Sandcastles for Pele (part 4 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.

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. So this is the teaser for the 
actual completed story, which is still in editing and 
should be posted officially to ephemeral in the next two 
weeks or so. 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, and to B - for her and humor, mainly.

"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



Sandcastles for Pele, Part 4
By JL 

---

Kings Hwy Intersection
2:10am




Tree.  

This was the first thought in Mulder's head as he opened 
his eyes and peered out the windshield.  Wide and thick and 
dark and too dangerously close for comfort, a Kokia tree 
towered over the rental car without touching it; tiny, 
blood red buds and petals lay scattered like candy hearts 
over the undamaged windshield, and more still drifted off 
the branches.

Flower showers.

This was the second thought in Mulder's head, and 
admittedly it was dumber than the first, although no less 
observant.  The third was that his head hurt, as if someone 
had been poking at it repeatedly with a fork, which was 
when he also realized that his chin was actually resting on 
the airbag.  

The airbag.

Scully.

Scully was his entire fourth thought, and she also figured 
significantly into thoughts five through nine hundred.  
Mulder twisted towards her as she raised her head and 
stared out the windshield, frowning as if seeing Mars 
orbiting backwards around Earth.  She pushed back on the 
airbag and turned to face him, his name unspoken in her 
eyes as she asked, "Are you okay?" 

Mulder breathed in relief, and nodded.  "I think so."  He 
pushed back on his airbag, sat up, and leaned towards 
Scully, brushing his knuckles across her warm cheek.  He 
searched her eyes. "You?"

"Fine."  Scully took a breath.  "What happened?"

Mulder shook his head and inexplicably thought of mornings 
settled at the kitchen table at Oxford, hung-over and 
stoned, and slurping cereal out of coffee mugs.  "Is today 
Thursday or Sunday?" his roommate would ask, bleary eyed, 
as he frowned and tapped at the face of his watch.

"The last thing I remember is you telling me to look out."  
Mulder frowned, unable to dig any further.  He glanced out 
onto the pavement, where a gigantic tree branch had fallen 
across both lanes. Lighting streaked across the sky and the 
branch lit up in halftones, twigs sticking out in bends and 
twists like the fingers of a cartoon witch.  Mulder 
whistled and nodded his chin at her.  "It's a good thing 
you've got a keen eye, Scully."

"Yeah," said Scully, with a peculiar expression on her 
face.  "Good thing."

Mulder's brow arched.  "You don't sound convinced."

Scully tilted her head.  "No."  Her brows knitted.  "I'm 
not.  You?"

"No."

Scully nodded slowly.  "Well..." She squinted, her eyes 
glazed with a familiar looking dance of mental 
calculations. "The airbags must have deployed early and 
with too much force.  Presumably, we were knocked 
unconscious just as the car began to skid, which would 
account for the lack of memory and the disorientation."

Mulder nodded.  "Perhaps."  He leaned against the headrest 
and worked out the kinks in his neck.   He examined the 
unlit dash, the stationary windshield wipers, and exchanged 
a wordless glance with Scully.  Taking one good deep breath 
for luck, Mulder turned the key in the ignition, and the 
engine roared easily to life.  The windshield wipers 
snapped into position, the air conditioner whooshed back 
on, the clock blinked: 2:10, and static screamed forth from 
the car stereo. Scully winced and covered her ears, and 
Mulder tilted his head, his body slightly out of sync, just 
a degree or two off balance.  His gaze shifted from left to 
right, like a dog still unsure of his surroundings, and he 
flipped the radio off. 

"This is weird," he declared.  Then he undid his seatbelt 
and got out of the car.

"Mulder?"  

Scully scrambled out after him and followed him into the 
grass, down the shoulder and out onto the pavement.  Rain 
pushed sideways at them, thick with dirt and sand and grass 
and leaves, and Mulder shielded his eyes as he searched the 
road - for what, exactly, he had no idea.  But in his head, 
he felt a strange tugging: this way, a soundless voice 
urged: follow, follow, follow.  

Mulder followed.

Across the pavement, around the fallen branch, just past 
the sign for King's Hwy, Mulder followed until he was 
standing at the center of an orange "X" painted onto the 
concrete.  For a single bizarre moment he saw himself, 
compass in hand, shouting in gratitude at the sky, 
spreading his arms wide like wings, as Scully looked on, 
young and soaked and utterly perplexed.

"What is it?"  Scully came up behind him and touched his 
shoulder.  

Mulder pointed at the ground under his feet. 

"Okay," she said slowly.  "What's so strange about -" She 
stopped talking.  Closed her eyes.  Opened them slowly.  
"You think this is somehow not a coincidence."

Mulder rubbed his temples.  He felt restless, filled from 
head to toe with a very strange nervous energy.  "I don't 
know.  I don't recall having seen it before, but I don't 
think I've paid enough attention at any point while on this 
road.  I've, ah," he scratched water from his scalp, "I've 
been preoccupied."  

