From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org
Date: Sun,  8 Jun 2008 17:06:23 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Click Your Heels by Marigold
Source: direct

Reply To: marigoldbalcony@gmail.com


TITLE: Click Your Heels

AUTHOR: Marigold 

EMAIL: marigoldbalcony@gmail.com

SUMMARY: Maybe it didn't happen.  Maybe it was all a long, 
incredibly detailed dream.  Click your heels three times 
and you're back in your bed.

RATING:  Strong R

CLASSIFICTION: SRA

SPOILERS: Through "The Truth." No real movie spoilers, but 
there's a small amount of speculation.

ARCHIVING: Yes, of course. Just drop me a line, please.

DISCLAIMER: These characters do not belong to me and no 
copyright infringement is intended on my part. 

THANK YOU: To Mr. B for beta, to Zellie for her constant 
enthusiasm for fanfic and this fandom, and to Innisfree and 
onpaperfirst for writing beautiful stories that make me 
want to be a better writer.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:  This is the final story in a series that 
began with to "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" and "Go in 
Glory." It probably would be helpful to have read them 
first: http://marigoldbalcony.livejournal.com.

I have played with the official timeline a little bit in 
this story, because there is one piece of it I don't buy. 
Actually, there are huge chunks of S8 and S9 canon I don't 
buy, but that's a rant for another day.



She's sure she's entered the land of "The Wizard of Oz."  
When she opens her eyes, she's in her old bed, in the dusk-
shadowed Spokane bedroom.  The green and white striped 
sheets smell like Mulder, like his skin and soap.  His 
faded jeans are draped over the chair in the corner and his 
basketball rests on top of the dresser.

Maybe it didn't happen.  Maybe it was all a long, 
incredibly detailed dream.  Click your heels three times 
and you're back in your bed.  There's no place like home.

It's a nice theory, anyhow.


The sun is setting behind the blinds and it looks like cold, 
dead January outside.  She estimates she slept for almost 
eleven hours.  She still feels weary, as if she could sleep 
for another eleven.  Her neck and shoulder muscles are 
stiff from long driving.

She finds a note stuck to the bathroom mirror, the writing 
his bold scrawl:

Shopping.

-M

M is for Mulder.  M is also for Mark Ross.  She wonders if 
he ever has trouble distinguishing the two.

She takes a long, hot shower, soaping away the grime of the 
road.

When she looks in the mirror after her shower, Dana Scully 
stares back at her.  She's older now, worn by time, her 
hair the wrong length and color, but she's definitely 
Scully.


Changed into a clean pair of jeans and a turtleneck from 
her suitcase, she pads around the silent apartment. She 
randomly picks up and touches various items.  A book on the 
coffee table, the fake leather of the sofa, a blue ceramic 
coffee mug in the sink.  The apartment seems more lived-in 
than it ever was.  There still isn't anything hanging on 
the off-white walls, but there's a burgundy throw blanket 
on the couch, a black wire basket full of magazines, a 
glazed pottery bowl on the end table.  Come to think of it, 
the end table is new, too.

There's now a bookcase by the window, dark laminate with 
only the bottom shelf full of books.  "PSIence: How New 
Discoveries in Quantum Physics and New Science May Explain 
the Existence of Paranormal Phenomena," "The Cantos of Ezra 
Pound," "Witness to Roswell: Unmasking the 60-Year Cover-
Up."

A framed photograph is on the top shelf of the bookcase.  
The picture is one she hasn't seen in years.

In the picture, she in the Georgia hospital, wearing a 
hospital gown.  She's holding her newborn son in her arms, 
the expression on her face both stunned and tender.  
William is swaddled in a blue baby blanket, a matching cap 
on his head.  His oddly wise eyes are open and he seems to 
be looking at his mother in wonder.

Mulder must have had this picture all along.  Perhaps it 
comforted him in hiding, reminding him that he had a family 
to return to.


One week.  They had seven days as a family, playing house 
in her apartment, pretending it would always be like this.

On the last night, William began wailing and she heard 
Mulder rise and lift the baby from the bassinet.  He 
changed William with surprisingly deft hands.  The 
floorboards of the hallway creaked as he paced the length 
with his son in his arms.

"Shh," she heard Mulder say.  "Let your mother sleep.  
Pretty soon it'll be just the two of you and you'll have 
plenty of time to keep her from her beauty rest."

