Hole in the Black
by PD

ARCHIVAL:  Gossamer, no thanks. Stories will be housed at 
my site only. If you'd like to link, I'd love it, but 
please drop me note with a heads up.

DISCLAIMER:  Can I borrow the keys to the franchise, Chris? 
I won't go to any FBI balls, I promise to make a full stop 
at most clichés, and I will try not to dangle my 
participles at the nice couple in the unremarkable house.

CLASSIFICATION: SRA, MSR, IWTB, TMI, ASAP

RATING:  R

SPOILERS:  Through The X Files: I Want To Believe

SUMMARY:  "I wasn't in the group, Mr. Mulder. I was a 
tangential part of the project - in league with those few 
who were adamant on the subject of developing an antidote 
and a vaccine. He was our man on the inside, but we were 
not on the side of complicity with the colonists and that 
meant we were on the outside. Fringe element. We were not 
highly regarded. We weren't even invited to the group 
barbecues." He caught himself and smiled. "Ah. No pun 
intended."


~ Chapter 7 ~
 
"If you can call it a bright side," Mulder said around a 
mouthful of fried potatoes and onions, "the food here is 
really good." 

Scully was alternating between picking and actually eating, 
an act she knew she had to perform in order to keep her 
strength up. It wouldn't do for her to allow her blood 
sugar to drop and pass out. She had to agree with Mulder. 
The bites she took and paid attention to were delicious.

"Of course it's good, Mulder. It's fried, it's comfort 
food - God knows we needed some comfort food."

Mulder shrugged his agreement and dove back into his eggs 
and spicy sausage. Scully picked up the Navajo fry bread, 
dipped it into her egg yolk and savored the flavor. 

"When is he going to call?" 

Mulder knew it was rhetorical, but answered anyway. "He may 
not call until tonight, Scully. We have to be prepared to 
stick it out all day. Or as long as it takes." She nodded, 
dejected. "Hey, we've done this before - this waiting. We 
know how to do this."

She smiled at him, correcting his perception with a cock of 
her head. "We've never done *this* before, Mulder," and he 
sighed in understanding.

She returned her attention to her plate, rearranging the 
food, counting the stars in her head, counting the mornings 
with William at two months, five months, nine months. The 
waitress came back to their table and wordlessly refilled 
their cups. 

Two months, five months, nine months.

Scully stirred cream into her coffee and lost herself in 
the swirls.

~:~:~

3:30 pm
Holiday Inn, Kayenta

Mulder was stretched out on the bed in their room, his big, 
bare feet hanging off the end. He was staring up at the 
ceiling.

Scully was tapping on her laptop at the little table. A 
word here and a word there occasionally gave way to bursts 
of thought as fast as she could type. 

Mulder glanced over at her. "You're not online."

"No," she said. "Still no connection."

"What are you doing?"

Scully glanced up at him, looking a little guilty. "Um - 
it's personal?" Not a question, but a plea: *Please let me 
have this to myself.*

"Okay," he said, not in the least bit bothered, yet she 
pushed on, compelled to explain.

"I'm doing it for myself, first. It's a letter. It's for 
myself now, maybe for William later. Maybe for you. For 
now, it's for me."

He smiled at her. "Okay."

She sighed and closed the laptop. "This is killing me."

"No, it's not. Watch TV."

"I don't want to," she said. She came dangerously close to 
sounding petulant - allowing her level of frustration to 
show through her otherwise stoic veneer.

"Want to play cards?"

She shook her head and stood up. She began pacing, another 
visible fracture in the Scully Armor. Mulder followed her 
progress around the room with his eyes. Eventually, she 
stopped at the edge of the bed and looked down at his 
still, seemingly relaxed form.

"Why aren't you going off the deep end with me?" she asked, 
not without a tinge of humor. He half chuckled and closed 
his eyes. "You have an occasional and disquieting tendency 
towards complete apathy at the oddest times, Mulder."

"I'm feeling torpor-ific, Scully," he said wiggling his 
toes. His smile reached the corners of his closed eyes. 
"Somebody in this operation's got to stay out of the deep 
end. Guess it's my turn to do that." He opened his eyes and 
took her hand, pulling her down to sit next to him on the 
bed. "And you know what else?" he whispered. She shook her 
head. "I'm going to see my son." He beamed when he said it. 

Scully crawled over him and laid herself down, resting her 
head on his shoulder. Her palm to his chest, she was 
soothed by the thud of his heartbeat. 

~:~:~

They'd talked about it plenty - William. In Mulder's mind, 
it had been talked about to death and resolved - inasmuch 
as an irresolvable situation can be resolved; the deed had 
been done. And as much as he might have wished for 
overruling power over the physics of the time/space 
continuum, he couldn't turn back the clock. Not without 
fucking something up even worse, he was sure.

Was he angry? Yes. Was Scully to blame? No. Would things 
have turned out differently had Mulder been there? Yes. 
Would he have let William go? Never. 

*Was* he angry? Damn right. Was he angry at Scully? 

Scully was Their mechanism. She wasn't the brains of the 
operation that forced her hand to give William away "for 
his safety." She was used. She was convinced. Somehow, he 
was sure, giving William up for adoption was exactly what 
They wanted. Whoever "They" were now.

Was he angry at Scully?

Unlike Mulder, Scully was not under the impression that the 
issue had been resolved between them. She claimed to, but 
Mulder was certain that she wouldn't see it as over until 
Mulder killed her or left her or both. This, he knew, is 
how guilty she was. It was consuming her.

Was he angry at Scully? 

Mulder shook his head, staring up at the ceiling of the 
hotel room. Scully had dropped off and her fingers were 
lightly kneading at his chest.

Was he? Mulder closed his own eyes and drifted into 
unconsciousness.