Scully's expression softened.  "So have I."  She squeezed 
his forearm, her hand slick with rain.  

Mulder sighed and endeavored to put it out of his head: the 
bright little X-ray cluster no bigger than his fingernail, 
the trips to her apartment on days when her treatment had 
overpowered her.  Together, they would sit cross-legged on 
her bed, playing Gin and hurling philosophical questions 
and obscure facts and double-entendres back and forth until 
inevitably, Scully called his bluff and won the hand.  
Sometimes, they would touch one another as she trudged 
knee-deep into some Scullylogue about rapid aging or the 
Butterfly Effect - her palm fluttering against his 
collarbone, his fingers tapping against the soft arc of her 
knee. That year, they'd touched five thousand four-hundred 
and forty-six separate times.  Mulder had silently counted, 
wondering always in the back of his mind whether this next 
touch would end up being the last.

"What are you looking for?" Scully's hand slid down 
Mulder's arm, stopping only for a moment at the base of his 
pulse, where her thumb lingered, rapping the beat out 
against his skin. "What are you hoping to find?"

"I'm not sure," mumbled Mulder, and he brought his wrist to 
his face, examining his watch, recalling the late hour, and 
how tomorrow would likely be spent: scurrying from hospital 
to hospital, getting second and third and fourth opinions. 
He frowned and tapped at the glass face, trying to get the 
hands to move.  "Scully," he said, "What time do you have?"

Scully let go of his hand and held her wrist close to her 
eyes.  "Two-oh-four am," she said.  "Why?"

Something niggled at Mulder, poked at his brain as if with 
a long, pointed stick.  "Scully, what was the time on the 
clock in the car?"

"I don't know, I didn't exactly - " Scully set one hand on 
her hip.  "Why are you so concerned with this?"   She eyed 
him suspiciously.  "What are you thinking?"

He was thinking of rainstorms and dark highways, of nine 
minutes lost, of time as a spring, or as something that 
could perhaps be inverted, turned inside-out like a 
sweater, and then, once smoothed and clean and new again, 
folded and put back correctly.  

He was thinking of the prickly wet sand by the ocean, and 
how the air at the shore always smelled of salt and coconut 
and rain.

He was thinking of the first time he'd ever seen Scully 
breast-feed, and the look on her face when he'd asked 
whether there was a two-drink minimum.

He was thinking of an old parlor trick he'd learned in 
college, one that he'd tried to teach Scully as they lay in 
bed atop her covers, fed up with Gin.  The idea was to 
flick the card up into your sleeve as another was pulled 
from the deck - easy enough, it seemed - although Scully 
had been hopeless - no matter how hard she tried, she'd 
just keep flinging the card the wrong way, right off her 
thumb and onto the floor, one after another.

"Mulder?"  Scully touched his arm.  "What is it?"

"Magic," answered Mulder.   He turned his face up into the 
rain, where he could examine the trajectory of droplets 
hurtling towards him.   "I was just thinking of magic."

"Magic?"  Scully backed off slightly.  "Why, exactly?"

Mulder sighed.  "I don't quite know."  He frowned.  "But my 
watch is dead.  And ah, I think yours may be a little slow.  
That's not exactly textbook weirdness, but I don't get why 
the airbags deployed if we didn't actually hit anything."  
He touched her arm, trying to ground himself, trying to 
think, but only pleasant tingles seemed to fire back and 
forth inside his brain. "I feel strange, Scully.  Do you 
feel strange?"

Scully looked pained.  "Mulder, I was just knocked 
unconscious while trying to bring a sack lunch to a 
volcano. And now I have a slight powder burn on the side of 
my head from the airbag."  She sighed.  "Yes, to answer 
your question, I do feel strange.  There's another word I 
can use to describe it, though, if you'd like."

Mulder shook his head.  "No."  He played with the wet 
fabric of her sleeve, pressed the pad of his thumb to her 
elbow.  "I think you know what I mean."

"No, I don't think I do."  Scully's gaze was cautious, as 
if she had no idea whether to turn right or left at the 
fork of a dangerous intersection.  "Mulder, what are you 
really thinking?"

"At this very moment?"

Scully rolled her tongue in her cheek.  "No," she said, 
"Yesterday morning."

Hands on hips, she stood under a diagonal spray of petals 
and rain, her hair matted, half-stuck to her neck and half-
curled out in knots and tangles.  Her oversized T-shirt 
clung awkwardly to her, soaked through and soiled with 
flecks of leaf and twig.  With a grunt, she pulled at the 
hem of the shirt, which only made it more awkward, and 
finally, she swiped the back of her hand across her face, 
flinging the water off like a dog, demanding, "Well?" 

"Love is weird," Mulder finally said.  

Scully made a face.  "What the hell does that m-- "

He was dragging her forward and kissing her before she 
could utter a protest, her surprise swept up like a pebble 
in the water by the tip of his tongue and the insistent 
press of his lips.  As her arms circled his neck, colors 
burst out along the backs of Mulder's eyelids until all he 
could see was the girl he'd first met, strong and indignant 
and rigid and insisting to know who the hell he thought he 
was, implying that time could just disappear when time 
didn't work that way.