She sat up in bed, hugging her knees.  She felt something 
inside of her break.


She puts the photograph back in its place in the bookcase, 
pinches the bridge of her nose.  Crying won't help her, not 
now.

She hears the scrape of the key in the lock.  Mulder walks 
in, carrying a grocery bag.  "Hey," he says, shedding his 
coat.  "You're up."

She steps away from the bookcase, feeling like she's been 
caught with her hand in the cookie jar.  "What did you 
buy?" 

Mulder walks into the kitchen, deposits the bag on the 
counter.  "Dinner," he says over his shoulder.

It feels like a second date, uncomfortably standing around 
while her date fusses in the kitchen, or a weekend as a 
houseguest of a distant cousin.  Nine months is a long time, 
she thinks.


She leans against the refrigerator as Mulder chops 
vegetables, his knife thudding loud on the wood cutting 
board.  He stops every so often to take a sip of beer. 
She's sticking to water.

In Providence, she'd come so close to the invisible line. 
There were too many mornings waking alone on her sofa, or 
bleary-eyed in Mike's bed, her head pounding from the 
bottle of wine she'd finished the night before.

Neat piles of red bell pepper, broccoli and mushrooms grow 
on the board.  "What are you making?" she asks.

"Stir-fried chicken and vegetables with peanut sauce."  He 
turns to look at her, a half-smile on his face.  "I 
considered getting some tofu but I couldn't be that cruel 
to myself."

She sets the bottle of water on the counter. "How come 
you're not angry?"

"Who says I'm not angry?" he says calmly.

"You don't seem angry..."

He puts the knife down on the cutting board.  "Scully, I've 
felt something different every hour since you left.  If I'm 
not angry now, give me another hour or two.  What I feel at 
this particular moment is relief."

You and me both, she thinks.


Dinner is eaten cross-legged in the couch, the television 
flashing the day's news on CNN. She has to stop herself 
from wolfing down the plate of multicolored vegetables, the 
first real ones she's seen for days. Her body thanks her 
for putting something into it that hasn't been deep fried.

A commercial from a high-tech men's razor comes on the 
screen and Mulder mutes the sound, turns to her.

Here it comes, she thinks.  She's not sure if she's hungry 
any more.

His voice is gentle.  "Are you going to tell me about it?"

She spears a mushroom with her fork.  "Why I left?"

Mulder nods.

I promised myself I'd be honest, she thinks.  She sets her 
plate down on the coffee table.

"I didn't want to be myself anymore," she says.  "I didn't 
want to deal with all the things I'd done, the mistakes I'd 
made.  What a mess I'd made of my life. I thought I could 
escape it all and be someone else."

"Did it work?"

"Of course not," she says, sighing.  "I tried to become a 
woman named Cynthia Ellingson.  She was a waitress, she was 
divorced, she was trying to start a new life.  But in the 
end, I was only myself."

The expression on his face is inscrutable.  "So, now you're 
back..."

"If you'll have me," she says. She looks down at her 
fingers, which have laced together as if she's praying.

"Jesus, Scully, do you think I'd tell you to go about your 
merry way?  Go back to Providence? After all we've been 
through?"  He shakes his head as if she's a complete idiot. 
Perhaps she is, after all.

Eleven years, she thinks.  Almost twelve.  Plagues, 
pestilence, and aliens and here they still are, alive and 
kicking, still together. Maybe it's time to start believing 
in miracles again.


She washes and he dries.  It feels reassuringly normal and 
boring to be engaged in a household task.  Once upon a time, 
she'd daydreamed about scenarios like this-- folding 
laundry, bickering about whose turn it was to take out the 
garbage.

"I want to tell you why I came back," she says, attacking 
the skillet with a green scouring pad.

"Tell me about it."  He places a plate in the drying rack.

Her hands are shaking under the lemon-scented suds.  "I 
didn't return because I couldn't make it alone.  I would 
have survived, I think." She hands him the now-clean 
skillet.

Mulder wipes out the pan and dries his hands with a blue 
dish towel. He hands it to her. She wants to touch him, to 
kiss that familiar, petulant mouth of his, to reassure him 
with her body, not with words. Words don't always come 
easily to her.

She clears her throat.  "I returned because I got tired of 
running.  Not just from our enemies, but from everything we 
went through. Our history."

