Sandcastles for Pele (1 of 4) Author: JL (formerly JaimeLyn) Rating: PG-13 Category: post IWTB, MSR Disclaimer: Apparently, I'm allowed to play with them but I can't keep them. Damn it. (Do action figures count?) Anyway. Please don't sue. Summary: As they play a waiting game, Mulder and Scully call upon the past and embark on their own little adventure. Feedback accepted at: jaimerockifies@yahoo.com Author's note: This is the post-movie fic I wanted to write after realizing that "I Want to Believe" might be the last time we'd ever see Mulder and Scully. And as with most X- Files endings, I thought there were a few untied ends that I really wanted to tackle. If I had to describe it, I would say that it is... not at all what you think it is. Take from that what you will. Thanks to Alyssa for honest feedback, and to my sister for the late night marathons. Sandcastles for Pele By JL "Aloha mai no, aloha aku; o ka huhu ka mea e ola `ole ai." - When love is given, love should be returned; anger is the thing that gives no life. - ancient Hawaiian proverb --- Kahoolawe, HI February 1st 2:01am The sky was still at its darkest, the night cradling those last precious moments before dawn, when a red light appeared at the door of room 201, flickering like the point of a laser, like the blood red sun pushing against the horizon. It skirted quickly up the door, seeming to almost wink, and then it whispered its siren song, 'Follow,' before slipping out like a thief into the balmy Hawaiian night. Fox Mulder watched from the comfort of his bed, his fingers tracing abstract patterns on the soft skin of Dana Scully's nude back. She remained still, silent, swept up in sleep. Mulder rose quietly from the bed. In another minute, he was following the little red light down the beach. Down the dunes, down into the cold wet sand, down where the ocean met the shore, Mulder followed and followed. "This way," said the red light, "Follow." Further down, past the rocks, beyond the boardwalk, down where the shells made a prickly carpet on the sand. "Follow, follow, follow," said the little red light. Mulder followed. When the little red light finally disappeared, the beach had spilled out in front of him and behind, the ocean peaceful and quiet, waiting for morning. Mulder breathed in salt and coconut and something elemental, something strong and of the Earth. When a lone figure stepped out from behind the rocks and struck a match, Mulder startled and was momentarily blinded. "I believe this is the part where you threaten me with violence," said the man, a trail of smoke from his cigarette floating up, ever higher, into the ceiling of clear evening sky. Behind him, water crashed against the edges of rock and shore. "I'm dreaming," said Mulder, doing his best to convince himself of this very thing. "And if you're not?" Mulder's toes tingled, his teeth chattered, his fists clenched and unclenched; a swirl of rage gathered within him like the eye of a funnel cloud, building and spinning faster, his heart racing so fast his ribs hurt -- and Scully -- he needed to get back to Scully. "She's asleep," answered the man with the cigarette, "And still quite lovely, too. I think I may have mentioned it to you before, but I'm rather fond of her. My affection for her is actually what brings me to you." "Right," said Mulder. "Abducting her, killing her sister, giving her cancer -- funny way you have of showing affection. Just do me a favor, let me know when we get to the part where I get to kick your zombie, black-lunged ass, because that's mainly where my investment in this lies." The man with the cigarette smiled darkly. "Ah," he said, "Same old Mulder." A puff of smoke curled up into the night. "A word of advice, if I may - don't lose the passion. Perhaps put it to better use than hitting a dead man, but don't lose it. Might I suggest fixing your partner a sandwich? My guess is she'll be hungry when she finally wakes up." "And what the hell does that mean?" The curl of smoke grew higher and Mulder covered his ears as the sound of crashing water got louder and louder and -- Mulder awoke to darkness, to the sensations of bed and sheets and pillow, all soft and familiar, his toes curling under the comforter as if to brush away sand. He took an unsteady breath. Upon his bare chest sprawled a warm, nude, and fast asleep Scully. Mulder pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. In his mind was a chorus of logic, of her reassuring voice insisting the most rational argument: Just a dream, Mulder. Just a dream. His fingertips brushed lightly in circles on her back, heart pounding, as he repeated it one final time and watched the newborn sun rising slowly above the sandy coast of Hawaii. --- Kahoolawe, HI February 1st 4:00pm They were surrounded by beach and ocean, a bright sun overhead, the peek-a-boo stripe of white-crystal on water, the palm trees whispering dirty secrets to the crashing waves. Mulder had dug his fingers and toes into the sand, burrowed inside where it was cool, and had begun to excavate, his brows furrowed, his hands working hard at a small, flat structure he couldn't seem to get quite right. When Scully came up behind him, her palm resting on his shoulder, the green-blue flecks in her eyes a match for her sarong, Mulder turned and smiled. "What's up, Doc?" Scully returned the smile and knelt down on the towel she'd carefully spread that he'd later demolished. She kissed the back of his neck. Vacationing seemed to agree with her, and certainly, the sarong agreed with Mulder. Probably, it would agree much more vigorously once it lay forgotten on the floor, but everything all in due course. "What's this?" asked Scully, gesturing at Mulder's unskilled effort in the sand. "Scully, have I ever told you about the ancient Oriyan myth regarding the origins of sand sculpture?" Scully's eyebrows both shot up at once, although she remained silent. Waiting. Mulder grinned. Ah, Scully. This was always his favorite part of the game. "Three-hundred