When he pulled back, Scully's wet hair tangled across both 
their shoulders.  She paused to catch her breath, and 
managed, "Oh."
  
Mulder smiled and brushed water from her cheeks with the 
tips of his thumb and index finger.  Sometimes, when he 
considered the evolution of the past fifteen years, he 
imagined destiny as a silent third party, as something that 
had cleverly distracted him, tossing aliens and 
conspiracies and lost time and abductions into their path, 
meanwhile allowing the fragile balance of love to sneak up 
on them, even at the beginning, in the rain, in the 
graveyard, or on the highway - just he and that young, 
unafraid Dana Scully.  In his imagination, she would always 
be pacing in a downpour, always declaring with a surprising 
and hungry tone that he was crazy, that this whole fucking 
thing was crazy, all the while her eyes flashing excitement 
in a thousand different shades of blue. 

"You do realize that wasn't a real answer," said Scully, 
looking slightly dizzied. 

Mulder nodded.  "That's because I'm not even sure there's a 
real question."

Scully's eyes searched his, her steady gaze rooting around 
through the spaces between his words for their correct 
meaning.  When finally she seemed to have it, her knuckles 
grazed his jaw.  "Mulder," she said gently.  "What is it 
you want to believe?" 

Mulder pulled her close and kissed her earlobe.  He was 
dirty and soaking wet, and somehow he felt both young again 
and incredibly old.  "You know what I want to believe," he 
said, and kissed the place on her neck where her heartbeat 
echoed.  "What do you want to believe?" 

Scully frowned, seeming lost for a moment in thought.  She 
took a few deep breaths, her blue eyes glazed with 
deliberation.

"The sandwich," she finally said, jerking her chin in the 
direction of the "X."  Her cheeks were warm with color, her 
determination pried open like the stubborn walls of a 
clamshell, releasing from its dark confines a pearl of 
hope; it was the look of someone who desperately wanted to 
complete the journey, someone who had turned her face to 
the sky in an unconventional sort of prayer.  The 
significance of this passed between them without words, 
like a private hand-shake, and Scully finished, shyly, "I 
think we should leave it."

"Ah," said Mulder, delightedly, "Very well played."

Scully, looking slightly embarrassed, fiddled with the wet 
neckline of his T-shirt.  

"Just don't tell me you actually believe in this nonsense 
now," Mulder continued.  "The storm is bad enough - I don't 
think I can drive us back through Flying Pig."  

Scully's eyebrow arched.  "Who, me?"  

She tickled the hair at the back of his neck, and pulled 
him backwards with her towards the car. Rain continued to 
pummel them like pebbles, prickling at their skin, as 
Scully made her way back up the road, down the shoulder and 
into the grass, and opened the backdoor, where she pulled 
out a tiny red cooler filled with food. 

Mulder's eyebrow arched as he watched.  "Need any help, 
Scully?"

Scully shook her head.  With a look of mischief, she 
wandered past him, back into the road, around the fallen 
tree branch, to the foot of the Kokia tree and the sign for 
the highway, and bent to her knees, dropping the cooler 
onto the 'X.'  She rose slowly to her feet and clapped her 
hands satisfactorily, soaking wet and ridiculous, as she 
smiled and angled her face slightly into the rain, up at 
the sky.  Out loud she said, "You know, your theories just 
grow more and more out of touch with reality as time goes 
on, Mulder."


--


Kauai Veterans Memorial Hospital
Waimea, HI
2:01pm



The windows at the hospital stretched from floor to 
ceiling, the world beyond so bright and clear and vivid 
Scully could almost imagine she stood instead at the edge 
of a tropical jungle; she was someplace else, perhaps 
perched on the cusp of some unknown adventure, just she and 
Mulder together.  Not in a waiting room.  Not back here, 
not again.

In the years following her return to medicine, Scully had 
begun to develop a much friendlier relationship with ERs 
and waiting rooms, a sort of grudging truce after so many 
years spent groggy and battered in one ER or another.  Even 
now, if she truly wanted, she could still capture the 
essence of that strange, dark period: walls white as 
January; the antiseptic harmony of EEG monitors and air 
compressors; the horrible stillness of a body so used to 
motion, so suddenly at rest.  

When Mulder had first brought her to their new home, 
leaning her possessively against the doorjamb so he could 
kiss her unhurried, Scully had vowed never to let them go 
back here again.  Their work on the X-Files had once been 
beloved to them both, but it had beaten them and stripped 
them bare; it had left them in one hospital bed after 
another, too often tied to a respirator, too often waiting 
to die.  In the end, when the work had finally swallowed 
all else but Mulder, Scully had realized that in the end, 
Mulder was all she'd ever wanted anyway.    

And she'd vowed to never, never go back to Before.  

And she wouldn't.

Not ever.

