dana groans and doesn't mention that Mulder has seen her 
nice little body in mortifying detail. The last thing she 
wants to do is give him daily reminders of her 
indiscretion.

"Been a dry spell since Jack, right?" Missy prods, cutting 
off a large chunk of hair. "I never did tell anyone about 
your penchant for sleeping with those in an instructatorial 
capacity, you wench. So, is he?"

She actually has to stop and think because Mulder's 
physical presence is so secondary to his obsessions. "He's 
very attractive," she concedes. "But he's not my type. And 
he calls me Scully. But you know, maybe I should give him 
*your* number. I think you two would have a lot to talk 
about." She can envision them in a seedy diner, one-upping 
each other's whacked out theories.

"Don't be a bitch when I have the scissors, little girl."

Dana laughs before reflecting further on her situation. 
"Thing is, they want me to 'assess' him. He's practically a 
legend, Missy. His theories are crazy, but he's also 
brilliant. I feel like I'm being set up or tested or 
something. Sell him out and I'm too dumb to recognize 
genius. Agree with him and I'm a gullible naif."

Missy makes a non-committal noise, her scissors snapping at 
a few wisps around Dana's face. "There! It's not perfect, 
but it's way better. I took some of the weight off too so 
it won't just hang there and make you look horsey."

"Gee, thanks. Can I look?"

"No. Not until I fix the color."

Cold, sulfurous glop gets smeared over her head, making her 
nose wrinkle. It burns and itches. She reaches up to 
scratch and gets her hand slapped for her troubles.

"Leave it alone. This will take a while to process, so just 
deal with it." Missy brushes errant hair onto the tarp. "Up 
you get."

Her head feels twice its normal size as she walks to the 
living 
room, taking care not to smear whatever hideous chemicals 
she's soaking in on the walls. She makes it to the couch, 
sitting bolt upright to keep clear of the upholstery. 

Missy settles next to her, pulling a pack of Camels and a 
Zippo from her pocket.

"Oh, come on, don't smoke in here. The smell is so hard to 
get out. All this stuff is new." Dana hates the pleading 
note in her voice, as though she's playing house and 
begging her big sister not to ruin the game.

The lighter flicks, the tip of the cigarette crackling as 
Missy inhales. "The reek of your head will kill it, don't 
worry." She taps another out of the pack, offering it in 
her palm.

Dana shakes her head and sighs in resignation. There are 
certain things one has to let slide with Missy, and her 
contempt for rules is chief among them. She focuses instead 
on the crick in her neck and thinks of Jack Willis's 
capable hands working out the tension in her muscles after 
a long day of ice fishing. The relationship was headed 
nowhere and she ended it, but God, it had been nice to have 
a warm body at night. Someone to embarrass her in a 
restaurant on her birthday, show up with lasagna and wine 
on occasion. She imagines Mulder in a dim apartment 
somewhere. Does he have a girlfriend? A cat? A Boston fern? 
It hardly seems possible that he should attach himself to a 
living thing, focused as he is on the intangible. She 
glances about her magazine-tidy home and makes a mental 
note to schedule a night out before long.

Missy's flicking the lighter on and off, passing the tips 
of her fingers through the flame.

Sometimes Dana longs for her sister's easy way with things, 
flitting from bed to bed and job to job. Working to pay her 
bills and little more. Not too proud to sell hamsters or 
wait tables or run the Ferris wheel at the state fair. 
Unimpressed by title or tenure.

Dana jerks as the lighter sparks before her eyes.

Missy laughs. "You look so damn tense all the time. I would 
have brought a joint to help you relax but I honestly think 
you'd arrest me." She winks, setting the cigarettes and 
lighter atop a coaster on the spotless coffee table.

Dana rolls her eyes. "Dad hasn't got the place bugged, you 
know. You don't have to try and be shocking to piss him off 
and get a reaction." She twists her fingers in her lap to 
keep from scratching her scalp.

Missy plays with her beads, looking thoughtful. "Speaking 
of pissing Dad off, how's the FBI these days, Doc?"

"Dammit, Missy. I'd expect that from Bill but not from you. 
Not everything is an act of rebellion against Dad. I'm 
being true to myself with this, hard as it's been." You'd 
think he'd be proud to have an FBI agent in the family, but 
her father is distressingly outdated on certain aspects of 
women's lib.