and fifty years ago," he began, "A young, idealistic Indian poet, Balaram Das, in a fit of passionate worship, made a pilgrimage to the small farming city of Orissa to offer his prayers to the highest and most merciful of Krishnas, Lord Jagannath. Unfortunately, the high priests guarding the Lord's chariot refused to let Das past. In fact, they insisted he go home. Instead, Das retreated to the beach in frustration and carved the likenesses of his superheroes into the wet sand exactly as he'd seen them on the chariot. According to the mythology, Das' passion and devotion to what he believed was so strong, the original statues disappeared from the chariot and actually reappeared on the beach." Scully blinked, set one hand on her hip. "I have no idea what I'm building, Scully -- that really would have worked." "Actually," said Mulder, "I was going to finish with 'I suppose the myth must be true if I was sculpting you and now here you are, Scully,' but who really believes in that kind of thing anyway?" Scully crept closer, touched an index finger to the center of his chest. Mulder's pulse jumped. "I think that depends on your phraseology," she murmured. "At the moment, I can think of several things I believe in." Mulder smirked. "Scully, are you attempting to talk dirty to me?" Scully touched a palm to his cheek, searched his eyes, then nodded and looked past him, scanning the beach. Her long red hair curled and frizzled in the humidity, unkempt and ravished-looking. Certainly, Mulder loved nothing more than a Scully who looked newly ravished - he didn't care how long she spent cursing her hair dryer in the morning - and after two days of vacationing, Scully had been ravished plenty. And loudly. And in positions Mulder had thought he might need to stretch first before trying again. He tapped her wrist. "Looking for anything specific, Doc?" "Just checking to see how alone we are," she murmured, and drew herself closer to him. She tickled an elicit line down his neck, down his breastbone, ending at the waistband of his shorts; a spark flickered between them, the pause between touching and tasting like the volatile ten seconds between lighting a match and watching the fireworks explode. "We're alone enough," said Mulder, and he whirled on her and had her beneath him before she could catch her breath. His heart pounded, and he could feel her quick breaths, her own heart pounding on the downbeats of his, a thunderous, reassuring rhythm, an island symphony. His index finger brushed the tie at the neck of her sarong, his other hand combing through her renegade hair. Scully grinned and let her nose trace a leisurely path along Mulder's jawline, his cheek. Her own pale cheeks had been bronzed by the sun, the bridge of her nose a youthful pink, her eyes like the violet insides of clamshells. "You forgot the end of the parable," Scully whispered into his mouth. She wound her arms around his neck, her fingertips executing a skilled and clever dance through the hair at the base of his skull. "That the high priest supposedly heard Das' prayers, passionate as they were, and arrived on the beach to bless him. A nice, tidy little ending for a man so devoted to his religion, don't you think?" Mulder pulled back slightly and gazed at her, feeling drunk. "Why on Earth do you know these things, Scully?" Their eyes met: a challenge. "I don't know. Why do you, Mulder?" He grinned at her. She grinned back. Her lips brushed his neck as his fingers busied with the knot at the back of her sarong. Nothing else seemed to matter anywhere in the world. "This is slowly degenerating into a beer commercial," Mulder muttered, and when Scully merely laughed, he bent forward, kissing her soundly, swallowing the delighted lilt in her voice. "Years of obsessively collecting porn, Mulder, and that's all you can see happening here? A beer commercial?" Scully's quick breathing tickled his chin, and all the blood in Mulder's body rushed south. She murmured, "I must not be doing this correctly," and locked her calves swiftly behind his, yanking him closer so her back arched into him. Light-headed and overcome, Mulder was about to make a smart ass retort, to one-up her as he so loved to do, when he licked the corner of his lip and tasted the strange, salty tang of blood. He frowned and licked again, searching for the cut, but found nothing. "Scully?" Puzzled, Scully brought two fingers up to her face, brushed them across her wet upper lip. When she drew them away, examining her hand as if it were not her own, but perhaps someone else's - a hand that surely belonged to another woman, in another life - she gazed up at him, her eyes filled with questions. "Mulder?" Mulder pulled them both to sitting. His mouth opened, although no sound came out, and instead, something dark and frightening began to roar in his eardrums. The salty- metallic taste still burned on his lips. Blood. Scully's blood. He grabbed at the corner of the beach towel and thrust it at her, spraying sand in all directions. He pictured the murderous look on her face that morning - a heady cross between love and disgust - as he'd leaned over her and spit a thick glob of toothpaste into the sink. "Can you really not wait five minutes?" she'd asked, her hair pulled back messily, her face covered in some weird orange gel, and he'd answered by backing her into the towel rack and kissing her, turning them both the color of ripe pumpkin. Mulder's mind reeled again, trying to reconcile a Scully who was healthy with a Scully who was not. Finally, having long lost patience with the trajectory of his own mind and the universe in general, he pulled her to her feet, grabbed her by the hand, and propelled them down the beach. -- Kings Hwy 4:20pm Mulder could remember, from his time as a young boy in Chilmark, a dazzling circle of trees that had hugged the woods near his house. Tall, thick, green, and secured in an extensive root system that hugged the hill overlooking a lake, they had been the perfect trees for