Mulder tapped her on the shoulder.  "Hey, you want 
something from the vending machine?"

Scully shook her head.  

"All right.  I'll be back."  He chucked his thumb in the 
direction of the outer lobby, gave her fingers a quick 
squeeze, and disappeared down the corridor.

"I'll be here," whispered Scully to nobody.  She closed her 
eyes and tasted rain on her tongue from the night before.  

The drive had been exhausting, in all ways.

After they'd returned, both had been too prickly and too 
starry-eyed to sleep.  Both had been humming with nervous 
energy, with the magnetic pulse of something building, 
something raw and anxious that begged for release. Without 
words, they had stripped nude, their skin slick with rain, 
and crawled up onto the bed together.  Mulder had turned 
out the lights and Scully lit a candle.  They'd made love 
slowly amongst the flickers and shadows until nothing else 
remained of the world but the pleasure of such acts.  
Afterwards, they'd lain facing one another, Scully tracing 
her secrets onto his warm skin.  

"This is all that matters," Mulder had promised.  "Whatever 
else happens, we'll deal."  

Early that morning, they'd watched the sunrise together 
from the floor beside the bed, her nude legs crisscrossing 
his.  Mulder had pulled the comforter down and draped it 
around them both, and they'd sat skin to skin in the 
changing half-light of the room, churning and restless and 
watching the remnants of the storm.  Mulder had held her 
close and kissed her hair, and Scully, understanding a fear 
as great as hers, had promised him that she would live, 
that she would go to every hospital on the entire island if 
she had to, if that's what it took -

"I'm sorry, is someone sitting here?"

A woman with sad brown eyes pointed to the chair next to 
Scully.  

"No."  Scully gestured at the chair.  "Go ahead."

The woman nodded, "Thank you," and sat, clutching a small 
stuffed rabbit and a wad of tissues. She handed Scully the 
triage clipboard with her free hand, and finished, "I'm 
sorry, I... I think I got it wet."  She sniffled and 
swatted at the medical questionnaire.

"It's okay," said Scully, thinking briefly of Christian 
Feuron's mother, Margaret, the way she'd wander the halls 
of Our Lady of Sorrows when Christian was in surgery, 
absently picking up magazines, rolling and unrolling them, 
folding them in fourths and then setting them back, 
apologizing to anyone who might later pick them up: "I'm 
sorry, I think I bent it a little," her eyes filled with 
tears and her mind far away.  "I think it's still readable, 
though," she'd murmur, "It's still okay..." Once, Scully 
had found Mrs. Feuron just this way, rolling and unrolling 
a copy of Men's Health as she apologized blankly to someone 
who had already gotten up and left.

"I'm just waiting for my husband," the woman said blankly, 
as if Scully had asked her a question.  "He's still signing 
the papers, making all the arrangements... I couldn't go 
back in there, I couldn't go back in the, the - " her voice 
broke.  

Scully took a deep breath.  For years, she'd been fluent in 
the language of grief.  She touched her hand lightly to the 
woman's back, seeing in her mind the nervous faces of 
Margaret and Blair. "I'm so sorry," said Scully quietly.  

The woman nodded, stifled a sob, and looked up into 
Scully's eyes, her thick brows pinching.  She studied 
Scully for a long, uncomfortable moment before asking, "Do 
I know you?" 

Scully shook her head.  

The woman sighed.  She looked a bit embarrassed, and waved 
the hand with the tissue as if trying to lighten the 
moment.  "Sorry again, I..."  Her lower lip trembled.  "I 
just..."  She bit her lip. "I just lost my baby."

Scully nodded sadly, but said nothing.  

"It doesn't make any sense," said the woman, as if she'd 
been in the middle of this very sentence for a long time.  
"He was just this wonderful little boy, and Mark and I - 
imagine this - we actually thought there might be something 
wrong with him because, because there was nothing wrong 
with him.  Isn't that the most ridiculous thing?"  The 
woman sniffled.  "Then one day, he was on the playground at 
school and he just collapsed and the doctors said that he, 
that it, that it wasn't good.  I guess I was just hoping 
that this vacation..." She clutched the rabbit to her chin, 
pressed her lips against it.  "The Make A Wish people have 
this saying, apparently, and this whole vacation, my son, 
he, he was really quite hopeful, even yesterday when we 
realized, when we knew that he..."  

Scully swallowed back the urge to run from this 
conversation, imagining an empty crib, empty bottles in the 
cupboard, a stroller, a car-seat, clothes and books and 
toys, things that would no longer have use in a life 
without a child.  She knew what it was like to see the 
world changed in these ways, to look around, to feel 
steeped in the evidence that as a mother, she had failed. 

"He finally went paragliding," said the woman, brokenly, 
seeming desperate to fill the silence.  "He loved airplanes 
and spaceships and helicopters - anything that shot you 
into the sky.  All he ever wanted to do was fly, his whole 
room is decorated in airplanes, all sorts of helicopters 
and fighter planes and, um, anyway, the - the Make a Wish 
people, they made him this little paper airplane for his 
room, and they painted this saying on the side -"

Scully said nothing.