Missy takes a long drag before puffing smoke rings at the 
ceiling. "Don't misunderstand me. I have no doubts about 
your integrity when it comes to this career. But just... if 
you're going to give up medicine and sink your relationship 
with Dad, make sure you're doing it on your own terms, 
okay? Don't trash your hair to fake being some chick on a 
box and when you have the money, buy clothes you actually 
like instead of what Mom tells you get. And if your 
partner's right, tell your boss that. And if he's wrong, 
well, you're the one who has to keep him honest."

Dana mulls this over. For all the ways in which their paths 
have diverged, there is a common hub. She squeezes her 
sister's knee in thanks, then helps herself to a cigarette 
from the table.


II.

"So! You said short on the phone, love, but how short is 
short? Mia Farrow short or like a cute pageboy or what?" 
Margie snaps her gum and fluffs Scully's hair with her 
fingers. "I can totally see you with a sweet little bob, 
Dana. Right to your chin or so."

Scully fights a rise of panic when Margie's fingers press 
against her neck to indicate what she has in mind. Get it 
together, she orders herself. Donnie Pfaster is in federal 
prison. He did not escape and disguise himself as your 
hairdresser to strangle you at a salon. Though she must 
admit, the dreadful irony of the idea almost makes it seem 
plausible.

"Uh, you know, I'm not really sure. It just... it felt like 
time for a change." She flips through the rumpled magazine 
on her lap again, eyes darting around the pages without 
seeing anything. "I'm nervous about something drastic, I 
guess." She forces a chuckle.

Margie points at a Pantene ad featuring a woman with a 
sleek pixie cut. "That's cute. What do you say? I can make 
it a bit longer if you're not feeling brave enough yet."

Scully considers it, but it's only seconds before she hears 
his voice again, wafting through her brain like a dirty 
fog.

//I know this house, girly girl. There's nowhere to hide.//

Nowhere to hide.

What was she thinking? If she cuts her hair, they'll know. 
They'll know Donnie Pfaster got inside her head like a 
disease. She'll be one of those sad, crazy stories they 
whisper about at the Academy. Watch yourself or you'll wind 
up like Dana Scully. Let a case get to her and snap! Fell 
apart just like that. Now she's a security guard at the 
White Flint Mall.

"Sooooo?" Margie drawls.

Scully stares longingly at the picture. "You know," she 
says, the words marbles in her mouth, "I actually... I just 
don't think I'm ready after all. How about we keep it to a 
trim today?"

Margie pouts. "Aw, you never let me do anything fun. That's 
it, really? Just a trim?"

Scully swallows hard, fixated on her ragged cuticles, her 
chipped polish. "And a manicure," she says steadily. "I 
really need to have my nails done."


III.


Scully feels like a runaway in his hall, sneaking from 
realities she doesn't want to deal with. She can't deny 
that she'd played on his guilt to talk him into doing this, 
but desperate times and all that. Seized by a perverse 
sense of humor, she knocks //shave and a haircut// on the 
door.

"Hilarious," he says darkly when he opens it. He looks both 
wary and resigned as she slips under his arm. The door 
shuts behind her.

She digs into her coat pocket for the clippers, then 
wordlessly passes them over.

Mulder holds the gadget with evident distaste. "Are you 
sure you want this?"

It takes all of her restraint to yell that no, she does not 
want this. That not wanting this is the goddamn point of 
her being here, but instead she nods and shrugs her coat 
onto the couch.

She's wearing yoga pants and a loose t-shirt. All of her 
clothes are loose anymore, but she wanted to look 
particularly frail and compromised, to make him see that 
she has to have this one act of control before it's too 
late. She did stop short of wearing last year's Komen Race 
shirt, though. Best not to overdo it.

"Where do you want me?" she asks, ceding some of the 
decision to him for form's sake.

Mulder's lip curls in amusement, but he swallows the remark 
and scans his apartment with a helpless expression. "How 
about in here? I'll just put a sheet down and get you a 
chair."

No mirror in the living room. Which is best for both of 
them.

"That works," she says, and gazes at his fish tank while he 
sets up, letting her eyes drift out of focus and turn the 
fish into amorphous blobs of color like headlights in the 
rain.

"Okay then," he says, gesturing at the chair he's placed 
over a wrinkled blue sheet on the floor. It looks like an 
interrogation chamber in the murky light. No sense in 
brightening things up, she supposes. It's not like they're 
going for precision.

She takes the seat, hands pressed between her knees. Mulder 
drapes a towel over her neck and shoulders, tucking it into 
her collar with his long, careful fingers. Then the 
clippers buzz to life in his hand, and the full impact of 
what she's asked him to do slams into her like a truck.