She takes his damp hand in hers and squeezes it.  He 
flinches, and for one instant she's certain this has all 
been a mistake, that what was broken can never be repaired.

"We've both been running," he says and squeezes back. "And 
you're not the only one who's sick of it."

She says, "It has to stop. We're the people we are today 
because of what we experienced, the choices we made."

"Our mistakes."  He brushes her cheek with his fingertips 
and she shivers.

William's bright blue eyes, so trusting as she placed him 
in the social worker's arms. He didn't cry.  He was sure 
his mother would return for him.


Bundled into heavy coats and hats, they stroll through the 
neighborhood, almost no one on the sidewalks.  Anyone with 
any sanity is inside their warm houses and apartments, 
watching midseason replacement TV shows. She and Mulder 
have never been known for their sanity, though, so they 
walk the deserted blocks so she can stretch her legs, her 
muscles twitchy after three days of driving, one of 
sleeping.  The tip of her nose feels like it's going numb.

"We need to talk business," Mulder says.

She scrunches her forehead.  "What business do we have?"

"There's a lawyer who thinks you could come out of hiding." 
His breath is a steady stream of white.

She stops dead in her tracks, in front of the entrance to 
an parochial school.  St. Patricia's. The school's windows 
are covered in construction paper snowflakes and pine trees. 

What body heat she has left rises to her face.  "You spoke 
to a lawyer?  How could you do something so risky?"

"I didn't talk to him, not directly, but I think we can 
trust him."

"Whatever happened to trust no one?"

Mulder touches her shoulder with his gloved hand.  "He's 
Skinner's brother."

She's surprised to feel tears in her eyes.  "Skinner?  Is 
he all right?  You talked to him?"

In the end, Skinner had risked everything for them.  They 
all had.  Skinner, Doggett, Monica, even Kersh.

"Again, not directly.  It's kind of a long story," he says.  
"Let's go back home.  I think you're turning blue." 


"A few months ago, I went to Seattle for the weekend.  I 
wanted to get away for a few days."

She blows on her Darjeeling to cool it.  The cup warms her 
chilly hands.

"I kept a low profile.  I was taking a walk in Queen Anne, 
looking at the houses.  I turned a corner and literally 
bumped into an old friend."

"Who was it?" The tea is now cool enough to sip.

"Monica Reyes.  She left the Bureau and get this...she's in 
midwifery school."

She can't help laughing at the knowledge that her 
accidental midwife is now studying to be one for real.  
Sweet, scatty Monica, and her well-meaning blather about 
good energy and whale songs.

"Scully, I haven't heard you laugh in so long."

"Tell the story, Mulder." She waves an impatient hand at 
him.

"Anyhow, Monica had a few interesting pieces of information, 
via Doggett.  According to her, the FBI isn't looking for 
us very hard anymore.  There's not even an agent assigned 
to our case.  We're off the Top 10 list."

"That doesn't seem right," she says.  "It sounds like a 
trap."

Mulder shrugs.  "It could be; I don't know.  There are 
still warrants out for our arrests, but the FBI is no 
longer throwing any manpower at it."

"Where does Skinner come into this?"

They had been afraid to even Google his name, or Reyes' or 
Doggett's, concerned it could somehow set off warning bells 
in various systems, both legal and covert.

Mulder sips his tea.  His is Earl Grey, "the official tea 
of Jean-Luc Picard fans worldwide," as he used to joke. 
"Monica still keeps in touch with him.  He's fine, he's 
still with the Bureau. So is Doggett.  He's working 
Organized Crime now.  Kersh somehow managed to cover all 
their asses.  Proof of their complicity in my escape never 
materialized.  As far as the investigation goes, I somehow 
managed to escape from the brig on my own."

Her eyebrow rises.  "That's an X-File in itself."

"You're still considered to be part of it.  Aiding and 
abetting, according to the lawyer.  Michael Skinner, he's 
the younger brother.  He lives in Seattle and Monica met 
with him after talking to Skinner. She came out here to 
tell me what he had to say."

She's getting impatient now.  Sometimes Mulder has the most 
labyrinthine way of telling stories.  "What did he say?"

"He seems to think there wouldn't be much to charge you 
with, if you turned yourself in.  He's not even sure a 
felony charge would stick."