"Sometimes, the most powerful thing is a wish."  The woman 
sniffled.  "It's a very pretty little lie, anyway."

Scully, not knowing how to respond but understanding, 
instinctively, that she should, squeezed the woman's 
shoulder. 

"Twelve hours ago, my baby was alive," said the woman, 
clutching tight to the stuffed bunny.  "Twelve hours ago, 
he was warm and real. It's ridiculous, isn't it?  To blame 
yourself for the world's cruelties?"

Scully swallowed.  She took a short breath, imagined 
Mulder's arms tight around her, his lips in her hair as she 
sobbed and sobbed into his shoulder, in the darkness of a 
ratty old motel room in New Mexico.  Coming to a decision, 
a sort of finality, the period at the end of a sentence, 
Scully said,  "I lost a child once, too.  A son."

The woman gazed up at Scully, her eyes red and puffy and 
filled with understanding; unspoken sadness passed between 
them, a secret shared between comrades on the battlefield. 

The woman tried to smile again.  She cleared her throat and 
held out a hand.  "Roberta," she said.  "Roberta Van 
DeKamp."

Scully shook it, answering, "Dana Scully."

Mulder came up behind her and pressed his palm to the 
center of her back.  "The doctor's on her way."  He chucked 
a thumb in the direction of the corridor.  "She said to go 
ahead and wait in her office."

Scully nodded, patted absently at Mulder's hand.  

Roberta smiled weakly.  "Thanks for listening, at any 
rate," she said.  "Ah, and lots of luck with --" She waved 
a hand, "whatever you're here for."

Scully nodded, answered, "Thank you."  

Roberta ran her fingers over the face of the bunny, and in 
her mind, Scully saw herself, eight months pregnant, 
running her hands over the face of Mulder's antique doll.

As she turned to go, Scully paused and crouched low next to 
Roberta's chair.  

She thought of the space under the bed at home, the small 
shoebox filled with the things she could never again look 
at but never bring herself to throw away: a small white 
rattle, a bib, a washcloth, an antique cloth doll.  

During that frightening in-between time, that space which 
had existed before Special Agent Dana Scully could become 
Dr. Dana Scully, when she and Mulder had lived out of 
motels and the backseats of cars, when Mulder had been 
forced to grow a beard, when Scully had been forced to wear 
a wig, when the world had been a place of sharp teeth and 
claws, a place of no possessions and no identities, these 
were the things Scully had wanted to take with her.  
Breaking back into her old apartment, finding it had been 
ransacked, rushing into her bedroom, digging carelessly 
through her shoes and blouses and medical journals and 
overturned drawers as Mulder begged her to hurry, to work 
quickly, the white stripe of the moon at his back.  When 
finally she'd found what she'd been looking for, a small 
overturned shoebox that had been left at the back corner of 
her closet, she'd sat on the floor with it for a moment, 
turning over the little white rattle in her hands.  Mulder, 
who had been keeping watch by the front door, wandered into 
the bedroom and sat with her in the dark stillness. He 
picked up the doll and ran his hand over its face. 

Going back in search of the past was an indulgence, and it 
had brought forth an endless longing, a bottomless well of 
hurt.  Five minutes was all they'd allowed for it, and then 
they were gone, two black shadows disappearing into the 
night, as quiet and invisible as if they'd never existed.  
The shoebox was all they'd carried.

Scully placed her hand over Roberta's.  "You'll live 
through it," she said.  "Whatever else finds you, remember 
that.  And at least you'll have a place to start."

Roberta Van De Kamp smiled appreciatively.  She squeezed 
Scully's hand and the strength, borrowed, went both ways.  

"Thank you," said Roberta. 

"You're welcome," said Scully.

"Ready?" asked Mulder.  His hand protective on her 
shoulder.  

Scully stood.  "Yes," she said.  "I'm ready now."

--




Despite having chased monsters for years with the FBI, 
there existed only a handful of instances in Fox Mulder's 
life that he could recall being truly, physically stunned.  
The evening he returned from deep regression hypnosis 
therapy, his sister's screams echoing in his ears; Mulder 
had almost walked into the path of a bus that day, turning 
only when he had reached the other side of the street, 
realizing as if from the bottom of a deep pool that someone 
was screaming at him, demanding to know if he was crazy, 
the first of many who would ask that very question - this 
first one, a D.C. bus driver.  But Mulder just kept on 
walking, had gotten all the way home, in fact, before he'd 
recalled having left his car in the therapist's parking 
lot. 

"Can you repeat... that last part?" said Scully to the 
doctor, her eyes alarmingly wide and unblinking.

Mulder was sure something had been said, something about 
Scully's health - he just couldn't seem to recall anything 
beyond opening the door, sitting next to Scully, and 
feeling as if he were still lying across a wooden stump in 
the snowy tundra of West Virginia, waiting for the axe to 
fall. 

