The Water Is Wide
by Aloysia Virgata

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

RATING: PG

CLASSIFICATION: Mulder/Scully Romance 

SPOILERS: I Want To Believe 

SUMMARY: SPF 50, sunglasses, and a red Speedo. What else
does a man need in the tropics?

DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Chris, you gave us new material. What
did you expect?

AUTHOR'S NOTES: First and foremost, thanks to the fabulous
Dasha for the amazingly fast beta. Second, I realize there
are some inaccuracies to follow. But they made her a
pediatric neurosurgeon (as best I can tell) and there's
only so much one can do with that. And this is meant a
little tongue-in-cheek anyway. Finally, ceramium is a kind
of red seaweed.

The title comes from an old folk song whose chorus is:

The water is wide, I can't cross over 
And neither I have wings to fly 
Give me a boat that can carry two 
And both shall row - my love and I


**********

"Someone stop that woman!"

The surgical team froze as the man's voice boomed into the
operating room. Scully closed her eyes. "Shit," she
breathed. She set down her scalpel and walked to the door
as all eyes in the room turned to her. "Dr. Crenshaw?" she
called over her shoulder. "Please take over this patient."

Dr. Crenshaw looked uncertain, but took Scully's place at
Christian's head as she left the ER with a tall man in a
trench coat.

**********

"I already told you, I'm in a residency program here,"
Scully sighed. "Why do you keep asking me the same
questions?"

The IRS agent cocked his head and look at her in disbelief.
"You're still sticking with that? Dr. Scully, your name
doesn't appear in the National Resident Match database."

She shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you. You need to
take that up with Father Ybarra. He's the hospital admin
and should have all of my paperwork."

The agent made a show of shuffling through his paperwork.
"Ye-ess. Father Ybarra. Simon Ybarra, nephew of one Mother
Mary Perpetua Ybarra of San Diego. Mother Mary Perpetua was
the headmistress of Saint Bernadine of Siena Catholic
School, was she not, Dr. Scully? The same high school from
which you graduated in 1981?"

"Yes," replied Scully with a faint edge of impatience.
"That's how I was introduced to Father Ybarra. Mother
Perpetua and I have kept in touch."

"I see," he said dryly. "A pediatric neurosurgeon. My, my.
That's quite a step up from pathology. Kind of like going
from a golf cart to the space shuttle, isn't it?"

"I am a medical doctor," Scully informed him patiently.
"Everyone goes to medical school and studies basically the
same subjects and then you do your residency in the
specialty of your choice. I was a pathologist and am now
pursuing a different career."

"I should say so," he agreed. "You do seem to bounce around
a bit, don't you? Pathologist, FBI agent, then a smattering
of odd jobs listed. Barista...mechanic...farrier. Now
neurosurgery. That's quite a skill set you have."

"I'm a quick study."

He gave her a hard look. "Dr. Scully, you were on the run
with Fox Mulder for nearly eight months during which you
worked in those aforementioned careers. You were aiding and
abetting a known felon. Then, miraculously, you reemerge as
a neurosurgical resident at this hospital - run by the
nephew of your former headmistress - all charges against
you dropped, thanks in part to no small amount of pressure
from the FBI. And they're letting you head up surgical
teams? You must be the star of the show. One wonders why
you're not at a more prestigious institution."

Scully gave him a cool look. "I am blessed to be able to
work in a small, intimate setting where I can allow my
faith and my medical training to come together. The
hospital's small size means that doctors can take on a
wider range of roles and responsibilities."

He stopped just short of rolling his eyes at her. "Uh-huh.
Moving on. You pay taxes on $41,800 a year in income. Don't
neurosurgeons score at least upwards of $400,000? Even in
this neck of the woods?"

"Residents don't make much," she told him, looking him in
the eye.

"That's what has me puzzled. You drive an old Ford, you
live in an unremarkable house, and you seem to lead a very
thrifty life. But I did a little digging, Dr. Scully.
You're a VIP with Christian Louboutin, Bottega Veneta, and
Manolo Blahnik. You spent almost $28,000 on shoes in the
past two years alone. Paid cash, but you've had deliveries
made."

They both stared down at her feet. She closed her eyes,
remembering the way the shoes had smelled when she opened
the new box. Hand-stitched, buttery soft calfskin perfectly
molded to her high arches. Three-and-a-half inch stacked
heel stilettos with a lovely little peep-toe. God, she
loved Jimmy Choo.

She chuckled. "I'm sorry, but you seem to have gotten some
bad information. These are from Payless. $29.99."

He did not pretend to believe her. "Let's forget the shoes
for a minute. I have an interesting story, and I'd like you
to tell me what you think of it. It goes like this. Once
upon a time, two FBI agents escaped government detention
and lived in various parts of the southwest for a while. 

