THE X-FILES: "Penetrating the Shadows"
by Abbie Anderson amanders@att.net
http://home.att.net/~amanders

Originally completed 5/11/96; last revision
7/29/99

Rating: PG  Category: SR
Spoilers: Paper Clip
Keywords: Mulder/Scully Romance

Summary: Mulder's mother has an accident
while preparing to share with him some
significant photographs and papers that his
father had saved, and Mulder calls Scully to
Martha's Vineyard to help him face the Truth.
A Relationship (kissing) story with some
gratuitous plot thrown in. The author's first
non-teleplay fanfic, and it shows: watch out!
We can go inside their heads now! 

Disclaimer: The universe of The X-Files and
the characters therein are the intellectual
property of Chris Carter, Fox Television, and
Ten-Thirteen Productions, and have been used
without permission. No copyright infringement
is intended; I'm just having a good time. If
you like what I've done, feel free to share
it, but of course do give me credit for it
and provide the share-ees with my e-mail
address. If it provokes a reaction, positive
or negative, please let me know. Constructive
criticism especially welcome. 

Note: When I originally wrote this story,
Mulder's mother had not yet been named (she
had also not yet had her stroke). Since that
time she has been identified as "Teena" on
the show (definite confirmation in the
episode "Kitsunegari", unless Scully is
making a mistake). True to the spirit of The
X-Files, I refuse to accept this. I repressed
it (wink). I choose to leave my Mrs. Mulder
as Catherine, after Chris Carter's mother
(seeing how he named both Mulder's and
Scully's fathers after his father
William--and killed both of those fathers
off, too, I might add). I am also ignoring
the insinuation that the Cigarette Smoking
Man ("Cancer Man") may be Mulder's and/or
Samantha's biological father. This rather
nasty suggestion  wasn't made on the show
until after I finished this story, and it
would complicate things too much to try to
include it now (aside from the fact that I
just *don't* want to go there). 

*******

Catherine Mulder had had just about enough.
Enough sherry, and a single shot of bourbon,
to do what needed to be done with sufficient
numbness and detachment. Her son's face still
haunted her, her own voice ringing in her
ears: "I don't remember!" Of course she
remembered. There would be no forgetting, and
no forgiving: not then, not now, not until
the grave had swallowed them all and the
secrets could no longer breed in the corners
of their lives. God forgive her, how she
hated the man she had married! And for a long
time, she had hated that man's son. The sight
of him, even the thought of him, summoned all
the ghosts of loss and outrage--her daughter,
her marriage, both trampled by the horned
animal who commanded her one night to choose,
and she could not. Of course he had chosen
the boy, the heir, the firstborn. More words
came back to her, words thrown at their son,
the one left behind, who was never told,
never to know. "In his grave I hate him
still!" That, at least, was the truth.

She didn't know why the man who had been her
husband had kept the photographs, the
letters. She had found a whole suitcase full
of them, after he died, among his things.
Without mentioning it to anyone (what
business was it, what interest was it to
anyone outside the family?) she had taken it
home. Now it was her treasure, her burden.
The contents fascinated her. Why would he
keep such things close to him, this personal
documentation of the evils he had been a part
of? Poring over them late at night she felt a
furious desire to confront him, perhaps to
force a confession, to make him say it:
"These are the men I worked for. This is what
I did. This is how I sold my conscience and
my family and my soul. This was my price."
Her first impulse after examining them for
herself had been to tear them all up one by
one, to burn them, to enact her paltry
vengeance and watch them be destroyed as she
wished she could destroy the reality they
represented.

But that was why she had saved them, finally.
Perhaps it was William Mulder's reason, as
well. They were the reality, they were the
truth, and whatever distance she had placed
between herself and her son, she too wanted a
piece of the truth. This was one thing she
still owned from her life, one thing she
could still control. She was glad she had
kept them.

She knew now that Fox deserved at least this
much. If she had nothing else left to give
him, if she had never given him anything
strong enough to stand on, she could at least
give him this piece of the truth. 

