From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 19:52:05 -0500
Subject: NEW:  Immortal Beloved by X-Lydia
Source: direct

Reply To: x-lydia@x-files_fan.zzn.com


Title: Immortal Beloved

Author: X-Lydia

Rating: PG (lots and lots of character death)

Keywords: Mulder/Scully

Classification: SA

Spoilers:  Tithonus, Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose

Summary:  Not everything dies, Mr. Mulder.

Disclaimer:  Their bodies belong to Fox-TV but their souls belong 
to Chris Carter.

Warning:  Just because the word "Immortal" appears in the title of 
this or any other story does NOT mean it is a Highlander crossover!
Especially not this story.


****************  
Immortal Beloved
****************

Dana Scully carefully set down the pot of flowers, wondering how 
long they would last.  Genetic engineering for frostproof plants 
was nothing new, but using it on garden flowers was; people who 
would rather starve their neighbors than allow "designer" crops 
onto the market had no problem with using the supposedly dangerous 
new technology for ornamental flowers and shrubs.  Nobody was 
picketing florists and nurseries or trying to frighten one another 
with visions of suburban lawns taken over by bloodthirsty Audrey 
II, or even Swamp Thing.  Certainly Dana Scully wasn't, and she'd 
seen suburban lawns taken over by much worse.

It was cold here.

She viewed the flowers, like everything else, through the lens of 
science; putting them here was something of an experiment.  As an 
artistic experiment, they were a success - so pretty against the 
snow; if only they didn't look so much like blood.

"Looks like you were right again," she murmured in the general 
direction of the grave, stuffing her mittened hands into her coat 
pockets, turtling her head into her stand-up collar.  Wind-chill 
factor, ugh.

Antarctica hadn't been this cold.

Under the circumstances, though, red tulips were very appropriate, 
and they were so pretty.  She reluctantly took her hands out of her 
pockets, bringing out the other things she'd carried here - a 
lottery ticket, a miniature bottle of blended whiskey, and a 
plastic-laminated photo of a small fluffy dog.  She arranged them 
around the pot of tulips, wondering why it had taken this long for 
Dia de los Muertos to catch on outside the Southwest.  It was 
socially and psychologically healthier to acknowledge and remember 
dead relatives and friends this way; the old North American customs 
of euphemism and denial were far more superstitious.

Dana Scully viewed death through the lens of science too; that was 
her profession.  She had never been superstitious about anything, 
not even death.

She'd worked in morgues that weren't this cold.

"He didn't want - I mean he wouldn't have wanted to know how he 
was going to die."  Losing a friend always hurt; that was a 
psychological fact.  "You know, of all the ghosts I've seen - I 
know ghosts are probably mere manifestations of our own emotions, 
fear, grief, et cetera - I've never seen yours, or Arthur 
Fellig's.  If I believed the conventional folklore about ghosts, 
I'd say it was because you and he are the only people I've ever 
met who died happy."

Of course it was cold here.  Minneapolis-St. Paul was always cold.

Dana Scully left the grave of the now-happy Clyde Bruckman and 
trudged back to the gate, leaving tiny footprints in the snow.

"Where to?" asked the cabdriver.  He was wearing a light denim 
jacket and a Vikings T-shirt, no gloves, no hat.  The cab's 
electric power plant purred.

"Airport," she sighed.  "I have to fly to Washington, D.C."

"I hear it's cold there this time of year," grinned the cabdriver.

***

One good thing about winter and the extra clothing it required was 
the many varieties of neckwarmers available.  Scarves, mufflers, 
hoods, dickeys, turtlenecks, all of them hid scars wonderfully in a 
way summer clothing did not.  Scully wasn't exactly embarrassed but 
didn't like to show the scar off, either.  That's what it felt like; 
showing off.  It was hardly visible now; not surprising, 
considering how quickly it had healed, and the surgery it 
represented was hardly experimental anymore.

She'd been awake through the whole thing.  The weirdest part of it 
wasn't even looking up at the masked surgeon and seeing the gentle 
eyes of Jeremiah Smith after all these years; it made odd dreamlike 
sense for there to be a Jeremiah Smith, M.D., F.A.C.S. performing 
this particular operation.  The weirdest part was knowing that she 
was in an operating theatre without a mask.

Of all the advances in medicine since she'd become a doctor, the 
biggest was in treatment of spinal injuries, especially those of the 
cervical vertebrae.  Most spinal injuries involved crushing rather 
than severing, and crushing injuries were much more difficult to 
treat.  Nowadays most patients regained full function within two 
years.

Unfortunately madness and delusion continued to baffle science.  The 
assailant who'd put her in the hospital in the first place was even 
more enraged when she walked out.  He was there, waiting for her, 
screaming and yelling, and guess who was there waiting fof him?  
Guess who no one expected to even be at the hospital, much less make 
an arrest there, because he was supposed to be at a Congressional 
hearing about waiving the mandatory retirement age for FBI 
directors, specifically himself?