climbing - if only Mulder hadn't been so goddamned afraid of heights. For months after they'd moved into the Chilmark house, Mulder came up with hundreds of complicated and perfectly logical-sounding reasons as to why the trees outside his house did absolutely not want or need to be climbed: there could be bears in the woods that would pounce on him the second he got near, there could be deadly squirrels itching to attack anyone who invaded their nest, he could inadvertently inspire Samantha to climb up after him, and then she would fall and break her neck and his mother would be heartbroken. The real reason, of course, the one he never ever wanted to speak, was that it was much easier to be afraid than to climb. Finally one day, after a year of extensive debating and weighing of the pros and cons, Mulder wandered into the woods, hands shaking and sweaty, to hoist himself up the trunk of the tallest tree, which had been marked with a florescent orange "X." About an hour later, once he had reached the top, a series of scrapes and cuts marring his hands, his face dirty from leaning against the coarse bark, his hair matted with leaves, he found himself watching the explosion of a sunset over the water. The warm crimsons and lavenders reflected out from the surface, making the sky look endless; on all sides, a dark ring of shadowy forest bordered. In that moment, as he'd watched the colors change like the swirl of paint in a glass of water, the world and all its mysteries had seemed clear to him; Mulder had never been raised religious, and at the age of ten, the Earth could have orbited him and he would not have been surprised, but as he watched the sky on that early Autumn evening, he'd been sure of something -- something more, something greater, even if he didn't know what that was or what it might mean. This moment he would always remember, filed carefully away in the cabinet of his mind marked "childhood" -- right alongside his sister's abduction and the day his parents had said they were splitting up. When contractors had finally bulldozed the trees to the ground - more houses, his father explained - Mulder had not been able to speak. He'd only had the nerve to climb once, and once had not been enough. And yet, life didn't seem to care what Mulder wanted, and at the age of eleven, this injustice had seemed insurmountable. So that evening, as the sky turned navy, Mulder ran out to the woods. He'd stood in the space where his tree had once been, and feeling newly aged, grieved for all the climbs that could never be. Older now but no less surprised by the cruelty of life, Mulder glanced over at the woman beside him as he gunned their rental car down a long, winding stretch of road. Her nose had not quite dripped so much as it had spontaneously gushed, although the worst of it seemed to have passed. Meanwhile, Scully's eyes, normally so focused and knowing and alert, glazed as she watched the line of trees passing on either side. Mulder gripped the steering wheel; in his mind, a brilliant Massachusetts sunset blocked out the rest. "I think the clinic's just up ahead," said Mulder. "Okay," said Scully, and she squeezed his hand. Mulder nodded and breathed and thought absurdly of trees, and tried not to look down. ---- Kula Medical Clinic 6:30pm On one side of the doctor's inner office, a six foot high window looked out upon a winding service road, palm trees beckoning on either side, birds of paradise hugging the soft, green hills, and beyond, the beach. In the chair beside Mulder, a mute, distant Scully held a crumpled tissue to her nose -- she'd gone through five in the past hour, although she'd tried, unsuccessfully, to keep him from counting. Mulder, feeling suddenly trapped, coiled like a spring just waiting to be sprung, leapt up from his chair. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Scully watching him, her hand cupping the tissue over her nose, her eyebrow arched at full mast. Mulder shook his head and began to pace, one hand clenching and unclenching at his side, the other digging invisible crop circles into his scalp. He thought back to a time, early on in their friendship, when they'd both been assigned away from The X-Files, to other departments in other sections on seemingly opposite ends of the universe. Without her company, the days had inexplicably grown longer, the space all around him somehow becoming emptier and less, although he'd been much too young and too unwilling to understand why, for the first time in all his years as an agent, he should miss anyone so terribly. After a time, they'd begun to meet by the reflecting pond outside the Hoover building. Mostly, it was a way to share information undetected, to brainstorm together about a lead, or a source, or an autopsy finding, or a piece of evidence. It was a way to complain, and vent, and stew, and plot to get the X-Files opened again, to get them back together, as a team. But once that business would be exhausted for an evening, and the two of them would still remain, their gazes trained thoughtfully over the fountains in crescendo, one of them would pick a subject: second sight, spontaneous human combustion, voodoo, clairvoyancy, ESP, parallel universes - - and for the next hour, they would fight a tennis match of words, each lobbing and volleying back at the other, each sparked by this idea of making the other fault first. Game, set, match. But then one day, as Scully rose as she always did, the fountain crashing behind her as it always had, Mulder realized, as if seeing the world truly for the first time, that he wanted to kiss her. "And anyway, it's impossible to prove," she'd been saying, "If you're going to throw Dean Radin and Helmut Schmidt at me, for instance, then surely you must also accept that what they were doing was mere assumption. You simply can't measure the difference between chance prediction and actual outcome -- not unless you can start reading minds, and I really think that's a phenomena for me to debunk another