"Turn myself in?" Unthinkable.

"You could be free again, Scully.  You could have a normal 
life, openly see your family, maybe be a doctor again."

She finds herself shaking her head.

"Scully..."  He's smiling, but it's an artificial smile, 
the one he sometimes displays when he wants to reassure her 
in a dangerous situation.  "Think about it."

"There's nothing to think about. It's too dangerous.  We'd 
be separated."  Does he really believe she'd leave him 
behind so she could perform autopsies and call her mother 
every Sunday morning?

He sets his mug down on the coffee table a little too hard 
and tea spills onto the table.  Mulder blots at it with a 
tissue.

He turns to her, his eyes steady.  "You didn't seem to mind 
the prospect of separation last spring."

There it is, his anger welling to the surface.  Good, he 
deserves to be angry.

"That's not the pertinent issue, Mulder, and you know it.  
It's dangerous.  We're not just running from the law; we 
have more dangerous enemies to consider."

Mulder tilts his head at her.  "Then, consider this-- how 
come they haven't found us?"

"Because we're good at hiding in plain sight?"

He makes a derisive noise.  "They once were able to track 
our every move, every breath.  A global conspiracy 
involving super-intelligent beings, and they can't find us 
in this apartment in Spokane, Washington?"

She's loving this conversation.  It reminds her of mornings 
in their musty basement office, reheated cafeteria coffee 
and wild speculation about exsanguinated bodies. Putting 
their heads together in airport lounges, whispering about 
what they'd seen on the road. Late night phone calls to 
discuss new developments.

"So, what's your theory?"

"I don't have one, not really. Maybe they realized we're 
not much of a threat to them, not anymore.  Maybe lines 
have been redrawn.  Maybe there's been some sort of 
reprieve."

"Or maybe they're waiting for us to emerge from hiding so 
they can snare us."

"Maybe." Mulder shrugs.  "I don't know.  But I think this 
information merits further investigation."

She smiles at him, her mind whirring with possibilities.  
He grins back, one conspirator to another.


She's grown sleepy again.  They talked for a long time as 
their tea grew cold.  Nothing was decided, but every facet 
was held up to the light for a thorough examination. 

In the bathroom, she brushes her teeth.  She still feels 
like a houseguest, politely tiptoeing around her host.  
She's not even sure where she'll be sleeping tonight.  She 
shuts the door to change into her pajamas.

He's in bed, lying on his side.  He watches her as she 
emerges from the bathroom, his heavy-lidded eyes seeming to 
ask her a question she can't quite read.

She stands in the doorway, shifting her weight from foot to 
foot.

Mulder pats the mattress.  "I don't bite," he says.

She remembers the night she crept into his bed as the wind 
outside howled and branches beat a tattoo against the 
windowpanes.  He'd received her gratefully that night, his 
arms wide open to welcome her.

She lies on her back, staring at the ceiling, butter-
colored from the lamplight.  Mulder seems oceans away again, 
all the way on the other side of the big bed. She can hear 
the soft, even cadence of his breathing.

For one crazy instant, she misses Mike, misses being 
wrapped in his strong arms.  They'd had no past, no future, 
just an uncomplicated, sweet present.  She knows she'll 
have to tell Mulder about Mike soon enough.  But not 
tonight, not when their union is so fragile, brittle as 
ancient parchment.

The light snaps off.  She hears something sliding across 
the sheet.  It's his hand, coming to rest in the center of 
the bed.  Her hand makes its own journey to meet his there.



She blinks until the red letters of the clock radio come 
into focus.  3:14 a.m.  She's fully awake, legs restless 
under the covers. Mulder is lying on his back, one arm 
thrown across her chest as if he's trying to prevent her 
from leaving in the night. She wriggles out from under his 
arm.  He grunts and rolls over onto his stomach, still 
asleep.

All her old herbal teas are still in the kitchen cabinet.  
She's strangely touched that he kept them all these months, 
since Mulder considers herbal tea a travesty in the good 
name of tea.  She makes a cup of Lemon Zinger and takes it 
out to the living room.

She finds herself settled on the couch with the hospital 
photograph in her hands.


The first week of William's life, she spent hours counting 
his ten fingers and ten toes, unable to believe he was real 
and wriggling in her arms.  She stared at his drowsy 
Winston Churchill face, touched the goose down on his head.  
Once she caught Mulder standing in the doorway, smiling at 
them.