"Examine the results yourself," said Doctor Owens, an older 
woman with short, graying brown hair and a hard jaw-line.  
She handed Scully a copy of her charts.

Mulder's stomach began to do strange, unpleasant things as 
Scully snatched up the results and flipped from the first 
to the second page, her lips moving silently as she read, 
her cheeks getting paler and paler.   "This is impossible," 
she said.  "This absolutely isn't possible."

Mulder looked sideways at her, for a moment recalling the 
early days of their partnership.  Scully standing like a 
sentry in the dim, metal cavern of an autopsy bay, her hand 
set on her hip, the other on the edge of a stainless steel 
table.  "You're suggesting this woman shed her skin," she 
was saying, "That she actually became a new person." And 
then, shaking her head, the wisp of a smile on her lips, 
her chin dipping to hide it, declaring,  "Impossible. What 
you're saying, it's impossible."

"Dr. Scully," said the doctor, who looked as pained as any 
of Scully's doctors had ever looked during the many medical 
crises of her life, "I can keep repeating the results of 
the many, many, many, many -- " the doctor sighed, "Many 
tests you asked us to do, but those results are not going 
to change."

Scully wrung her hands.  "Have you reviewed my medical 
history?"

"Yes," said the doctor.  Her brows furrowed, nose twitched, 
as if tasting something awful.  "And frankly, I think you 
should sue for malpractice."

Mulder chuckled nervously.  "What about global conspiracy?" 

Scully shot him a dirty look.

Dr. Owens continued to stare blankly, as if the both of 
them had caused her great pain.  

"I've been to several doctors," said Scully, her voice 
getting smaller and smaller.  "Surely, you can see that on 
my chart."  

"Yes," said Dr. Owens.  "And I wish I knew what to say 
about that."

Scully looked down at her lap.  "You're not the only one."

Mulder took her hand, not knowing what else to do, feeling 
his ears prick, his skin tingling.  The science of a thing 
had always been Scully's department; she needed to poke at 
something, open it up, examine its insides and hold it up 
to the light before she could trust in it. For years she'd 
done that with him - prodding at him with words, examining 
the meaning in between each sentence, wondering at what 
made him tick, testing him in small ways.  Mulder had 
always accepted this elemental need for proof in Scully, 
although he often wondered if Scully had ever accepted it 
within herself.  Making leaps, believing blindly - these 
areas she left to him, trusting him to pull her just far 
enough off the ground so she could see it from a safe 
distance. Meanwhile, Mulder had always searched for 
miracles like other men searched for religion, and during 
their time together as partners, he had presented these 
miracles and unexplained things to her as gifts.  But for 
Scully, it could never be enough.  She'd always needed 
more.   

The doctor sighed. "Dr. Scully."  She paused and touched 
Scully's shaky hand. "Dana," she amended.  "You do realize 
I'm trying to tell you that you're perfectly healthy."  

She jutted her chin in Mulder's direction.  "Perhaps 
consider your husband's global conspiracy theory -- if that 
makes it any easier for you." 

"I..."  Scully glanced at Mulder. "We're not-- "

"My wife," interrupted Mulder, tasting the strangeness of 
that word, his heart moving irregularly at the sound of it. 
"My wife... is much better at debunking my theories than 
considering them."  He looked at Scully meaningfully and 
finished, "But she usually knows the truth when she sees 
it."

Scully shot him a hard look, but said nothing, instead 
returning her hungry gaze to once again review her charts.  
Her face got whiter each time she read them.  Eventually, 
at this rate, she would turn the color of notebook paper.   

Scully gazed up at the doctor, her eyes wide with 
disbelief.  "Are you sure these couldn't have been switched 
or tampered with?"

Dr. Owens startled.  "I'm sorry?"

Mulder sighed.  "Scully."

Scully whirled to face him.  "Mulder." She held up the 
charts and smacked the ultrasound.  "You know as well as I 
that this is impossible."

Dr. Owens cleared her throat.  "I assure you, it's not."  

When Scully said nothing in reply, Dr. Owens continued, 
"Once more from the top, and this time with feeling." 

She angled her glasses on the perch of her nose, and read 
off her clipboard: "Your CBC, LFT, and metabolic panels 
came back normal - FSH within normal levels, LH levels 
good."  

She flipped to the next page, continued, "MRI came back 
clean, your X-Rays are perfect, and you have no abrasions 
or cuts in your sinus cavity, nothing that would account 
for a nosebleed, and especially not a nasopharyngeal mass."

Mulder squeezed Scully's hand.

The doctor took another breath, flipped the page, and 
continued,  "Your bone density test seems to indicate that 
you are not only healthy, but you somehow have the bone 
strength of a woman fifteen years your junior."    