The thought of his name made her smile as she
climbed the stairs to the attic, her joints
protesting along with the wood beneath her
feet. He had never liked his given name. "I'm
not an animal, Mom," he had protested in High
School, perhaps a shade too defensively.
"Call me Mulder." Somehow she had never been
able to comply with even that request, no
matter what he liked to tell his friends.
Mulder was his father's name. No, she thought
at him across time, you're not an animal. You
have no idea what you are. It was a relief
when he had gone away to school--so good of
him to go so far away, and then on without a
pause to his career with the FBI. No wonder
he was drawn to morbid things, to death and
destruction, mystery and absence. No wonder
he was so good at it: it was what his father
had weaned him on.

All black thoughts were washed downstream by
the rush of unsought euphoria that came as
she uncovered the battered suitcase. Before
tonight she had opened it only to count the
hoard, to meditate on the possession of it
and feed the coals of her bitterness. These
are the men who did it, she would think.
These are the men who took my life away, for
if I cannot keep my family, I cannot keep
myself. But now, but now . . . she would give
the burden away. It was the right thing to
do, and that thought nearly overwhelmed her
with a flood of emotion she could no longer
label but once might have known as joy, or
freedom.

She got up from her knees, wiping at her wet
face and feeling the dampness of the night in
her bones, bones which seemed to feel
compelled at this moment to give a speech
concerning the exact number of decades they
had held her rigid and erect. She lifted the
suitcase, and on impulse reached for the box
of long-neglected photo albums that lay next
to it: wedding pictures, baby pictures,
pictures taken on holidays when there had
been four of them . . .. Perhaps she could
look again at those, now.

Her load left her a little off balance, and
in order to get down the attic steps she had
to disregard a giddy wave of alcohol and high
feeling that lapped at her brain. She crossed
the hallway and wouldn't let herself pause as
she headed down the steps to the living room,
and the phone, where she would call him. She
didn't want to alarm him; she would have to
preface it, "I have good news, son . . .." It
wouldn't matter that it was nearly midnight
now, he never slept.

Catherine wasn't watching her feet, and
hardly noticed when she half-missed the next
step. Suddenly she was on the way down more
rapidly than she had planned, and she didn't
really mind the impact as she tumbled
earthward with her burdens. For a moment she
felt as if she were flying.



Scully couldn't begin to think what Mulder
was going through right now. The message on
her machine had simply said, "My Mom had an
accident, I'm going up to Connecticut." Then
a pause, and the unexpected request: "I'd
appreciate it if you could be there."
Normally he wasn't willing to open this part
of his life to her; he would have gone
without saying anything and left her to
figure it out. Again to her surprise he had
actually answered his cellular phone when she
tried to reach him, and given her the
directions she'd need to the hospital where
Mrs. Mulder was under observation.

Mulder rarely talked about his parents, and
then mostly about his father; and then, only
to say how little connection he felt to his
genetic source. She could understand his
bitterness about his family, considering the
traumas of his sister's disappearance, his
parents' divorce, and their apparent coldness
toward him. But on a personal level she had a
hard time grasping this absence of family for
her partner, and the ease with which he
seemed to shrug off that absence. Coming from
a warm and noisy family of six, Dana's life
had a context that provided its meaning, its
sense: a context of people who laugh and
argue and tease and disagree but never stop
caring about each other. She knew Mulder
didn't have that context. The universe Scully
had grown up in always had its comforts, its
refuges, its certainties. Not so for Mulder.
She was aware that this could well be the
root of their all-too-regular arguments over
how to interpret evidence, how to pursue a
case. Of course he reaches for the fantastic:
he doesn't know what real is. The world he
was raised in gave him no reason to trust it
or take it at face value. Until she started
working in the X-Files, Scully had been given
no reason not to trust it.

She had to admit that his enthusiasm for the
unlikely had helped her, though. When you're
too grounded in reality you can get dug in,
and the worst thing a scientist can do is
limit her thinking only to expected results.
It is a truism in science that the best, most
important discoveries almost always come from
the unexpected (that, and a lot of hard
work). With that in mind, she knew her
skills, her strengths, would never be tested
anywhere else the way they were in the
X-Files. She liked that, even if in the light
of day the challenges she so savored often
seemed nonsensical at best. She wondered if
Mulder was aware of this particular reason
for her sticking around. It was purely
selfish: she loved the work. That might not
make much sense, knowing how hard she fought
against the very things--paranormal
possibilities--that drew her partner to each
case, but it was true. Was that a secret?