night, don't you?" She'd turned to face him, her eyes filled with the light from the fountain, her red hair tangled by the breeze, her full lips parted in wait for his answer, and Mulder had been struck. This notion - of how Scully might look newly kissed, or what her skin might taste like on his tongue - threw him miles off balance; she had been his friend, his confidante. But more than that, he had been desperate to work with her again. Too desperate to work with her again. Unsure of what to think, Mulder closed his eyes and imagined that he had somehow discovered a great secret within her as well - he wouldn't have felt so dangerously uneasy if he'd thought it wasn't reciprocated. But "goodnight" was all they'd exchanged that evening, and in another minute, she was gone. Two weeks later, and she was really gone. Mulder ground the heels of his palms into his eyes and paced faster; he wanted to dig himself a hole and then fall through it, back to a time where he might be able to change his own wretched behavior. What if he'd just walked right up to her, curled one hand around her neck and told her the truth - that he wanted her, that he knew she wanted him, aliens and work and conspiracies be damned - and kissed her until her toes curled, never to look back? Would they still be sitting here now, together, the both of them like frightened prisoners waiting for a judge to pronounce sentence? "Mulder," said Scully, and he turned to see her dabbing gently at her nostrils with the bloody tissue, frowning as if the blood had said something distasteful. She nodded her chin in the direction of the chair. "Sit down. You're making me nervous." "I'm pretty sure I'm making myself nervous." "Yeah, well. You're dragging me with you." Scully balled up the tissue in her hand. "Mulder, look. It's been ten years since I've had any..." She paused, shook her head as if someone else had just tried to speak for her, took a deep breath, and started again. "We could just be overreacting to nothing." "Nothing?" Mulder pivoted hard on his heel and knocked heavily into an antique phone on the desktop. "Shit--" He lunged forward to grab it before any real damage could be done, and saw Scully watching him with tired eyes. Her unsteady fingers massaged at her temples. Mulder straightened. "Nothing? Scully, have you met us? Should I introduce you?" "Mulder, if this is isn't 'nothing,' then you realize it means this thing in my neck has malfunctioned somehow." She swallowed. "And that means my chances -- " "No." "The probability -- " "Scully, please stop talking." The opening door startled both of them, and their gazes shifted to the doctor, a young, tired looking woman of about thirty or so, with sleek navy pants and a white top. For a second, Mulder pictured Scully conducting similar meetings with her own patients; setting her charts on the desk, clasping her hands in front of her, leaning back and trying to remain impartial and objective even if her first instinct was to growl in frustration and shake her fists at the sky. "Well, Dr. Scully," said the doctor, without preamble, "The good news is that your physical shows nothing out of the ordinary." Mulder drummed his fingers anxiously on the desk, and Scully stilled his hand with hers. "And?" she said, the edges of the word traced with fear. "And," said the doctor, "The rest of your tests -- your bloodwork, essentially, will have to be sent out to the labs on the mainland, and that'll probably take a day or two because of the weather. Unfortunately, we're just a barrier island and don't have a ton at our disposal here -- most go out across the bridge to Maui or Lanai for anything serious. I can give you the name of a technician out there who can do the X-rays you want, but with the storm moving in off the coast, I don't know if the roads will be open much longer." "So you want me to wait." "Unacceptable." Mulder's legs drummed out a ferocious symphony beneath the desk. "Between the beach and here we could have given someone a transfusion with the amount of blood she's lost. Surely, there's a way to get the results sooner." Scully sighed. "Mulder--" "Surely, there's a way to get on that fancy little antique phone of yours and call someone who can help us." Mulder could hear his own voice rising unnaturally louder in the small, cheerful office, but felt little reason to lower it. His heart hammered viciously. "I'm assuming you have her charts right there, and I'm assuming you're capable of --" "MULDER." Mulder glanced at Scully. A flicker of warning flashed in her eyes, and Mulder deflated, his chest filling with the weight of his own nervous energy. He remembered a Scully who was pale as quartz, wasting away as wires pumped poison into her body and killed her. He gazed around at the diplomas and happy artwork on the walls, and considered either breaking the doctor's fingers or breaking everything else. The doctor, for her part, set a pair of glasses on her nose and otherwise appeared unmoved. "As I said, Dr. Scully, you otherwise appear to be in perfect health." Scully glanced shortly at Mulder. "I haven't had any problems swallowing, haven't had any migraines or swelling of the lymph nodes or anything else normally associated with a malignant nasopharynx." She seemed to be saying this more for his benefit than the doctor's, and Mulder, feeling guilty, tried to look slightly less pained. "I'd prefer to schedule a nasopharyngoscopy, although I don't suppose you have the equipment to do that, either." The doctor shook her head. "The storm should blow over tomorrow," she said, "And by then, we should have your blood work back. If there's anything anomalous on the bloodwork, then by all means, I'd recommend the X-Ray and the MRI -- I think a nasopharyngoscopy might be a bit invasive given such inconclusive symptoms." The doctor's glance passed to Mulder, his impatient gaze darting everywhere. Empathy sparked in her eyes. "Look," she said softly, "The weather report is calling for this damn thing