She licked her index finger and flipped the page again.  
"Your ultrasounds confirmed the presence of developing 
follicles, which speaks well for the condition of your 
ovaries, so I can also tell you beyond the shadow of a 
doubt that you are not in any way infertile. And as a 
matter of fact, in your unusually healthy, age-defying 
condition, you should have no problems - either conceiving 
or carrying. And if you're going to insist on not believing 
me, as I have repeated this to you three times already, I 
will make additional copies of your charts, X-rays, 
ultrasounds, and MRIs to take with you or fax to wherever 
you'd like.  You're also welcome to continue studying the 
ultrasound yourself.  But I assure you, Dr. Scully, nobody 
has tampered with, removed, stolen, switched, or otherwise 
pulled some soap opera trick with your results." 

Mulder felt slightly dizzy.  In his mind, the unmistakable 
portrait of an infant began to form, at first a collection 
of black and white cells, a union of two unfinished things; 
like colors colliding in an oil-slick, the union swirled 
into something tangible, something with fingers and toes 
and eyelashes, something part him, part Scully, that made 
him feel as if he still straddled a high tree above the 
woods and his house and the lake.  Could it be possible?  
Could it truly be possible?

Scully sprung up from her chair as if someone had 
catapulted her, and Mulder jumped in alarm.  

"I - we -- my -- " she shook her head.  "My husband and I, 
we need a second opinion."  She turned to Mulder, a manic 
glint in her eye.  "How many hospitals on this island?"

Mulder's sudden inability to envision anything but how to 
best make a baby with Scully was affecting the reasoning 
center of his brain - a condition Scully would likely argue 
didn't need exacerbating.  "This island or all of Hawaii?"  
He glanced at his watch.  "We could go alphabetically."

Scully turned to the doctor.  "You wouldn't happen to have 
a map, would you?"

Dr. Owens dropped wearily into her chair.  "The two of you 
are inexplicable."  

Scully had no response for that. Her hands laced and 
unlaced in front of her, and she stared in askance at 
Mulder. Mulder, however, could think of nothing to do for 
her but start the car and point it wherever she instructed.  
In these small, frustrating ways, they were still 
prisoners, still huddled in the corner of an electrified 
cage, still afraid to move, afraid to believe the door had 
really opened for them.  Just what in the hell would it 
take?

Dr. Owens perched her chin on her palm, her expression 
unreadable.  "A word of advice, if I may?"

Mulder and Scully exchanged wordless glances. 

"As I was saying," said Dr. Owens, "You're more than 
welcome to go wandering up and down the coast getting 
second, third, fourth, and fifth opinions for whatever 
strange reasons you deem necessary.   I have no doubt 
you'll get the same results each time, although if the hunt 
for those results is what gets you off, then by all means, 
knock yourselves out."   

The doctor took off her glasses, pinched the bridge of her 
nose, and leaned forward. In a voice edged with her years 
of pronouncing far worse news, she said, "But do me a favor 
-- just humor me, just for the hell of it, okay?" She 
leaned towards Scully as if conversing over a cafeteria 
table.  "If you're not going to listen to the plumber when 
she tells you that the bathroom works just fine, then at 
least turn on the damned shower and test it out for 
yourselves."  She smiled wryly and patted Scully's hand, 
jutting her chin in Mulder's direction.  "At least I would, 
if I was married to that."

And for the first time since they had entered the doctor's 
office, Scully laughed.  Her full-throated sound, edged 
with traces of disbelief, filled Mulder with a thread of 
hope.  He blushed and shrugged at Dr. Owens, and held 
tightly to that thread as he tangled his fingers with 
Scully's and kissed her knuckles.

"Too late," whispered Scully - so softly it was nearly 
inaudible, "Too late."  And then she laughed again.  She 
laughed until she cried, until she was laughing and crying 
and apologizing to the doctor and blushing the color of 
Kokia petals.

In his mind, Mulder once again saw the beach, endless and 
white, his hands clutching at a child's, the two of them 
digging in the sand.  Overhead, a sunset spilled into the 
blue, the colors changing like the liquid insides of a mood 
ring.  Streaks of pink and orange and lavender gave way to 
a voice, just the faintest whisper of a lullaby.  And then 
she was everywhere, filling the beach and the air and the 
ocean and all that lived inside of him. 

Scully.  

His Scully.

She would live.  

In the bright daylight of the room, this was all that 
mattered.



---



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 the master bedroom, 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 down the 
hall.

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 up out of bed and followed.

Down the hall, just past the bathroom, around the corner, 
through the door that was always left open just a crack, 
Mulder followed.

He paused in the doorway and looked out over a child's bed, 
the pink and green sheets and pillows dotted with flowers, 
an explosion of dolls and toys at its foot and splayed 
across the comforter.  Underneath the rumpled blanket, a 
tiny, miraculous little girl lay sleeping, her skin pink 
with dreams, her hands under her chin, her dark brown hair 
matted against her forehead.

The little red light hovered just a breath above the bed, 
where it winked "goodbye" and danced back down the wall, to 
the floor, and finally disappeared, happily, into the heart 
of a tiny nightlight. 