Scully had only met Mrs. Mulder once, at the
funeral for Mulder's father, when Mulder
himself had been missing and presumed dead.
She had tried to discern something of her
partner in this gray, not-quite-present
woman, but met only a blankness, an ache that
was all too appropriate given the
circumstances. Now Catherine Mulder had
fallen down the stairs, and something else
was going on that Mulder didn't want to talk
about over the phone. Scully sighed as she
found a spot in the hospital parking garage,
then paused wearily a moment before getting
out of the car. It would be about his father.
Or Samantha. Or both, probably. It was hardly
likely that Mulder would call her all this
way just for moral support. He was as careful
about that kind of thing as she was herself.
It had to be about the Truth.

Scully hated watching Mulder wrestle with
those old demons, hated the fact that they
wouldn't let him go--that he wouldn't let
them go. It still made her angry sometimes,
made her want to shake him and force him to
come to his senses: "It's not your fault,
Mulder! You're not responsible for this,
can't you see that?" No, he couldn't see
that. And nothing she said or did would
change how he felt about it. Besides, it
wasn't her job to try.

Mulder had asked her to be here, so she had
come. Why was it that she always came when he
called? The question irritated her. She had
told Mulder once that the line had to be
drawn somewhere, but that rarely seemed to
stop her from following him into oblivion and
beyond. What bothered her was that he seemed
to expect it. Considering how hard she worked
at her job, and how much it had cost her, she
didn't like being assigned the trusty
sidekick position. Her father had instilled
in her the value of commitment to principle:
that didn't make her a Tonto. Her earliest
lessons, constantly reinforced in her Navy
household, had been those of loyalty, honor,
duty. So she respected Mulder's passionate
commitment, and added her own commitment to
it. That response was as much a part of her
character and of her view of the world as her
equally vehement commitment to science. If
the Bureau had understood this about her,
they never would have assigned her to the
X-Files--or at least they wouldn't have been
so surprised when she didn't do their dirty
work for them and bring Mulder crashing down.

Not that she didn't want to bring him down
herself, sometimes. Like when he insisted on
taking the most harebrained risks to go after
the shadow of a shred of evidence. Or when he
made the umpteenth sly, self-congratulatory
reference to his porn habit, or some stupid
sex joke that would have seemed cheesy in
junior high. As if this was supposed to
impress somebody. One of these days, Mulder,
one of these days . . .. Pow. Right on the
kisser. Now isn't that a thought? She
chuckled to herself. No way. This Special
Agent was not given to self-destruction! That
angst-ridden partner of hers was fully
capable of sucking her dry and casting her
empty husk aside before he'd even known he'd
done it. No way. But it was still an
interesting thought. Not that either of them
would ever do anything about it.

Scully found the reception desk and got Mrs.
Mulder's room number, then made her way to
the private room on a quiet floor. The door
was shut, and she hesitated to interrupt. She
knocked gently on the door, then a little
harder when she got no response.

Mulder opened the door. He was glad to see
Scully there, and too tired to care whether
it showed. "Thanks for coming," he said, and
put a hand on her shoulder to usher her in.
"She's asleep. They've got her medicated for
the pain." Scully looked at him and went
wordlessly to the chart at the bottom of his
mother's bed. Always the professional.

"At least it's just her wrist and some severe
bruising. We'll have to give her extra credit
for toughness, getting to the phone and
calling 911 after a fall like that. It'll be
an uncomfortable recovery, but it could have
been worse. It's almost a surprise she didn't
break a hip."

"It helped that she was pretty plastered at
the time."

"What?"

He always enjoyed getting that reaction out
of her. Sucker. He felt better already. He
had been too long without a kid sister to
tease and torture. He could rarely resist the
temptation to pull a fast one on Scully: she
was such a good straight man. "She told me
she drank most of a bottle of sherry and a
shot of bourbon before going up to the attic
to get out some things of my father's that
she wanted to share with me. Things I'd asked
about before."

"I see." He could almost see the hatches
battening down: she was bracing herself. She
knew him too well. "How are you doing?"