to blow in soon, and there are warnings all up and down the coast. If it wasn't for that, I'd have been able to get your blood results this afternoon, and I am very sorry for having to make you wait. But if you try to get out over the bridge now, there's a good chance you'll endanger yourself far worse than any nosebleed could. My recommendation is to hunker down at your hotel, wait until I call you with the results, and go from there. I promise you, I'll do everything I can to push them through as soon as possible." "I, ah, appreciate that," managed Scully, her eyes blank and unseeing. Mulder said nothing until they got outside, where, under the deceptive cover of the fading Hawaiian sun, he excused himself from her for a moment, walked over to the other side of the building, and punched the concrete wall so hard a field of stars burst out along the insides of his eyelids. If the doctor was surprised at all to see them back again a few minutes later, Mulder's fist an awful, shredded mess, Scully's tan, healthy face still filled with something approximating toxic shock, she said nothing as she bandaged him up and silently made Scully a copy of her own medical chart to take back with her. ---- Kings Hwy intersection 6:50pm "Right, left, or straight?" "Hmm?" Scully turned to find Mulder staring at her. He motioned to the four-way-stop. "Right, left, or straight?" he repeated. Scully gazed out the windshield. It was all so deceptively lovely. Tall palms, their teardrop-shaped leaves like swollen green fingers. Bright flowers hugging the road. Grassy, emerald hills. The sky slowly turned to slate and the greenery rustled nervously, cowering; the air smelled of ozone. Mulder had stopped beneath the turn-off for King's Hwy, the road that lead either to the beach or the bridge. In the fading daylight he looked impossibly young to her, and Scully saw him as he once had been; his passion and his purpose radiating off him like heat, his soft brown hair curled into his eyes, his face alert but guarded. He was still her protector, he was still that brilliant, beautiful man, but age and one too many horrors along the way had worn him at the edges. "We can keep going, Scully," he said, tilting his head at the grey sky, the swirling clouds. "I can gun it and we can go across the bridge, and then I'll harass whoever I need to harass to get what you need - at the very least, I have enough experience barging unceremoniously into hospitals that I feel quite confident I can get us kicked out of at least two or three." He tried a small, frightened smile. "If nothing else, we can bully someone into running tests. We can--" Scully stilled him with a palm against his cheek. Mulder breathed in deeply and brought his bandaged hand to cover hers. Scully closed her eyes, and in her mind she saw the crevices and imperfections of his skin, the rough calluses on his thumbs from trying to fix the sink, the whirls and loops of his fingerprints, long memorized now from years of experience bailing him out of tight spots. "Tell me, Scully," he said softly. "Tell me what I should do here." Scully opened her eyes and unbuckled her seatbelt. She felt restless. "Turn the car off," she ordered. "Scully?" Mulder studied her, his face a mask of concern. "What is it? Tell me." Scully shook her head. She took a breath. Without speaking, she scaled the gearshaft between them, her leg crushed against the dash at an awkward angle, her elbow banging harshly against the steering wheel. Undeterred, she muttered an ungraceful curse and managed to clumsily straddle his lap, her back to the windshield, her lips warm on his ear, her arms tight around his neck. She felt safe here, wanted, protected; the rest of life could go to hell. Just as long as she could stay here. Just as long as she could crawl inside of Mulder and look at the truth. "Just sit here with me," whispered Scully. "Let's just sit here... for a minute." Wanting to feel, wanting to touch, Scully opened her mouth against his. If the surprise of her uncharacteristic act registered in Mulder's brain, he thankfully said nothing, merely held her on his lap and returned the kiss, his fingers massaging through her scalp. "Make me alive," whispered Scully into his mouth, and she fumbled with the zipper on his jeans. "Scully," said Mulder, and he held her close, stilling her hands. "Scully. We're parked in the middle of the road." "So?" muttered Scully, pressing her hands up beneath his T- shirt, against his chest, where his skin was warm and soft beneath her palms. Her hands shook. "It isn't fair, Mulder." She ran her fingers in shaky, concentric circles above his heart. She remembered how she had passed the time while sick, by counting each pulse of the heart monitor, separating the hours into categories, and then dividing the categories by days. Nonsense math with fractions and equations - nonsense math with pieces of logic floating in it. Sometimes, Scully would wonder whether an adequate representation was even possible - did there exist a formula to measure the potential of a life, or did static numbers and equations make it impossible to follow the growth of something so constantly in flux? Tears gathered at the corners of Scully's eyes. "This isn't supposed to happen," she whispered. "Not now. Not anymore. It just... it doesn't make sense." Mulder slid his arms around her. "Oh, my love." He kissed the top of her head and sighed. "I think we have a better chance of discovering the great mystery of Walter Skinner's missing hairpiece than discovering why the world doesn't give a shit about the things that are or aren't supposed to happen to us." Scully chuckled and nodded that she knew, that of course yes she knew, and then she twisted in place, wrapping her arms more tightly around him as the sky crashed and opened up and the uncaring world finally cried. --- Aikane Kahuna Hotel 12:00am As Scully slept, shadowy visions flashed through her; Christian Feuron, the crown of his seven-year-old head shaved clean