"Their old boss got promoted to Director and made contact
with the female of the pair. They then contacted the
hospital administrator nephew of her old headmistress, who
agreed to set her up with a job as long as she agreed to
train in a severely understaffed subspecialty. He paid her
a resident's salary for the books so it all looked nice and
official, and then slipped her large sums of cash under the
table and gave her lots of free rein. 

"Despite living in the FBI's backyard, these two former
agents managed to stay off the radar thanks to their good
friend the Director. The former agents were able to lead
something of a normal life, the hospital got a good deal on
a much-needed neurosurgeon who was beholden to them, and
the neurosurgeon was able to indulge her taste in exotic
shoes without troubling the nice people down at the IRS."

He leaned across the table until his nose was mere inches
from hers. "What do you think of my story, Dr. Scully?"

She blinked. "I think you should quit the federal
government and write mystery novels," she said indulgently.
"You'd be very good at it. Probably pays better then
detective work and residencies both."

He sat back in his chair while Scully crossed her legs and
looked bored.

"Are you quite done now?" she inquired politely. "I'd like
to go home."

"I think you'd better call an attorney on your way, Dr.
Scully. Unless that's among your professional credits as
well."

Scully gave him a thin smile and then stood. "I'm afraid it
isn't, though I do know a fair bit about interrogation."
She patted him on the shoulder. "You're doing a good job. I
just wish it were going to be more productive for you." She
withdrew her manicured hand and slid it into the pocket of
her jacket.

The IRS agent held the door for her, picking up another
waft of expensive-smelling perfume as she clicked by on
shoes unlike anything his wife had ever procured at
Payless. "You're free to go for now, Dr. Scully. But I'd
rather you didn't leave town any time soon."

She gave him a wide-eyed look. "I wouldn't dream of it. I'm
just as eager to have this misunderstanding cleared up as
you are."

He looked at her suspiciously again as she walked to the
front door, elegant and unconcerned as pampered greyhound.
Cold air swirled in when she opened the door, and then she
disappeared into the snow-bright morning.

**********

"Dammit," she said, slamming her keys on the front table.
"Mulder?"

No answer.

She hurried through the house, calling his name, and
finally found him in the bedroom, rooting through the
closet.

"What are you looking for?"

"Her Royal Highness's matched luggage," he said, voice
muffled as he spoke into Scully's racks of tailored suits.
"Skinner called. Heard you had a visitor this morning. Aha!
Here it is." He pulled out a large wheeled suitcase and
tossed it on the bed. Scully sat next to it.

"I was just about to start on Christian," she told him
sadly. "He had no business interrupting, but I didn't want
to cause a scene in the OR, so I just walked away. I was so
close, Mulder."

He joined her on the bed and slipped his arm around her.
She rested her head on his shoulder.

"We knew this was going to happen one day, Scully. We've
been preparing for it."

She sighed. "I know. I just didn't know it would be so
hard."

"Do you regret your decision?"

She twirled her necklace. "No, I don't. I think they owed
us a lot, Mulder. They put us through hell and that money
has never once kept me up at night. Do you remember when we
ate white bread and American cheese for a week solid after
the coffee shop closed?"

"We saved a fortune on toilet paper though."

Scully smiled at him. "They were crazy times. I just wish
everything could have been out in the open, but there was
no other way for me to have had the same experiences. No
other program would have taken me. I got to do exactly what
I wanted for a while, and I don't regret any of it. I just
wish I could have seen this through."

Mulder kissed the top of her head and then got to his feet.
"You need to pack," he said gently. 

Scully swallowed hard and the lump in her throat felt like
a boulder. "Okay," she said. "Let's get started."

"I'm already done."

She looked at the empty suitcases in puzzlement. "Where?"

He gestured at a grocery bag on the bed, which Scully
grabbed and emptied onto her lap. She rolled her eyes and
groaned. "Mulder..."

"SPF 50, sunglasses, and a red Speedo. What else does a man
need in the tropics?"

She scowled at him. "You are not dragging that tired banana
hammock with us."

He crossed his arms. "Excuse me, but that *banana hammock*
is perfectly streamlined. It prevents increased resistance
by..."

"I have a degree in physics, Mulder," she reminded him. "I
know all about it. And it's still not coming."

"Why don't you start on your own stuff instead of
complaining about my things? Which shoes are you taking,
Imelda?"

She looked sadly at her shelves of footwear. "They're like
old friends. How can I leave any of them behind?"

Mulder thought for a moment and then slid the suitcase on
the floor under the shelving unit. Then he swept the shoes
off, row by row, filling up two suitcases. "There," he
said, looking immensely satisfied with himself. "Now you
just fill in the gaps with bathing suits and lingerie."