"Oh, God," she whispers. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't... I 
shouldn't... I can do this myself. I'm sorry." She starts 
to rise, but his hand is firm on her shoulder.

"It's okay," he says, and there is so much kindness in his 
voice that it might shatter her. "Just sit still so I don't 
scalp you or anything."

Scully bites her lip, shoulders hunched.

His touch is light at her neck, gently lifting the hair 
away as he slides the clippers against her scalp. She 
winces. It doesn't hurt, but the drone against her ears 
makes her think of wasps.

A section of hair hits the sheet with a quiet sound, the 
air cold and tingling on skin that hasn't been bare in 
thirty-four years. No going back now, unless she decides to 
sport a Mohawk.

Mulder, in that eerie way of his, seems to have honed in on 
this thought. "Between the shaved head and the tattoo, 
you're going to look downright punk, Scully. Maybe I'll get 
my nose pierced and we can start a band."

It's the first time he's mentioned the tattoo since that 
hideous morning in the office, and she's grateful he's 
finally shot the last elephant in the room. "Peter, Paul, 
and Mulder," she suggests, gritting her teeth as hair falls 
to the ground with snow-soft noises. But it's better like 
this. Better on her terms than to continue watching soggy 
clumps of it clog up her drain, trying desperately to mask 
the thinning with curlers and mousse.

"Not very hardcore," Mulder remarks, moving to the top of 
her head. "I was thinking something more like Dana and The 
Destroyers. I'm going to be the drummer. Wear nothing but a 
kilt to entice the ladies and more discriminating 
gentlemen."

She snorts at this as the clippers blaze a cool trail above 
her right ear. "I'm hardly lead singer material."

"Just wail and scream a lot about how much you hate The 
Man. And hey, this look worked like a charm for Sinead 
O'Connor, so you've at least got one other bald Irish 
success story to cling to. I'd leave the Pope out if it 
though, or your mom'll be pissed." 

"I'll remember that, thanks."

There's a final buzz at her collar, then silence. "All 
done," Mulder says, smoothing a hand over her shorn head. 
It's weirdly intimate.

No one has ever touched this skin before, she thinks. Not 
even me. She's terrified to see herself. It's so safe here, 
joking with Mulder in the shadows. Work is going to be 
hell.

Mulder takes the towel off and shakes it, stray hairs 
wafting around her. He blows on the back of her neck to 
dislodge a few more, making her shiver. Then he walks 
around her to inspect his handiwork. She sees the flash of 
sorrow in his eyes, but he buries it quickly. "You really 
need to call Skinner and ask him how to wash and wax this 
thing."

Her stomach lurches, nausea churning through her like a 
corkscrew. Scully doubles over, breathing slowly through 
her nose, and Mulder's on his knees beside her.

"What can I get you?" he whispers. He knows about the 
chemo, about what it does to her. She had to tell him 
because he was starting to suspect bulimia.

She grips his fingers too hard. "Just stay," she murmurs 
through dry lips. "Just stay right here."

*

Scully leans over the edge of her bed and vomits into the 
plastic trash can before she's fully awake. After the 
gagging subsides, she staggers from her bed to the bathroom 
and rinses her mouth with lukewarm water. Her reflection 
shows bloodshot eyes in a pale face, a tumble of brittle 
copper hair. 

She touches her hand to the mirror, wishing for the third 
night in a row she had the guts to bring him the clippers.


IV.


"Bababababa!" William calls from the high chair. He has run 
out of cheese cubes.

"No more cheese. It'll make your tummy sick," Scully says. 
She offers him a bowl of watermelon chunks. William looks 
suspicious, but begins cramming them stickily into his 
mouth.

When he's finished, Scully gets a damp cloth to clean off 
the juice. "Show Mama your hands," she says. William 
proudly displays ten pudgy fingers. Scully smiles at him, 
circling his wrist with her thumb and forefinger.

She has more than enough. The braid in her hair is thinner 
than a pencil, secured at either end by the tiny rubber 
bands orthodontists give out. She clips it easily with the 
thread snips in her sewing kit, then rubs her thumb over 
the spiky patch of stubble it leaves behind.

Scully threads a needle with clear plastic line. She starts 
to sing Baidin Fheilimi, just like her grandmother used to 
do when she and her siblings were small. She takes one tiny 
hand again, singing about Feidhlim's lively little fishing 
boat as she sews the braid into a circlet about her son's 
wrist.