This won't last, she thought, but immediately tried to bury 
that thought.  She wanted to savor every moment the three 
of them had together.  Those memories would have to last 
them a long time.


There are footsteps on the floor, his footsteps. She 
resists the urge to hide the picture under a sofa pillow.

"Scully?" he calls out in a sleepy voice from the bedroom.

"I'm out here."  

He's afraid she's left again.  Can she blame him?

He emerges, his hair sticking up in every possible 
direction, eyes droopy.  "What are you doing up?"

She glances down at the picture.  William was definitely 
Mulder's child. Same pouting mouth when he was upset or 
disappointed.

"I could ask you the same question.  Don't you have to work 
in the morning?"

He sits down next to her and props his bare feet up on the 
coffee table.  "I was sick yesterday with the flu bug 
that's been going around.  I'm still sick today."  Mulder 
grins crookedly.  "Did I tell you I got a promotion?  I'm 
now the assistant quality assurance supervisor of the 
claims entry department."

A bachelor's degree, a master's degree, nearly two decades 
of experience as a field agent, criminal profiler and an 
expert in the paranormal, and he's supervising data entry 
at an insurance company.  God has a hell of a sense of 
humor.

Mulder taps the glass of the frame with his index finger. 
"You found it."

She nods.  Williams's eyes were her eyes, but when he 
smiled he was Mulder all over again.

"It seemed wrong that we never had a picture of him out, 
like we were trying to pretend he never existed," he says.

He's four now.  She imagines William full of his father's 
restive curiosity, constantly badgering his adoptive family 
with questions about how the world works.

"Mulder," she says.  Her stomach does a slow roll.  "Do 
you...do you think you'll ever forgive me?"

Forgiveness is the ultimate gift one person can give 
another, Father McCue had once told her.

He sighs, shakes his head.  "You're asking the wrong 
question."

"What's the right one?"

He pulls her close and whispers in her ear, his breath warm 
on her skin.  "When are you going to forgive yourself?"

Oh.  That's the real question.

"I don't know if I ever can."

He smoothes her hair.  "You have to, Scully.  I can spend 
the rest of my life reassuring you that I don't hate you 
for giving him up, for doing what you had to do to keep him 
safe.  But until you forgive yourself for it, it's going to 
gnaw away at you. It'll kill you in the end."

Tears begin sliding down her cheeks.  "I once told you that 
I wouldn't change a day.  But if I could go back in 
time..."

"You can't, Scully."  He grasps her hand in hers, nearly 
crushing your fingers.  "You can't.  You have to accept 
that you made the best decision you could at the time. It 
doesn't mean you can't mourn for him, that you can't miss 
him.  But you have to accept it and forgive yourself. "

She buries her face in his chest, her tears surely leaking 
through his t-shirt. Mulder wraps his arms around her.

"I miss him, too," he murmurs into her hair.  "I never 
really got to know him, but I miss him.  I think about him 
every day.  I wonder how tall he is now, if his hair is as 
red as yours, if he likes baseball and if he's gotten to 
see "Star Wars" yet.  I wonder if he's as smart as you or 
as obsessive-compulsive as I am. And don't think I don't 
have my own regrets and guilt, Scully.  I do."

"We never talked about him."  She raises her head from his 
chest and wipes away her tears with a tissue, blows her 
nose.

"I know."  

"It was the silence, Mulder."  She bites her lower lip.  "I 
couldn't stand the silence any more, couldn't stand not 
talking about him.  It's why I had to leave."

"I regret that."  He kisses her forehead.

"Do you think we'll ever be able to talk about him?"

"We're doing it right now.  It's a good sign."

She nods. It is a good sign.  She wants to believe in their 
ability to change, to adapt, that somehow they can find 
some happiness in all this.

Mulder hides a yawn.  She gives his hand a tug.  "It's late.  
Let's go back to bed."


Wrapped in Mulder's arms at last, in the middle of the bed, 
the room lit only the by the street light sneaking in 
between the slats of the blinds.

"Did you ever think I'd come back?" she asks.  His skin is 
so warm.

He makes a sound in the back of this throat.  It takes him 
a long time to answer.  "I had to believe you'd return," he 
finally says.  "I couldn't imagine an alternative."