for surgery, his clear green eyes gazing trustingly up at her. Herself but younger, her pale feet dangling over the side of a hospital bed, her eyes squeezed shut as a needle went into the back of her neck. Mulder cradling their two-day old son in his arms, his tears hot on her earlobe as he told her that he would marry her, that he would take them everywhere, all over the world, all over the universe if she wanted, and wouldn't that be a great adventure, just the three of them. As Scully struggled to break the surface of her own memories, she found herself on an endless, familiar expanse of sand, a windy, colorless beach that stretched for miles. "Hello?" she called, anxiety rising within her. "Is anyone here?" She looked left and right, up the beach and down the beach. She recalled for a moment a case she and Mulder had worked together, back in the day -- a genie that had claimed to grant wishes. Mulder, of course, being Mulder, had managed to snag three wishes for himself, and later on, he'd admitted to Scully that while he'd wished for world peace, when he actually got what he'd wished for, the sound of an endless hush had been much more frightening than the sound of an agonized world. Scully had argued that perhaps the yin and yang theory applied; the world as God had intended could not exist without evil, and if hope and despair were indeed interconnected, then perhaps this was the purpose of life itself. Mulder had grumbled his agreement, although when she'd asked him what he'd wished for as his final wish - if not to better the world for all mankind, then what? - Mulder had said nothing in return, merely smiled at her over the lip of his beer. Oh, God, she thought -- Mulder. Where was Mulder? "Mulder?" Scully shielded her eyes and searched. In the distance, emerging from the horizon, a shadow was growing larger. Scully's mind jumbled as she tried to make it out, the sensation like falling down stairs, like hitting every memory both recognizable and unfamiliar on the way down; kind voices, the irregular pulse of a heart monitor, a child's laughter, the sound of a woman sobbing, the texture of a old stuffed animal. Scully's heart hammered. Where was she? What was happening to her? Her palm fluttered at her chest, and she was struck with the image of a baby gazing up at her from the safety of his wooden crib. Which was when Scully realized a boy was walking towards her. "Christian," said Scully. Her smile was laced with disappointment -- she wouldn't have known her own son, wouldn't have known what he looked like if she'd concentrated for days. Scully steeled her voice and asked, "How are you feeling?" Christian smiled. "I'm okay, Dr. Scully." He folded his hands neatly in front of him. He wore jeans and a red T- shirt; normal little boy clothes, Scully noticed, and not a hospital gown. Scully hoped this meant good things for his recovery, and as she crept the tenuous divide between sleep and awareness, she decided to take whatever she could get. "I had a dream about you," said Christian. "I just wanted you to know." "Did you?" Scully gazed out at the sand and the endless, empty horizon. "Well, Christian, I'm pretty sure I'm dreaming about you right now, so it would appear we are even." Christian grinned, revealing a missing tooth on one side. "Yes," he said, happily. "I think you're right." Scully took a slow, calming breath. Her feet felt warm and sweaty in the sand. "Was there something you came here to tell me?" Christian tilted his head to one side. "No," he said. "But my friend... He wanted me to tell you something." "Your friend?" "Yes," said Christian. "We talk sometimes. He said you used to sing to him." Scully breathed in sharply. "Christian?" She took a cautious step back. "Why are you saying this?" "He's says he remembers some things about you," answered Christian. "He says he really wants to meet you, but he can't yet." Christian smiled and outstretched his hand. "Soon, though." Scully clasped her fingers with Christian's, hearing as she did so the long beep of a heart monitor, the roar of wind, a woman's cries, a flurry of familiar medical-speak, the heart monitor changing tempo -- Scully awoke with a jolt to find herself alone in bed, her nose dripping blood onto the pillow. With a stifled, angry curse, she launched herself up and out, noticing Mulder still glued to his laptop, a legal pad open and exposed on the desk beside him, several sheets of paper crumpled on the floor. Just exactly what he thought he was researching, Scully was sure she had no idea. Several candles burned low on the dresser, several others spread out on the table and bathroom countertop. As the outside world began to bleed in, Scully could make out wails of thunder, the pattering of rain, the loud spirals of wind driving leaves and branches hard against the windowpanes. The room was hot, and she twisted her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck to try and alleviate the heat. The power must have blown at some point. Like a tired child coming slowly back to her surroundings, Scully kicked off her sweat pants, hurled her tank top to the floor, and wandered absently to the bathroom in her old, comfortable jockeys. She ripped a square of toilet paper and wadded it against her nose. Her dream was already beginning to fade from her, even as she tried to clutch at its edges - the beach, the sound of wind, the feeling of flying-- what had Christian been trying to tell her? Perhaps she should call the hospital, just in case-- Scully looked up into the mirror, still contemplating, when she saw Mulder standing behind her. Scully gasped and jumped and banged her elbow hard against the wall. "Jesus, Mulder." She turned to face him and sighed, clutching her elbow. "I thought you were out there plugging away at that laptop of yours." "I was. Then I heard you get up." He leaned forward and brushed an errant strand of sweaty hair back behind her ears, smoothing it. "I wanted to make sure you were okay." "Oh," said Scully. "Thank