William is intent on what she's doing, watching and 
listening. He stays very still.

She manages not to poke him with the needle, not to cut him 
when she trims the ends. And she manages not to cry, not 
even when the little boat wrecks on the shore of Tory with 
Feidhlim and all the fish inside.


V.

She throws her napkin down and storms from the table, 
scarcely waiting for Skinner to pull the front door shut.

Mulder catches up and grabs her by the shoulder. "We have 
to go," he says sharply. "You know we do."

"Don't tell me what I know," she snaps, going into the 
kitchen where she can slam breakable things around.

He follows her. "Oh, well, you spent years denying 
everything you'd seen, so I figure you could use a reminder 
now and again."

Scully thrills at the rising anger in his voice. He was 
calm through dinner, even though he saw her white-knuckled 
when Skinner had begun laying out the reason for this 
evening's visit. It'll be a fair fight now, both 
of them wound up and furious. "Do you ever stop?" she 
demands, wringing out a dish towel. "With the martyr 
complex? Do you ever stop trying to save everybody?"

"That's funny coming from you. You spend all day throwing 
starfish back into the sea when you know a tsunami's on the 
way. What's the point?"

The edge of the counter digs into her back. "The point is 
that I don't think I'm an action hero. The point is that I 
help where I can and don't try to delude myself about the 
impossible." She shakes her head. "You're pushing fifty,  
Mulder, and this isn't a video game. I mean, what are you 
envisioning? You'll swoop in there, save the kid, and blast 
the aliens out of the sky with some top secret laser ray 
the government's been developing? Is that what you 
thought?" Her laugh is so bitter it makes her sick.

Mulder watches her, his eyes accusing and accused. 
Something inside her knows all bets are off, and her 
stomach clenches in anticipation.

"What did you think, Scully? That you could just ship 
William off somewhere and this would all go away? Did you 
even think at *all*?"

It's the cruelest thing he's ever said to her, and she 
actually has to will herself not to hit him. But the truth 
is that some part of her has been waiting seven years to 
hear him say it, and there's a dreadful kind of relief.

"No," she says when the shock dissipates. "No, I didn't 
think. I just impulsively sent my baby off to the... the 
*Kents* because it seemed like so much goddamned fun at the 
time!" She's shouting in his face now and doesn't care. 
Hates him, hates the stupid beard that he's grown back. 
Hates Skinner.

Hates herself.

Seconds stretch between them, unbearably heavy. She looks 
away at last, gazing out the window at the henhouse, the 
dried husks of her summer garden. There are fall seedlings 
in the greenhouse.

"I know you're scared," Mulder begins in a quiet voice. He 
looks worn out. "I am too. But Scully, we have to try. If 
this boy is William, if what Skinner says is true, then we 
have a chance to get him back. And to help put an end to 
this thing we fought against for so long. But I can't do it 
without you." He reaches out to smooth her long hair from 
her face and she jerks back.

"Don't," she chokes out. "Don't treat me like I'm broken."

"I don't think you're broken," Mulder says, and the love in 
his eyes makes her ache. He cocks his finger and thumb into 
a gun, taking the Weaver stance. "That's why I need you to 
cowboy up and help an old man save the fucking day."

Scully laughs a little, even when the tears come, and 
brushes her fingers over the awful beard. She walks from 
the kitchen to the stairs, heading up to their bedroom as 
she replays the evening in her head.

Ever since the Father Joe affair, they've been on friendly 
terms with Skinner. They have dinner together once a month 
or so, and he occasionally tries to wheedle them back to 
Washington. Solicits their opinions on cases at times, but 
it's always been easy and casual.

Until tonight.

Until he said the two magic words guaranteed to fire them 
both up. Aliens. And William.

Turns out that in their exile, a covert international 
effort had gotten underway to develop both vaccines and 
weaponry against the planned colonization. Their 
assistance, expertise, and blood samples have been 
requested as the resistance project advances into Phase 
Two. She assumes the case last winter was merely a pretense 
to absolve them and now cynically wonders if Skinner's 
prior visits had any sincerity at all, or were merely to 
win their trust back.

"It's real," Skinner had said, chasing a caper around his 
plate with a fork. "International agencies are finally 
willing to openly acknowledge - within top secret circles, 
of course - that this thing is happening. Now that they've 
got the infrastructure in place and are pooling their 
knowledge, they're looking for people to run the 
cooperative teams. You've been in high demand for a while, 
but it took some time to convince our government. And I 
wasn't even sure you'd be willing to listen after... 
everything." He was looking down as he said this.