Warm arms slipped around Mulder's stomach from behind.  A 
chin pressed against his shoulder, familiar and scented 
with lavender soap, cotton, talcum powder and sweat.  She 
kissed the bare skin of his shoulder blade.  "Last time you 
were this engrossed, it turned out you were reading the 
Adult Video News."

Mulder 's chuckle came out more as a sigh, and he leaned 
back against her, heavy with exhaustion.   "How you 
feeling, Doc?"  

"Pregnant," she said, the evidence of this very thing 
pressed round and hard, like a snow-globe, against Mulder's 
spine; a slight rippling just under the surface tickled at 
his back, drawing a startled gasp from Scully.  
"Insomniac," she muttered, her hand between his back and 
her stomach, rubbing.

"Amazing," said Mulder, drawing Scully to his side.  He 
tilted his chin in the direction of the bed, of their 
daughter, cupped protectively in the palm of sleep.  "That 
kid could sleep through a volcanic eruption."

Scully kissed the hollow of Mulder's collarbone, her palm 
against his chest. She murmured, in a voice thick with the 
early morning hour, "She feels safe." 

Mulder turned to Scully and smiled.  "Ah.  Is that all it 
takes?"  He brushed her hair away from her face, hooked it 
back over her ears.  "Say, Scully, how do you feel about 
watching the sunrise from the very glamorous perch of a 
second hand rocking chair?"  He tilted his chin in the 
direction of the window, which looked out onto a garden of 
tropical flowers, thick pillars of trees topped with 
umbrellas of leaves and petals, and just beyond, miles of 
beach.  

Their day had been spent out in the thick of this beauty, 
by the edge of the ocean, building castles and cars and 
UFOs out of sand, and watching them dissolve back into the 
sea.   Mulder had taken the day off from his classes at the 
university, and Scully had taken the day off from the 
clinic, and the both of them had sat out by the water, 
where in the distance Pele's volcano loomed tall over the 
island, a guard on watch.  Scully had taken their daughter 
by the hand, pointing out coral and seaweed and anemones 
nestled between the rocks, and Mulder had gone on and on, 
telling story after story - some real, some made up - about 
fairies and mermaids and ghosts and princesses and two 
renegade FBI agents, and Scully had laughed at him, their 
hands tightly entwined and swinging amiably. "Mulder, 
you're crazy," she'd said.

"Yes," he'd agreed, "Old news." 

Scully sighed heavily against him and Mulder held her close 
as the night slowly broke.

Reds and oranges spilled in through the window, and Scully 
leaned up and pressed her lips over his. A third heartbeat 
echoed in the spaces between their kisses, quick and 
hummingbird-like, the excited fluttering of a familiar 
soul. Mulder brushed his palm over the hard center of her 
pregnant belly, and pressed his forehead against hers.  

"Love you," said Scully, her hand on his chest.  

"That's good," he murmured.   "Because I was thinking we 
could all hang out here awhile, just like this, just the 
four of us."

Scully pressed her palm to his, entwined their fingers.  
"You're on," she said, and tugged him in the direction of 
the window, towards the light.

---

END


Author's note:

Thanks for sticking with this piece -- I hope you had as 
much fun as I did!  This was the story I really wanted to 
tell after IWTB.  I'd always felt that the most literary 
ending to the X-Files would be a union between Mulder and 
Scully - and also, that this union should produce kids.  So 
this story then became my quest to give Scully back what 
she'd lost: a cross between fertility and the woman she was 
before this all started.  Anyway.  I hope you enjoyed the 
ride!  

Slight creative liberties were taken with the myths of 
Hawaii and the landscape of Kahoolawe - no disrespect 
intended.  However, all the stories in here are based on 
actual myth, and I've included my sources below in case 
you're interested.

Apologies if I've gotten the (first) names of William's 
adoptive parents wrong - I searched high and low on the net 
for them, but could find only the last name.  (And couldn't 
bring myself to watch the episode again. I'd have to claw 
my eyes out first.)  But yes, that was them.

Oh, and 2:01 is the time that flashes on the clock in the 
Pilot episode, right before the car goes crazy and Mulder 
paints an "X" into the concrete.

Thanks again for reading! 

Feedback: jaimerockifies@yahoo.com
Resources:

Hawaiian Tiki Gods, Legends, Lore, Folktales and Mythology
http://www.mythichawaii.com/hawaiian-mythology.htm

Pele: Goddess of Fire
http://www.coffeetimes.com/pele.htm

Mythical Realm: Pele: Hawaiian Volcano Goddess
http://www.mythicalrealm.com/legends/pele.html

Sudarsan Recreates Sand Chariots of Balaram Das
http://www.kalingatimes.com

Wikipedia: The Ovarian Follicle 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovarian_follicle

Shared Journey: Your Path to Fertility
http://www.sharedjourney.com/test.html

And special thanks to Alyssa for information on blood 
tests, ovaries, and ultrasounds

The Pilot (and other episodes), Memento Mori, The X-Files: 
I Want to Believe