you." She stared at her toes. Mulder sucked in a hard breath. "Scully," he said. A plea. Scully swallowed. She wrung out her tissue with both hands, her knuckles whitening. She wondered what her body might look like from the inside, a giant cavity filled with blood and organ and muscle, held together with bone and tissue, and something else, something dark lurking just beneath the surface. Waiting. Itching to pull her to pieces. She took a breath. "Mulder. I want to say... what I need to say..." She took his hand in hers. "If... if this is true, if I... if I'm dying -- " Mulder recoiled as if struck. "You're not dying." "How can you possibly -- " "Scully, don't. Please." He shook his head. "I can't go there. Okay?" Scully dabbed at her nose one final time, tossed the tissue into the wastebasket. She nodded mutely. "Okay." She stepped forward into Mulder's arms. "Okay." They stayed just that way for several quiet moments. After a time, she spoke. "Please tell me what you're thinking, Mulder." Mulder pulled away slightly to study her face. In her head, Scully saw the black mailbox peeking through a spray of snowflakes, heard the barking dogs. Saw Mulder, lying half- conscious on the ground, a second away from getting his head handed to him. Saw the girl, still alive, floating in a sea of ice as blood was drained from her. Scully had found them, and they had lived. She had performed a dangerous surgery on Christian, and he had lived as well. There had to exist a reason for these things, a reason she couldn't yet comprehend. "You first," said Mulder, poking her gently. Scully frowned. She took a moment to gather herself up. "I think..." She paused, began again. "I think maybe we need to call upon the past for help." Mulder looked concerned. "Meaning what?" "Meaning..." Scully took a deep breath. "What would Agent Scully do?" She tried on a small, wry smile for his benefit. Mulder smiled back. "I should put that on a shirt." "Creative, Mulder, but nobody would wear it." She breathed in the musky scent of his skin, leaned against his shoulder. "Maybe leave T-shirt making to the experts. Stick to the unexplained." "I would wear it." Scully laughed, and Mulder kissed the top of her head. His lips were warm and real and alive. In the darkness of the room, this was all that mattered. -- Aikane Kahuna Hotel 12:10am Scully lay propped on her side, her head pillowed by her palm. She closed her eyes in the dark, listened to the persistent hum of rain, and pulled an ice cube from the glass on the nightstand. The room was filled with humidity, the mattress like a heating pad. Grateful for the trail of cold liquid on her tongue, Scully ran the ice cube across her lips and passed it down to Mulder, who sat on the floor in his boxers, buried in a mound of crumpled legal paper. Mulder popped the ice cube absently into his mouth and searched his laptop. Candlelight flickered against his skin in the darkness, and Scully drew strength from the outline of him, the black and orange dance across his arms. "Sorry for the mess, I just feel a little like I'm not in Kansas anymore." Mulder's voice was unsure and distant. He uncrumpled and recrumpled papers, tossed them aside, grabbed others. "You should probably know, I've actually kind of taken a new route with my, ah, my truth-seeking, here. It's the ghetto-rigged approach." "Meaning?" "Meaning I'm looking for a different kind of answer now." Scully's head tilted in curiosity, and Mulder cleared his throat, continued, "Not having any real place to start, I thought I'd google the history of this island, see if there were any pervasive myths, anything that could perhaps be reinterpreted. I've specifically been interested in the local volcanic ranges, the myth of Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire and lightning." Scully listened, hypnotized, as Mulder's mouth made beautiful love to nonsense. Oddly comforted, she ran a second ice cube down her bare shoulder, down the length of her arm; her eyelids fluttered shut as he leaned forward to kiss away beads of water still lingering on the pulse of her wrist. He added, "You ready for this?" Scully nodded, and her eyelids fluttered open once again. "Okay," said Mulder. He took a deep breath. "According to local legend, Pele is the all-powerful goddess of lightning and fire, and her brother, Ka-moho-ali'i, supposedly has the power to raise the dead. The locals subscribe quite heavily to this story, and claim that both Pele and her Lazarus-like brother live inside Mount Kilauea, the most impressive volcano on the island. Supposedly, the lava has magical properties -- it can either heal or curse, depending on whether you've stolen a piece of it or asked the Gods nicely. Locals claim reports of stolen lavarock being returned with frightened letters and peace offerings -- food, money or jewelry -- as well as reports of healed bones, cured illnesses, sometimes within days of being given the gift of these rocks -- these tears from Pele. It's said that those with great passion will be granted a single tear and offered the chance for healing." Mulder's voice dipped melodramatically at the end, a sculptor of words signing his spoken masterpiece. Fifteen years with him, and still, he was the same old Mulder, still spinning her stories, still trying to turn straw into gold. Scully's eyebrow arched. "This is what you've spent the past few hours researching, Mulder? Tourism literature?" Mulder shot her a withering look. "And your plan relates to this fairytale, how?" "Who said I had a plan, Scully?" Scully groaned. "If you don't have a plan, Mulder, then why the hell are you reciting ancient island myth to me?" "Because I thought it was cool?" "Have you been drinking, Mulder?" "Look," said Mulder, and he tapped impatiently at the pulse of her wrist. "The truth is... the truth is I don't know what the fuck the truth is, so I've been taking pages of diligent notes on nonsense, just trying to find anything that might be helpful - maybe if the