Scully walks past the aquarium and into the bathroom, not 
wanting to think about what had come next.

"So why now?" Mulder had asked conversationally, sipping 
his wine as though they were discussing something sane.

And Skinner, still not meeting their eyes, told them about 
the boy who went missing.

William Van de Kamp's parents - allegedly his parents, 
anyway, - pulled him out of school two hours early for a 
doctor's appointment. They can be identified on the 
school's surveillance camera. At 6:44 that evening, the 
parents were found dead and the boy gone. No known enemies, 
no debts, no ransom note, nothing. No record of an 
appointment exists with any of the family's physicians. And 
both parents were seen at their jobs during the time they 
were also seen picking up their son.

Then Skinner had pulled a snapshot from his pocket and set 
it on the table. Mulder had stared at in fascination. She 
had swallowed a scream.

Scully puts her hands on the edge of the sink and leans her  
forehead against the cool glass. The boy's face floats to 
the front of her vision. Her eyes, Charlie's nose, Mulder's 
mouth and wry smile. It's William, of course it is, but she 
can't let it be because then she has to save him. She has 
to acknowledge that her terrible sacrifice wasn't enough. 
She has to admit that a primal part of her is relieved to 
be alive, to not be decomposing in Wyoming with her skull 
squeezed like an orange.

Skinner confessed that he hadn't planned to tell them, but 
Kenyan informants indicated the boy was being transported 
to somewhere in Saskatchewan, and promising details are 
pouring in all the time. There is every chance of saving 
him, Skinner said, and units had been mobilizing since word 
got out. They were invited to come, to help. To get their 
son back.

She'd told Skinner to get the hell out of her house.

A breeze wafts in through the open window and blows her 
hair around, long strands sticking to her lips. She flicks 
them away in irritation, annoyed that even her hair is 
unsuitable for the task at hand. It's long enough to be 
grabbed and held like a rope, to catch and snag on things. 
She looks like a goddamned folk singer, her and Mulder 
both.

Scully steps back to scrutinize herself in the mirror. She 
is still in good shape, but not the kind of physical 
condition she'd been in when the ability to incapacitate an 
armed assailant was a job requirement. It's still hopeless, 
Kenyan informants or no. They've been out of the game for 
too long. She hasn't shot anything more powerful than a .22 
in years, and only then to scare the coyotes away from the 
chickens.

She couldn't save him when he was a baby, and she can't 
save him now.

The sense of defeat is miserable and lonely. How does 
Mulder still have the drive after so long? She wants 
nothing more than to crawl into her bed, pull up the 
covers, and wait for the merciful apocalypse.

As she turns to leave the bathroom, the silver gleam of a 
utility knife in the shower stall catches her eye. She and 
Mulder have been replacing the bathroom tiles, and some 
require scoring and cutting. It's been their project for a 
week.

This is her life now, with him. They laugh and disagree and 
cook and eat and make love and reminisce about safesubjects 
like Tooms and Modell. He takes care of the property and 
she goes to work.

Throwing starfish back into the sea.

Scully looks at the knife again, at the shine of it, and 
crouches down in something like a trance. She picks it up, 
testing the dense metallic heft of it in her hand. It's 
much lighter than her old Sig, but she can't resist the 
impulse to echo Mulder's posture downstairs. She sees her 
reflection and, despite feeling silly, likes what it shows. 
She almost recognizes herself.

All the heartache over William, over Christian. And for 
what? She sets the knife in the sink, then gathers her hair 
at the nape of her neck with an elastic band. Perhaps it's 
not too late.

She picks the knife up again and brings it to the back of 
her head. Before she can change her mind, she begins sawing 
with the razor-sharp blade. After a moment, the ponytail 
comes away in her fingers, the remaining hair ragged 
against her jaw.

She smiles.

Scully goes downstairs. Mulder is at the table, poring over 
the documents Skinner left, tapping William's picture 
against his palm. He looks up when she enters the room, 
then stares, his mouth hanging open.

The scent of his skin is comforting as she closes the 
distance between them, and his callused hands feel like 
body armor when he slips them under her shirt and around 
her waist.

Scully drops the severed ponytail on the file and kisses 
his head. "Let's go save the fucking day," she says.


***


The End


***

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