"Ma'am?  We've landed.  We're here."

"Already?" asked Scully distractedly.  "Didn't it use to take a lot 
longer to fly from Minneapolis to Washington?"

"So I've heard, but I'm afraid that was before my time," said the 
flight attendant. 

"Time is relative," muttered Scully.

"Einstein said that," smiled the flight attendant.  "Can I help you 
with your bag, Ma'am?" 

"No, thank you, I'm fine."

Her car was where she'd parked it, safe and sound.  The battery 
gauge showed plenty of juice left; good.  Lots of visits to make 
yet.

First stop was Arlington National Cemetery.  Skinner, Walter S. 
was there, remembered as a Marine sergeant in Vietnam rather than 
as the mildly controversial FBI director of the early twenty-first 
century.  Danny Pendrell was there; no one at the Bureau, except 
maybe in Personnel, knew he'd been in the Navy medical corps and 
gotten shot at in the Gulf, or that he had a first name besides 
"Agent."  None of the Scullys were there, not even the war heroes; 
the Scullys favored burial at sea, or small quiet Catholic 
cemeteries.  There was a monument to Bill Jr. and Charles, the 
only two brothers to win the Navy Medal of Honor for the same 
combat action in the twenty-first century, at the Naval Academy 
chapel in Annapolis.  Many years after that battle, they died 
within two days of one another, and their ashes were scattered 
off the Virginia Capes by the Vice President of the United States 
himself, Matthew Scully, RADM, USN (Ret.)  

Oh, no. Not again.  What a time to be pulled over by the police.

"Let's see your driver's license and registration."

Oh, no.  He was going to say it again.

"This birtdate can't possibly be correct."

"It is, Officer."

"February 23, 1964?  I don't think so."

"Why did you pull me over, Officer?"

"You were driving 66 miles per hour in a 65 miles per hour zone.  
Step out of the car, please."

It had happened before; ride in a police car, get fingerprinted, 
wait for someone at the DMV to confirm that she had passed the 
eye, written, and driving tests yet again and that her license 
and registration were genuine, wait for the police to find some 
agency that still had her fingerprints on file, then wait for 
the police to let her go. Centenarians weren't unusual these days, 
now that people took better care of themselves, and Alzheimer's 
disease was both preventable and curable now, so why should the 
police act like anyone over 75 couldn't possibly be in command 
of their faculties?  Did they think this was still the 20th 
century?  

They weren't the only ones who bothered her; perfect strangers would 
walk up to her and ask the same old questions all the time, or else 
express vague dissatisfaction and resentment with her existence, or 
do more than that - there was that psychopath, after all, who'd gone 
after her with that big heavy sword, babbling some sort of nonsense 
and making her an immediate candidate for some seriously 
experimental surgery.  The only way around these hassles would be to 
do as Arthur Fellig had, adopting a new identity every half-century 
or so, living the life of a fugitive from the law forever.  She was 
not a fugitive from the law, except maybe from the law of averages, 
and she refused to live like one.  Moreover, she could not imagine 
herself as anyone other than Doctor Dana Katherine Scully, Special 
Agent Scully, retired now but still Scully.

*His* Scully.

*Her Mulder's* Scully.

The police used to pick up *her* Mulder like this too, and one day - 
it still felt like yesterday - they didn't let him go.  It was an 
insulting way to treat a retired FBI agent, much less a retired FBI 
director.

"You okay?"  asked the cop.  "You look like you just saw a ghost."

"Tomorrow's Halloween, isn't it?"  Halloween, then All Saints' Day, 
then All Souls Day - the Day of the Dead.

They detained him because some people wanted to meet him, and ask 
him some questions, and run some tests, and they didn't let him go, 
and he couldn't get away.

***
She sat and waited in the police station, again.  There was someone 
who wanted to meet her, who would be here any minute now.  Oh, God, 
no. 

"Dr. Scully?"  

Oh, God.

Oh, my God.  Ohmigod.

There he was, looking like he did the last day she saw him on earth, 
none the worse for wear - except for some gray hair around the 
temples and a few more character lines, he looked remarkably like he 
had the day they'd first met in the FBI basement.

"I know you didn't expect to see me," he said sheepishly.  "I didn't 
think you'd believe."

Scully, not sure if she did or even if she should believe, swallowed 
hard and blinked.  A young-looking plainclothes detective ambled by 
carrying two paper cups of coffee, handed her one, handed *him* the 
other.  "These police officers can also see you; apparently seeing 
is believing."  She gingerly tasted the hot coffee.

"In this precinct, anyway."

"How did you get here?"