volcanic ash of Kilauea has extra terrestrial properties, or if some form of the virus is living inside of it and that sparked your bloody nose -- I don't know. It's all a lot of bullshit, but it's kept me from going insane and punching much heavier walls -- because believe me, I considered it." Mulder exhaled. "Sorry. You were asleep awhile." Scully nodded and squeezed his hand sympathetically. She recalled an afternoon long ago, maybe eleven years earlier, when Mulder had barged into the women's restroom looking for her, his eyes wild and his tie askew, his voice ruptured in a million pieces as he'd asked, "Scully, you've been in here awhile and, um, are you okay?" The first few stages of treatment had made her tired, nauseous, and weak, and as she'd tried to answer that, yes she was fine, and yes she'd be out in a minute, her stomach lurched and she'd pressed forward over the sink. Mulder, horrified, had rushed towards her; he'd cradled her elbow and tucked her hair back and closed his eyes and stood there and stayed. When twenty minutes later she no longer had anything left in her stomach but finally felt steady enough to move, Mulder had wordlessly smoothed back the hair he'd mussed, touched his knuckles gently to her cheek, handed her some paper towels, and walked away. Later that day, after Mulder had viciously kicked in the eleventh floor copy machine for seemingly no reason, Scully had quietly gone out to the parking garage and bent forward against the steering wheel of her car, and cried. Scully traced the lines of the bandage on Mulder's knuckles, brushing away the memory. "Were you able to find anything on the geological properties of Kilauea? Reports of abductions, strange lights, missing time? Has the ash been studied, maybe by local professors? There's a satellite campus for the University of Hawaii not far from here. That could be a good jumping off point." Mulder tickled her wrist and grinned somewhat stupidly. "God, you're hot." Scully chuckled, and Mulder pulled an ice cube from the glass, leaned forward, and touched it gently to her lips. Scully closed her eyes as the cold water trailed down her neck, abruptly stopping at the valley between her breasts. Mulder leaned in to scoop the ice cube into his own mouth, kissing the water from her skin. "Thank you," she mumbled. Mulder nodded. "I checked all the online newspapers, local and national," he said, leaning back and chewing on the ice, "I logged on to every search engine -- I haven't yet found reports of strange lights over Kilauea, or anywhere else, and I haven't found anything in the MUFON database, either. I even checked reports from the local hospitals - anyone visiting the ER complaining of nosebleeds, and those being treated for cancer - there hasn't been much in the way of unusual activity at all. The University of Hawaii may have hours tomorrow, though, if you still want to check it out, uh, while we...wait." "ER reports?" Scully leaned forward on her palm, intrigued. "How did you manage to gain access to triage records, Mulder?" Mulder shrugged. "The gunmen left me an exit-memo." Scully touched his knuckles and grinned. Inside her was this strange sensation of going both forward and backwards at once, of moving in a direction she could not entirely articulate. "So, what now?" "Well," said Mulder, "We could sit here and do nothing, and wait." Scully was restless, on pins and needles. She steeled herself and said, "Or?" "Or," said Mulder. He paused and smiled and as Scully's gaze turned suspicious, he continued, "Hear me out here, but I was also reading up on the old ways associated with island myths -- sacrifices to the gods, offerings of alligator, turtle, and pig - no blonde virgins or squalling infants, thankfully; it's apparently not that kind of party. However, it seems the only way to have Pele's tears offered to you at their most powerful is to offer the goddess something equally palatable in return. Anything else is considered stealing, and supposedly the effects reverse." Scully's lips pursed. She knew this familiar song and dance, this dizzying sensation of being the quickstepping Ginger Rogers to Mulder's paranormally inclined Fred Astaire. Perhaps Mulder was fashioning new ways to the truth now, creating lifelines for them out of battered string and old paperclips, but this was still Mulder they were talking about, and if the dance didn't involve at least one crazy scheme she would later have to explain to the police, Scully knew he probably hadn't finished telling her the whole damn thing. "Mulder," she said, "If this is the part where you tell me I need to slaughter a pig in the moonlight while you gun the engine through a tropical storm, I'm afraid this is where we part company." Mulder chuckled. "No, nothing like that." He ran his index finger in lazy figure eights on her arm. "But I do think there's something to be said for a generic Kmart sacrifice, a passionate heart, and really, really nice breasts." Scully tilted her head suspiciously. "What exactly are you suggesting?" Mulder said nothing. "Mulder," said Scully, a dreadful sort of understanding creeping into her voice, "Please tell me you're not suggesting that we head out in a dangerous thunderstorm so I can leave a leather handbag and a ham sandwich at the foot of a thousand year old dormant volcano." Mulder neither confirmed nor denied, instead answering, "What do you think we could substitute for turtle?" Scully shook her head. "No." "It could be a really fun adventure." Her eyebrow arched. "What if I told you it's always been a secret fantasy of mine, ever since that first case - to have my wicked way with you in the middle of a thunderstorm?" Both eyebrows. Mulder leaned in to kiss her, his lips gentle and undemanding and endlessly, beautifully manipulative. A lamp in the far corner flickered on. The air conditioner hummed gruffly back to life. Into her mouth, Mulder challenged, "It's just a little rain, Agent Scully. What are you so afraid of?" --- End part 1