She laughed and he grinned at her before pulling out a pre-
paid cell phone from his nightstand. "I'm calling Magnus
now. Are you ready, Scully?"

She sat back on the bed, head in her hands. "I'm ready."

**********

Magnus Camezind's phone rang. "Hello?" he said in his
precise Swiss voice.

"It's Sebastian. I need those accounts closed now."

Magnus got to work. After a little over an hour, he had
tidied up the loose ends of forty-two separate accounts in
nine countries. The funds were emptied into a series of
holding accounts for Blue Iguana Sightseeing Limited,
located on Grand Cayman, about 400 miles south of Miami.

**********

Mulder and Scully drove to the airport where Hal George and
Deirdre St. Jude bought tickets to Montreal. Martin Luder
and Diana Lesky booked a flight to Buenos Aires, while
Melvin Tooms and Kate Byers scheduled a trip to Calcutta. 

Then they abandoned the new car in the garage and took a
series of cabs to JFK International.

They purchased several more tickets using their ample stash
of false identification and then, finally, Henry Sawyer and
Jessica Brooks boarded the 10:21 on Cayman Airways.

**********

They ran the business themselves for six months, organizing
trips on glass-bottomed boats and helicopters and yachts
for tourists. Scully had forgotten how much she missed the
sea, and Mulder finally developed a knack for rolling with
the waves.

**********

"Let's sell it to Badger," Mulder said one morning. "I'm
sick of dealing with people for a living and he's been
asking for two months."

Scully - who had by and large taken Mulder's packing advice
- tied the top of her blue bikini and began cutting up a
papaya. She had gotten a taste of working with the living
and enjoyed it, but adaptable creature that she was, she
was willing to try something new.

"Okay," she agreed. "He's fine with cash?"

Mulder laughed. "Everyone here is fine with cash."

She handed him a plate of fruit. "I know. It's fantastic."
Sometimes she was still overwhelmed by the enormity of what
they had done. The planning had begun just after Scully cut
her deal with Ybarra.

Within a month of her start at the hospital, Mulder had
liquidated everything his mother had left him, raking in a
medium-sized fortune from the real estate alone.

They money was quietly managed and nurtured by Magnus, who
had been friends with Mulder in his Oxford days. They sent
him the cash and he laundered it by way of shell company
holdings at Deutsche Bank in Singapore.

Blue Iguana Sightseeing Limited and its subsidiaries had
assets totaling 8.3 million when they decided to sell the
operation to Badger.

**********

Scully lolled in the boat while Mulder rowed it to one of
the dozens of tiny islands in the western Caribbean. The
water was almost as shallow and quiet as a lagoon, and
Scully watched a small shark work purposefully through the
water as she skimmed her fingers on the surface.

"Comfy?" Mulder asked her.

"Mmm."

"Put on some more sunblock," he ordered her. "You're
looking pink."

She made a noncommittal noise. "I have a hat somewhere. Why
didn't you take the Donzi, by the way?"

"One, because it looks like a giant vibrator. Two, because
I haven't lifted anything heavier than a sandwich in a week
and a half and figured I could use the workout. Three, I
was hoping this might turn you on a little."

Scully appraised him with a quirked eyebrow. "Were you?"

He pulled the oars a bit faster. "You don't think it's
romantic? Rowing you around the Caribbean with a nice
picnic under the seat? I know it's not as sexy as watching
me search through a hazmat unit full of medical waste, but
my options are limited these days."

She laughed and nudged him with her foot. "This'll do."

A shadow crossed over the water and they looked up to see
Badger with a helicopter full of tourists. "HEY!" Badger
shouted over the PA system. "HOW'S RETIREMENT?"

They looked up at him and waved before he banked sharply
and headed towards Cayman Brac, leaving them alone with
marine life.

"Where were we?" Mulder inquired, resting the oars in the
oarlocks. "Oh, right." He took her foot and pressed his
thumb in at the heel, then worked it slowly to her instep.
She made a contented sound and closed her eyes. He slid his
hand up her leg.

She opened one eye lazily. "It'll capsize," she warned him.

Mulder started rocking from side to side as he massaged the
inside of her thigh. Water splashed into the boat and
Scully bolted upright.

"Mulder..."

He pushed his weight against the side and she shrieked as
the rowboat flipped and dumped them into the turquoise
shallows. Scully gasped even though the water was warm as a
bath from the tropical sun.

"Oops," he said flatly, treading water.

She splashed him and then swam closer, trying to glare and
failing. 

"Now our stuff is all wet," she complained. "You soaked
lunch. And the blanket."

He reached out and caught her, pulling her body against
his. "You won't get sand anywhere now though," he pointed
out.

She put her arms about his neck and kissed him, her hair
floating like ceramium on the gentle tide.


**********

The End

**********


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