"I didn't.  For a long time, I thought I would be Cynthia 
forever.  I thought I could leave everything behind."

"How could you have so little faith in us?" There's a touch 
of acid in his voice.  

"I don't know. I think I forgot who I was.  But I realized 
that I couldn't be myself, really myself, without you."

He holds her tighter.  "I'm only going ask you this once, 
Scully. Do you still love me?"

How can he ask such a question?

He needs reassurance, she reminds herself.  You left him 
without a word of warning and stayed away for the better 
part of a year.  Of course he can ask that question.

"Through it all, I've always loved you," she whispers.

"You wrote something like that on the note you left me," he 
says.  "I tried to take what hope I could in those words.  
That and your late night hang-up calls..."

She smiles into the pillow.  "So, you figured me out, did 
you?"

"Who else was going to call me in the middle of the night, 
with the Caller ID blocked?" He laughs but then his voice 
grows serious.  "I was glad to get the calls, though.  
Every call meant you were still alive, still out there 
somewhere."

"How come you never answered?"

"You would have just hung up anyhow, wouldn't you?"

"Probably," she says.  "I wasn't ready to talk to you yet.  
I just wanted to be sure you were still here."

"I was.  I was all this time."

He leans in to kiss her, their first real kiss since she 
returned, his lips so soft.  His fingers tangle in her hair.

"I tried hard not to think about you," she says, while he 
draws a necklace of kisses on her neck.  "I tried so hard, 
but I couldn't stop."

Mulder moves atop her and she gasps when she feels him hard 
on her thigh.

"I want you," he whispers in her ear, his hand snaking up 
her pajama top to circle her breasts.  "I want you so much, 
but if you're not ready..."

Every cell in her body has suddenly sparked alive, made 
electric by his touch.  "I am," she mutters through 
clenched teeth.

Their nightclothes are hastily thrown onto the floor.  Her 
fingers re-explore the planes of his body, counting his 
vertebrae, naming his muscles-- trapezius, latissimus dorsi, 
gluteus maximus.  She finds the scars that are her old 
friends.

It feels like the first time.  In a way, perhaps it is.

His hands are unhurried as he strokes her.  Her breathing 
is coming in pants already, the blood seeming to leave her 
head to rush down to where he's working his arcane magic 
with his fingers. She takes him in her hand and gently 
squeezes; he's silken and hard at the same time.  He groans 
in response, the Mulder equivalent of speaking in tongues.

"Please," she whispers against his shoulder.  "Oh, 
please..."

He sits up and scrabbles in the bedside table for a condom.  
There was a miracle once, nearly five years ago. They don't 
need another one.

She waits impatiently, her fingers grasping at the sheet, 
as she hears the package tear open.  And then he's there, 
nudging her.  She's so, so ready.

Tears burn her eyes as he slides into her and comes to a 
stop, resting in her.  She wraps her arms around him.

"I could almost believe in a benevolent deity," he whispers, 
and kisses her.

Mulder had said nearly the same thing the first time they 
made love. "Maybe there is a God, after all," he'd said.

She knows there is.  She may doubt God's plans for her, for 
them, she may get angry at Him for what He's placed in 
their path, but she still believes.

They move together in the dark room, the bedsprings 
creaking in protest.  She never forgot this rhythm, the 
smell of his skin and his sweat, how deeply he can go in 
her.  Every time she was with Mike, as nice as it was, some 
part of her brain protested, "But, this isn't Mulder."

This is Mulder.  It will take a long time to make things 
right. Maybe it'll never be completely right, maybe it 
never was in the first place.  But she is his and he is 
hers.  They are an alloy, stronger together than as 
separate elements. There can be no one else.

She's entirely left her body now.  She's somewhere near the 
ceiling, watching their bodies entwined, watching Mulder on 
his elbows, thrusting into her.  She watches herself, her 
fingers clutching his shoulders, her head tipped back, eyes 
closed, mouth opening in surprise.

And then with an almost audible whoosh, she returns to her 
body and she's coming, arching against his chest, eyes 
rolling back in her head.

"Oh, God, Scully," he gasps, moving so hard and fast in her 
it hurts, but she doesn't care.  She lifts her legs higher 
on his back so he can go even deeper into her.

I don't want this to ever stop, she thinks. If we could 
stay like this, everything would be fine, we'd be happy all 
the time.

