From: "David Hearne" Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 11:04:28 -0400 Subject: xfc: The Fall Will Probably Kill You (1 of 1) Source: xfc TITLE: THE FALL WILL PROBABLY KILL YOU (1 of 1) AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE CLASSIFICATION: Post-ep for "Vienen" RATING: PG SPOILERS: Vienen, Fight the Future Website is located at http://members.dencity.com/hearne Send feedback to ottercrk@sover.net XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX The bartender with short blonde hair poured the drink, then pushed it over to the customer. She watched the brown-haired, big-nosed man as he looked down at his drink. "Well?" she said. He raised his eyes. "Aren't you going to drink it?" "I'm not sure." "Well, if you are in the same mindset you were last time, then you probably are going to drink it." "What mindset was that?" "Very depressed." "Oh, yeah. Maybe I should be depressed now." "Why's that?" "I've just been fired." "There you go then." The customer nodded. "So are you depressed?" "I'm...not sure of that, either." The bartender studied the customer, then shrugged. "Okay. Think about it. That glass isn't going anywhere." The bartender walked away to serve another customer. The brown-haired man looked back at his drink. A red-haired pregnant woman entered the bar. She saw the brown-haired man and walked slowly toward him, not just because she was heavy with child. She sat herself on the stool next to him. She watched him. He watched the glass. After sitting together in silence for a long time, the woman said, "I'm sorry." "Nothing for you to be sorry for. I did it all myself." The man looked up, but not at the woman next to him. Fox Mulder studied his reflection in the mirror behind the bottles. "Do I look really middle-aged to you?" Dana Scully leaned over and laid an arm over his shoulder. She pressed her cheek against his face and joined him in examining reflections. "You look good to me," she told him. "I feel middle-aged. I feel more than middle-aged. I feel..." He stopped himself. "What?" He pulled away from her so he could look her in the eye. "Almost dead." Her expression was sad as she reached up to run her fingers through his hair. "I don't know what to say. I don't know how to make things better." "You don't have to comfort me about losing my job. The work...the quest was important to me, but not being an FBI agent. What worries me is that I have accomplished so little." "You've accomplished a lot more than you think, Mulder." Mulder regarded her for a moment, then said, "What about you? How do you feel?" "About you getting fired?" "About you still working for the FBI." Scully's hand slipped from Mulder's hair to his shoulder. She turned her eyes to the dark counter. "I guess I'm different than you, Mulder. I've always taken a pride in being...well, maybe that's the wrong word." "Pride in being an FBI agent?" "Yeah. It's the wrong word. It's not like you never had pride..." "No. You're right. I've never held your amount of respect for the job. To me, it just became a means to an end. I kind of wandered into it..." "So did I." "You took an abrupt turn, but you knew where you were going. I've never quite known where I was headed." Scully turned back to Mulder and saw his smile. "What is it?" she asked. "I'm just remembering when you first walked into the basement. You were...so fresh. So young." "You make me sound like I just came out of the academy." Scully's voice was reproachful, but she was smiling as well. "Well, no, you weren't a babe in the woods, but...you were eager and energetic and...willing to throw my smart-ass remarks back in my face." "I'm still willing." "And, as I said before...you had real pride in being an FBI agent." Scully turned to the mirror. "How do I look now?" Mulder contemplated her reflection. "You're older. Harder. Not that you were ever weak, but...I can see a lot of scars. You had to toughen yourself up in order to survive these past eight years." "Well...you could say that about a lot of people." "What I'm getting at...what I'm trying to ask you...is have you taken too much? Do you feel capable of going on?" Scully turned to Mulder. Mulder turned to Scully. "Do you want me to leave the FBI?" she asked quietly. "Do you want me to come with you?" "I want you to do what you want to do. But I have to know where you're going." Scully took a breath. She leaned forward. She kissed Mulder lightly on the mouth. With their faces an inch apart, she said, "Wherever I'm going, you'll be there. One way or another." Mulder sighed. "I don't know about that. I've just been tossed over the cliff and I'm wondering if I can swim in the river below." "Don't worry about that. The fall will probably kill you." Mulder blinked. Scully grinned at him. Then he grinned back. "Let's go, Butch." The brown-haired man and the red-haired woman left the bar with arms around each other. A five-dollar bill rested next to an undisturbed glass. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX