Truth (6/12)         
by Fallon

Category: Post-The Truth/Pre-IWTB
Summary:  They go see Bill.
     

Chapter 6

The following day, the former agents packed up and headed
back out for the United States. Thankfully their American ID's
albeit fake, made leaving Mexico a lot easier. Apparently the
neighbor country was glad to be rid of them.

As Mulder drove through Nevada, the wind blowing at their
faces, he turned to Scully and asked "Where to?"

"San Diego," she said nonchalantly. "To see my brother."

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," he snorted.

She wasn't amused. "My family needs to know we're alright."

"That's one of the places they will expect us to be."

She deadpanned. "Look, I know we're supposed to be safe but
what about my mother? If she thinks I'm dead it could give her
a heart attack."

He of all people could understand being worried for a family
member. After all, he had spent the better part of 25 years
looking for Samantha. "Okay," he finally said.

They drove on for the next couple days, taking stops to rest and
come together frantically in tiny hotel rooms, much like they
did during their days as partners at the FBI, at least minus the
coming together part. Unless they counted the six months they
had together before everything fell apart.

Scully had fallen asleep on the last day, exhausted from her 18-
hour turn at driving. When she finally awoke, Mulder had
pulled her car up in front of Bill's house, a larger-sized Ranch
with white stucco and rust-colored trim.

She spotted her brother already coming out of the house,
storming toward the car with the mother of all pissy looks on
his face.

He came up to the car on her side and she sleepily rolled down
the window.

"What the fuck, Dana," he said. "Is this bastard drugging you to
sleep now? Making you comply with his ridiculous missions?"

She wasn't too tired for an epic eye roll. "Bill, why don't you
shut up. I was sleeping because we've been on the road for
days."

Bill still looked over at Mulder warily. "Shouldn't he be locked
up in jail or something, Dana?"

"Not when he's completely innocent."

"Completely innocent, my ass. He got you knocked up like the
'gentleman' he is and then went running off to God knows
where; left you all alone with that baby...."

Bill didn't even see it coming when she clocked him in the face,
drawing blood from his nose not unlike what she'd experienced
during her cancer. Only he didn't have cancer, he was just being
an ass. Thank God for small favors.

Tara had apparently heard all the commotion and come running
out of the house to find her sister in law still wearing a face of
shock as she stared up at Bill, who was grabbing at his face
with bloody hands. Talk about being caught red handed.

She turned to Mulder and asked if her husband deserved to get
punched. He nodded in the affirmative and she replied with, "I
thought so."

Once Tara had gotten Bill's nose cleaned up and bandaged,
making him look rather ridiculous to behold, She directed
Mulder and Scully to their guest bedroom.

"They're not staying in there. They aren't married. Me and the
bastard can punk up and you can paint my sister's toenails."

"Absolutely not," she said, adding, "Do you know how fucking
ridiculous you sound?"

"You're the one who lets sinners into my home." It sounded
almost like a joke, but his face said that it wasn't. Scully rolled
her eyes at him.

"You know, Bill," Mulder said, "In the earliest biblical times,
couples were considered husband and wife without any formal
marriage ceremony."

Scully arched her eyebrow, while Bill just stood there, fuming.
"Fine," he growled, giving in to the impasse. "But you better
not fuck in my house, you hear me?"

"Understood," Mulder replied earnestly. They hadn't had any
intentions whatsoever of sleeping together in a non-platonic
sense while at her brother's house anyway.

Tara served them a dinner of spaghetti and meatballs. She was
half Italian after all. Bill thankfully shut his mouth all through
the dinner conversation, in which it was explained how and
why the two former agents, or at least one of them, had reached
fugitive status.

"So," Bill said, "You didn't murder that man?"

"I did," he said, "But he was an alien super soldier, not a man."

"Oh, so more excuses then. I see."

"Bill," his wife Tara warned. "Remember what your therapist
said about controlling your emotions."

"Thanks, *honey*, now everyone knows I see a therapist."

"It's about time," Scully said, speaking up for the first time in
awhile. She hadn't said anything since she first asked him to
pass the garlic bread when they sat down.

Bill eventually got his anger under control long enough to ask
how long his sister and her partner planned to stay for.

"A week, probably less," Scully clarified. "Unless we were to
find a way to suddenly clear our names, which probably won't
happen any time soon."

"Does Mom know where you guys are and that you're okay?"
he asked.

Mulder tensed up in his seat. He knew that Bill wouldn't like
their answer. "No," Scully said finally, and it clearly put a crack
in Bill's sanity on the spot. It looked like he was about to
explode; like he could get out his Navy rifle and shoot them on
the spot any minute. Scully bit her lip while Mulder began to
hold his arms up in preparation of an attack from his possible-
someday-brother-in-law.

But Bill surprised all of them in the end. After the redness in
his face visibly went down, he took a few deep breaths and
faced the couple he had grown to hate.

"Well, I guess I'll give her a call then," he said finally.

Scully and Mulder breathed a consecutive sigh of relief.