He comes with a long sigh.  She watches him and even though 
the room is dark, she can still make out the features of 
his face contort with bliss.  It's the most gorgeous thing 
she's seen in ages.  The majesty of the Rockies can't 
compare.

Mulder collapses on her, his breathing beginning to slow.  
She can feel heart's rapid beating.

"Do you still believe in God?" she asks.

"I think I believe in everything right now.  God, Allah, 
Buddha, Yaweh, Jehovah, Krishna," he says and laughs. It's 
so good to hear him laugh again.  In their last months 
together there had been no laughter at all. 
She shuts her eyes to savor the last twinges of pleasure 
coursing through her body.  Mulder rolls off her.  She 
hears him walking to the bathroom and the flushing of the 
toilet flush and then he's climbing back into bed.  He 
moves against her, his fever-warm chest against her back.

"Welcome home," he says. "I really, really missed you."

She smiles.  "I can tell."

"I want things to be different."

"I do too."

He kisses the nape of her neck, the spot where the implant 
hides beneath her skin. "I want you to tell me about him."

She lifts her head from the pillow.  "About William?"

She doesn't want to, not now, not when everything feels new 
and shiny between them.  Not when she's feeling content and 
satisfied for the first time in what feels like eons. 

But she knows she has to.  She's promised herself, and him, 
that everything will be different this time.  It starts 
here, she thinks.

"Tell me all about him," Mulder says.

She closes her eyes, picturing William's toothless smile 
and his fat little legs, wiggling in the car seat.

"He was a good baby.  He only cried if he was hungry or had 
a dirty diaper.  He loved anything colorful, could stare at 
the quilt my mother made him for hours.  He'd laugh his 
head off if he heard music.  He was a fan of classic rock, 
just like you.  He had a particular love for Led Zeppelin 
and the Moody Blues. He didn't like the Stones much, though. 
He loved it when I sang to him, despite my terrible voice. 
He was always so happy to see me when I picked him up after 
work, would just smile and smile. He could already stand at 
nine months and walk if I held his hands. He scared me 
sometimes, the powers he seemed to have, because I just 
wanted him to be a baby like any other. He hated any kind 
of green vegetable and would spit it out immediately.  He'd 
sometimes fall asleep on my shoulder while I worked at home 
and I'd feel so content; despite missing you so terribly, I 
felt like I had almost everything I needed it the world..."


The morning sunshine is obscenely bright to her sleepy eyes. 
She's in her old bed, in the Spokane bedroom.  Mulder is 
inches away, sleeping on his back.  His eyes are moving 
beneath his closed lids.  He's dreaming.

It all happened.  It wasn't an incredibly detailed dream.  

She fights the urge to rise from the bed and run again, 
escape from everything that's still tangled and knotted 
between them.  She shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath.

Get real, Dana, she tells herself.  You're here and you're 
not going to leave again. This is where you belong.

She loves this man.  It will never be easy with them. It 
never has been. It will take a lot of hard work.  But she's 
up to the task, right?  

She is.

She inches closer to Mulder and kisses his temple, his 
forehead, his scratchy chin. His eyes flutter open and he 
smiles to see her there.

Click your heels three times, she thinks, and you're back 
in your bed.  There's no place like home.

END



MORE NOTES:  In "The Wizard of Oz," Glinda actually says 
"tap your heels." I originally remembered it as "click your 
heels" and I like how that sounds better, so I went with it 
for the story. For the record, I'm not much of a fan of 
"The Wizard of Oz."  It scared the pants off of me as a 
little girl.  But the lines seemed fitting for this story.

Thanks to everyone who has offered their encouragement 
through this series.  Your words made all the difference.

Feedback is very much appreciated and adored: 
marigoldbalcony@gmail.com. 

BONUS NOT-QUITE-SO-ANGSTY SOUNDTRACK: Beth Orton: Stolen 
Car; Chemical Brothers: Where Do I Begin; Cowboy Junkies: 
Angel Mine; Dandy Warhols: Godless; Depeche Mode: Precious; 
Frou Frou: Let Go; Kate Nash: Foundations; Mono: Life in 
Mono; Phoenix. Too Young; Placebo: Infra-Red; Secret 
Machines: Nowhere Again; The Waterboys: The Whole of the 
Moon