From: Megan Kennedy Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 18:20:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Story submissions Title: "D.c. al Fine" Autor: Megan E. Kennedy Email: mekamorph@yahoo.com Rating: G Catergory: S Keywords: Mulder/Scully friendship Spoilers: None Summary: One last car trip... Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully and anyone else I mention belong to Chris Carter. I'm not getting any money off of this, so we can all sleep a little easier... "D.c. al Fine" Shiprock Retirement Home, Phoenix, Arizona 11:54 p.m. March 22, 2042 Mulder closed the snaps on his suitcase, ignoring the twinge his arthritis caused. He took the flowers out of the vase by his bedside, emptied it, and hid it in his coat. He checked himself in the mirror once more--suit cleanly pressed, tie straight--b efore hefting the case and leaving his room. The night nurse looked at him with bare surprise, which was expected; Mulder hadn't walked on his own like this for just over a decade, and hadn't been able to walk at all for the past three years. He smiled at the young man, who recovered enough sense to grab Mulder's arm. "Mr. Mulder, lights out was several hours ago. I'm afraid I'm going to have to send you back to your room." "Go for it," Mulder said lightly, then hit the nurse square in the nose with the heavy ceramic vase. The impact jarred him badly (even twenty years ago he wouldn't have missed a beat) but the nurse slumped to the floor, bleeding but not badly hurt. Mul der nodded and shuffled out the door. The car was in the lot, just as he'd known it would be. He put his suitcase in the trunk and drove out into the desert night. Scully home, San Diego 10:27 p.m. March 24, 2042 Amanda Stokes Scully sighed explosively as she descended the stairs. Why did Matthew have to care or the old woman? Couldn't anyone else take her in? Wasn't there enough space in the nursing home? Her husband's aunt still sat by the front window, watching the rain-slick street as if she expected something. "Aunt Dana, it's late. You should be in bed." "I wasn't aware I had a curfew," Dana Scully said wryly. Amanda clenched her jaw. Why her? "Please, Dana. Matthew's afraid you'll fall on the stairs and we won't be up to help you." And I'm afraid you'll break something expensive, you senile old biddy. Dana looked at her blandly. "Then let Matthew come down here and say it. Really, Amanda, you don't do a very good job of hiding your feelings, do you?" She counted to twenty-eight Mississippi Rivers before speaking. Matthew had asked her so many times to have patience with the woman, saying that she had lost something very dear to her once, and with it her sense of purpose. Amanda simply thought she'd outlived her purpose. "Dana, I really wish you would come upstairs now." "I will come upstairs when I'm ready." Amanda shook her head and left. She didn't notice the battered newspaper Dana Scully had folded in her lap, the Phoenix _Sun_, or the article she had circled: "Man Vanishes from Local Nursing Home." Scully home, San Diego 2:06 a.m. March 25, 2042 Scully smiled to herself as the car pulled up. Somehow, the streetlights were still burning, and they reflected off the puddles the last rain had left in the street. Mulder honked the horn twice and stuck his head out of the window. Her smile grew wide r as she saw, beneath the thinning silver hair and laugh lines, the Fox Mulder she'd always known. She shuffled up the stairs, eschewing the rails on the walls placed there for her use. Her suitcase was already packed; she grabbed her careworn trenchcoat from its hook on the closet door, and smoothed the quilt on her bed one last time. She went back do wn the stairs without making a sound. The dampness in the air wasn't agitating her artificial hip, for once; she walked down the driveway without pain for the first time since she'd come to live with her nephew. Mulder popped the trunk without saying anything and raised his window. Scully sec ured her belongings and got into the front passenger seat. They drove for several hours without saying anything, racing to meet the sunrise. Mulder had a pouch of sunflower seeds open on the dash and two Styrofoam cups full of iced tea in the cupholders. The highway was almost empty, and open road that was giv ing away into desert. The needle on the speedometer passed eighty miles per hour, and the frame quivered a bit. They topped a rise, and Scully felt the wheels leave the ground for a sickening split-second. Then they settled to the pavement once again, and the moon washed the sand in silver light as it emerged from behind a cloud. "Mulder?" she asked, without turning to look at him. "Yeah, Scully?" "Do have any idea where we're going?" He considered the question for a moment. "Nope." They made eye contact in the rearview mirror, and she fancied that the color was coming back into their hair, the age spots fading and the wrinkles smoothing out, as they drove on the lonely interstate. "Good," Scully pronounced, leaning back in her se at. The moon faded out, and the sunrise leapt up to meet them. * * * Article in the Phoenix _Sun_ March 29, 2042 "Nursing Home Vanisher Presumed Dead" Nevada--Fox Mulder, the elderly man who disappeared from the Shiprock Retirement Home a week ago, is presumed dead, following the discovery of a car wreck 20 miles inside the Nevada state line. The State Highway Patrol found the car Mulder was last seen driving rolled in the breakdown lane of Interstate 55 after receiving a call from another motorist. The car has no registered owner; where Mulder acquired it is uncertain. No sign of he or Dan a Scully, the retired FBI agent's former partner whom he was sighted picking up the night before the crash, was found. Police say Mulder was doing at least eighty when he topped a rise in the road, losing contact with the asphalt and control of the vehicl e. The seatbelt in the car were still closed, and sunflower seed shells were found inside, but no other trace of the two was found...