"Your car."  He held up the keys.

"Let's go," said Scully, looking around the room, silently daring 
any of the police officers to object.  At the door, she looked 
back, half expecting to see her seated body sightlessly staring 
back at her, and saw only an empty orange plastic chair.

***

There was her car, right in front of the station.  They hopped in 
and drove away, fast.  No police cruisers followed them.

"I'm not sure I should be driving, Scully - I don't exactly have a 
current license."

"Mulder - how can I say this?  The last time I saw you, you were 
being dissected!"

"I was also quite dead," Mulder replied calmly.  "I still am, 
actually." 

"You're a ghost?"

"Yeah," sighed Mulder.  Scully realized that as glad as she was 
to see Mulder again, she was even more glad not to be the one 
driving during this particular conversation, even if this meant 
letting Mulder drive under these singular circumstances.  "Does 
this mean I get stuck with that Spooky nickname again?"

"How come I can see you?"

"Second sight.  Clairvoyance.  Mediumship. Some people are just 
better at noticing ghosts than others.  What can I say?  You do 
everything well, Scully."

"Why are you here?  On Earth, I mean."

Mulder made a serious face.  "Scully, there are generally three 
reasons for a ghost to walk the Earth.  Unfinished business, 
messages for the living, and most commonly having died a violent, 
premature, messy, or painful death.  Without getting into any of the 
unpleasant details, mine was all of the above."  He sipped at his 
paper cup of coffee, regarding it curiously.

"So have you any unfinished business or messages for the living?"

"Yeah," said Mulder, reaching over to touch Scully's hand.  It felt 
like...what should it have felt like? 

"How can you drink that coffee, Mulder?"  asked Scully uneasily.

"It's actually pretty good...although somehow this cup doesn't seem 
to be getting any less full." 

"How can you do things like drink coffee and drive cars and touch 
people?  How do I know you're who, and what, you say you are?"

"I don't know how you know, Scully, but you do know; on some 
subconscious level, maybe, but you do."

"But - "

"Scully, if you didn't trust me, would you have let me drive?"

"Good point," she sighed.

"What's more, if I *weren't* me, I'd be trying mostly to convince 
you that I was still alive."  He picked up the now-cool coffee and 
drank deeply of it, almost upending the cup.  "Or that I'd actually 
managed to finish this coffee."  The paper cup sloshed heavily as he 
handed it to Scully.  "Look in the side mirror and tell me what you 
see?"

"I see me holding a full cup of coffee, and...Mulder?"

"You can see me in the mirror?"  Scully thought his reflection was 
somehow fainter than hers, maybe even a bit translucent, but that 
could be an optical illusion of some kind; weren't car mirrors the 
cause of many UFO sightings throughout the 1960s?  "Because I can't."

"Come home with me, Mulder.  Come haunt our house, or do whatever it 
is that ghosts do."

"You're not afraid?"

"Mulder, I've survived a career in the FBI as your partner, a second 
career as your Assistant Director for Forensic Pathology and 
Xenobiology or whatever that title was, over a century of 
retirement, and a beheading.  I've even survived ten years without 
you around.  Why would I be afraid of you?"

"You're afraid this is the only way we can be together again."

"My religion prohibits suicide," said Scully.

"I didn't commit suicide," protested Mulder.

Scully remembered the unpleasant details far too well.  Clyde 
Bruckman had told the truth:  Fox Mulder wouldn't have wanted to 
know how he would die.  Some stupid government doctors wanted to 
run some stupid tests on him, to find out the secret of his long 
life, and wound up taking him apart like a kid with a clock, 
unable to put him back together.  By the time the stupid 
bureaucrats verified Scully's identity to let her and Jeremiah 
Smith, M.D., F.A.C.S. see Mulder it was too late.  They didn't 
release her body to her as next of kin, either, and no one would 
tell her what became of it.

Some things never change.

"Mulder?"

"Yeah, Scully?"

"Did I ever tell you what Clyde Bruckman told me?"

"No, but he did."

"Before, or after he..."

"After I died, actually."

Okay, so he was a ghost.

He was still Mulder.

Scully knew how serious Mulder could get about unfinished business.

"Are you afraid?"

"What would a ghost possibly be afraid of?"

"Mulder, I don't know!  Exorcists?  Tourists?  People who don't 
believe in ghosts?"  

"Hey, wasn't this our house, Scully?"

"It still can be," offered Scully.  "I never moved out, so..."

Mulder gleefully pulled a U-turn, parking directly in front of the 
house.  "We're he-ere!" he sang out, accompanied by the screeching 
brakes.

"Looks like I get stuck with that Mrs. Spooky nickname after all."

*******************************************************************
The End.  Send feedback to x-lydia@x-files_fan.zzn.com
*******************************************************************