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 This author's e-mail address has changed to: pindaran@hotmail.com
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From: Rhetta <rhoannan@att.net>
Date: 1 Jul 2003 10:11:37 -0700
Subject: [all-xf] NEW: Embracing Eternity (1/1)
Source: atxc

TITLE: Embracing Eternity
AUTHOR: Rhetta
RATING: PG-13
CLASSIFICATION: Vignette, Scully POV, Humor, Major Character
Deaths (sort of )
DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, just let me know.
FEEDBACK: rhoannan@att.net
SPOILERS: If you've seen up to 'Drive' you're good.
DISCLAIMER: Mulder, Scully, and the rest of the 'X-Files' belong to
Chris Carter, 1013, and FOX. Think of this as a friendly loan.
SUMMARY: Death isn't necessarily a bad thing.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: A big thanks to Mori and Kali for the great beta help.

**********

Life is an acquired taste. Apparently, so is death.

In retrospect, it's mostly my fault. Spending so much time with
Mulder has shown me that paranoia does have a certain logic.
Especially for us. So I should have seen it coming, seen the signs.
And if I hadn't been using most of my concentration to resist the
urge to kick his ass, I probably would have.

It had been a normal Tuesday. Normal for us, anyway. Three hours of
trudging through a grimy underground tunnel searching for something
that was killing students from a local University. Mulder believed it
was some kind of soul stealer bent on gathering up the unwary in some
dark plan to rise from the underworld. I decided to go a different
direction. Something not involving the underworld.

Mulder brought up ancient myths that linked the tunnels to an old
X-File dating back to the 1950's. I raised an eyebrow. He mentioned
the percentage of times he'd been proved right. I rolled my eyes. It
had been yet another textbook investigation.

And for the record, in case you're interested, it turned out to be
the janitor. Who, as far as I could tell from the cursory medical
examination I was allowed to give him, didn't possess the ability to
steal souls, or to engineer a dark plan to rise from the underworld.
Being a stickler for accuracy I mentioned this to Mulder. Well,
actually I just smirked at him. He knew what I meant.

Which brings us back to why this was mostly my fault. Mulder was then
positive this whole case had been a wild goose chase that was meant
to distract us from the Truth. Of what, I don't know. I didn't see
the Cigarette-Smoking Man, Kersh, or anyone else that's got us on
their 'Feel Free To Piss Them Off' list lurking anywhere in that
tunnel. And I decided to refrain from reminding him that the soul
stealer idea had been all his. OK. I might have mentioned it, but
only in passing.

He still hadn't talked to me or glanced in my direction, by the time
we pulled into the bureau parking garage. I'll admit pointing out
several of the janitors from the building and suggesting they might
also be soul stealers with ties to a vast government conspiracy
wasn't the most mature thing to do. In my defense I smelled like a
wet, musty tunnel and my shoes had given their life for Mulder's
cause. I wasn't in a mature frame of mind.

Unfortunately, neither was Mulder. His first words when we both
climbed out of the car were an accusation. I countered with a few
choice words. He returned fire, and before we knew it all the anger
and frustration that had been building up since we'd lost the X-Files
came out with a vengeance.

Which, I guess, was why we never heard them coming. They had aimed
and fired before we'd had a chance to do anything more than hit the
ground. We saw them clearly then. They didn't think to cover their
faces. They figured we'd take their identities and links to the
Cigarette-Smoking Man to our graves -- which is what we did.

I'm not sure who died first. I think it was me. I remember watching
Mulder crawl towards my body from a few feet away. He made it as far
as my outstretched hand before he collapsed. Then I saw him standing
next to me. For some bizarre reason the first thing that popped into
my head was that my shoes weren't soggy anymore. We were dead. But my
shoes were fine.

Which is where I am right now. Standing next to Mulder in some very
comfortable shoes.

He looks over at me. There's a small grin on his face. For him, death
is the ultimate X-File. And with no paperwork to fill out afterwards.
"Don't give me that look Scully," he says, with a sigh.

"What look?"

"That 'Just because I'm standing beside my dead body doesn't mean
this is an X-File' look."

"How is that a look, Mulder? We are dead." I motion toward what's
left of me on the ground. "That's my body." I wave my hand between
us. "And this is not an X-File. Our death was the result of several
gunshots fired from..." I glance behind us. "Over there somewhere."

"Over there somewhere. I love it when you spout technical jargon. It
does things to me."

"Is one of those things going to be helpful to our situation?" I
cannot believe I just said that. I look over at Mulder. He appears to
feel the same way.

"There are so many ways I can reply to that. And since it appears we
have all the time in the world now; Number 1, I..."

"Mulder..."

His smile widens. "Fine, I'll tell you later."

I resist the urge to smile back .  That just encourages him.

Mulder chews on his bottom lip, apparently lost in some deep thought
about our predicament. Either that or he's having sunflower seed
withdrawal.

"What?"  I say finally.  I can only watch that for so long before it
totally distracts me.

"I didn't see any bright lights."

Oh yeah, that cleared things up.  "Bright lights?  What are you
talking about?"

"When I died I didn't see a bright light."

"So?"

He sighs.  "Scully, it's been well documented that people who've had
near death experiences report seeing a bright light and being drawn
toward it. When I died I didn't see anything.  No lights, no loved
ones, nothing." He looks over at me.  "Did you see any lights?"

Well documented.  Honestly. "There are no 'bright lights' Mulder.
It's merely a chemi..."

"Did you see any lights, Scully?" He asks with a little more force.

I wonder if you can still pray for patience when you're dead?  "No,
Mulder, I didn't see any lights.  First I was down there, then I was
here."

He chews on his lip again. "That's disappointing. I was really
looking forward to that." He looks down at us for a moment and winces.
"And then there's this. All these years of plots within plots, of
trying to discredit us. I never thought it would end this way. They
just walked up and fired. It's so...anticlimactic."

"What, were you expecting a long speech or a special ceremony?
Possibly fireworks?"

He ran a hand through his hair. "I was expecting something, Scully.
Something a little more grandiose than being gunned down in a parking
garage. They didn't even wait to see if we died."

"Look at those wounds, Mulder," I say, pointing toward our former
selves. "No one could survive those."

He winces again.

I shake my head. I can't believe it. "Is seeing us like that making
you squeamish?"

"Excuse me if I'm not used to seeing you dead." He starts to pace,
then stops and looks me directly in the eyes. "They killed you,
Scully. Those bastards just strolled up and killed you. And I didn't
even have a chance to..."

"To what, Mulder? Fire back? You went down before I did. There's no
way you could have done anything."

He lets out a ragged sigh. "I should have had a chance to make them
pay Scully. I just want a little revenge. I think we earned it."

"We're dead, Mulder. We're beyond that. They'll eventually answer for
what they've done."

"You mean when they die?" He glances at me. "I guess I shouldn't have
mentioned the 'make them pay' thing out loud, huh?" Without thinking
I reach out and grab his hand. For a moment we both stare at our
joined hands in surprise. We can touch. He squeezes my hand and I
squeeze back.

"I wonder what other things we can touch," I say after a moment of
comfortable silence.

He smiles crookedly. "Death's turning you into a flirt, Scully."

I roll my eyes. "You know what I meant Mulder."

"Yeah. That we might be able to touch the things around us."

"I meant that we could do more than just stand around here waiting
for the EMT's to arrive."

He glances around with a slight frown. "Where are they anyway? You'd
think the parking garage of the FBI Building would have a little
faster service time."

"You'd also think the parking garage of the FBI Building would have a
little better security."

He shrugs. "You'd think. I guess they want to make sure we're dead,
and no, I don't want to look down at our bodies again. That upsets me
on several levels." He leans back against our car. "What if we can't
leave here, Scully?"

Well, that upsets me on several levels. "What do you mean?"

He crosses his arms in front of him. "It's well documented that many
ghosts aren't able to leave the place where they died. Especially if
they were murdered. You know, the whole 'wronged souls seeking
justice through haunting the living' idea."

Not that again. "Are you saying we might be stuck in this parking
garage for the rest of eternity?" I look around at the concrete
walls. "I don't even like parking my car here."

He smiles. "Hey, at least the car fumes won't bother us."

I lean back against our car. "Are you sure it's just the place we
died? I remember reading somewhere about ghosts that haunted whole
buildings."

Mulder looks at me for a moment. "I always said I'd probably die
before you admitted to believing in extreme possibilities. Obviously,
I was right."

I shrug. "I may have been wrong about the existence of ghosts."

He stares at me in amazement. "And it only took you actually becoming
one to admit it. Wow."

I really wish I'd kicked his ass earlier. "Mulder, what if we're not
stuck here? What if we can leave the garage? Maybe even the
building?"

He rubs his hands together and grins. "Let's find out."

We walk towards the entrance to the garage and stop to look at each
other. He reaches his hand out to me and I grab it tightly. After a
minute, to gather my nerves, I nod. We step out onto the street, walk
a few feet, then look around. Nothing happens.

"I think we've proven that theory wrong," I say quietly.

He nods. "I think so, too."

I can't resist a smile. "I guess we can go wherever we want to then,
even back in the building." For the first time, I feel like the odds
have shifted in our favor.

He looks over at me. There's a strange gleam in his eyes. If my heart
was still beating it would have skipped a few beats by now. "Scully,"
he says, with a dark smile. "I don't think I'm going to be a friendly
ghost."

I should discourage him. Should bring up that no matter what they did
to us, we're still the good guys. And as soon as I'm done agreeing
with him, I will.

Probably.

Well -- it's definitely on my top ten list.


The End