"I'm still standing. I'm glad you could come;
I think I'm going to need your help with
this."

"I was surprised to get your call, Mulder.
Judging by past experience I wouldn't have
expected to hear from you when you had a
family crisis."

"Older and wiser, Scully. I'm learning my
limits. I screwed up when I came by myself
last time, and you were the only one to stick
with me in the aftermath. I just wanted to
keep my bases covered." He hadn't really
answered the question implicit in her last
statement ("so why did you call me?"), and he
knew it. He just didn't want to chase ghosts
by himself on this one, and he knew he'd need
Scully's scientific clarity (and skills at
fighting him) as soon as he started looking
at what his mother had promised. It wasn't
exactly fair to force Scully to be his
wrangler, but he didn't know anyone better
for the job, and he honestly didn't want to
make mistakes with this, didn't want to end
up running off like a desperado and losing
any evidence his mother was trying to offer
him.

"I see," she said again, and he could tell
she knew exactly what he was trying to do by
having her there. He was grateful that she
didn't seem to resent it any more than usual. 

She moved to look into his mother's face, a
look of gentle concern spreading softly over
her features. He wondered briefly if she had
ever looked at him like that, and then
remembered that she had; they both had looked
pretty awful then, though, doing their best
impressions of George Burns. There may have
been other times, too, but he wouldn't have
been conscious. He wished he hadn't missed
it. Even if it wasn't something he could
claim, it was nice to know it was there.  He
would never forget her smile when he had
finally come to, after chasing some
particularly deadly ghosts onto the ice, and
complained of freezer burn--and proclaimed a
renewed faith in the chase. For such a
serious person, she had a pretty goofy smile.
He wanted to live long enough to see it a few
more times. There have been too many close
calls, he thought, with a pang of familiar
guilt. 

"She's lost so much," Dana murmured, and
reached to smooth the older woman's hair.
"The bruises must not feel like much on top
of that." Mulder stepped next to Scully and
took his mother's hand, caressing the back of
it a little with his thumb, glad that his
partner was close. It shouldn't surprise him
by now that Scully could come into this room
and see exactly what was the most important
thing.

Catherine's eyes fluttered open, and she saw
her son standing over her with a petite
auburn-headed woman who looked vaguely
familiar. Her mind was too clouded, she
couldn't put a name to the face . . ..

"Mom, this is my partner at work, Dana
Scully. I asked her to come and help us."

Catherine tried to sit up, realized that was
a bad idea, then lifted her right arm and
re-discovered that it was in a cast. She had
to settle for a nod at the young woman. Her
son still held her left hand, and she didn't
want to pull it away. "Yes, we've met. At
your father's funeral, Fox. It's good to see
you again, Miss Scully, although I must
apologize for the circumstances."

The young woman smiled, a warm smile that
seemed genuine. "No apologies necessary. I
understand you were carrying quite a burden
when you fell." 

Strange that she would use that word,
Catherine's own personal code for the
contents of that suitcase. She felt herself
returning Dana Scully's smile. It appeared
that Fox had better people to trust than his
father had, and the thought reassured her.
Perhaps there was hope of defeating the evil
that had plagued her family after all.

The door opened, and a pretty young nurse
stepped in. "Excuse me, Mr. Mulder? The
doctor would like to have a word with you,
please. There will be some paperwork to fill
out, too, I'm afraid." 

He obviously didn't want to go; it was
touching. He looked between Catherine and his
partner, then let his mother's hand go with a
gentle squeeze. "I'll be right back." He went
out.

"Please sit down," Catherine told her
companion, and Dana drew a chair up next to
the bed. "I'm sorry you had to come all this
way just because I embarrassed myself
negotiating a stairway."

"It wasn't any trouble. I've followed Mulder
into much more inconvenient situations,
believe me." 

Catherine could believe that was true. She
still felt fuzzy from the medication, and her
next words slipped out before she could edit
herself for tact. "He won't let you call him
Fox, will he?" 

The question obviously startled her son's
partner. "He told me not to, once, and I've
always respected that. Sometimes it seems as
if everyone can use his first name but me."

"Maybe you should try again."

"I don't think so, Mrs. Mulder. Once was
enough."

"Please, call me Catherine. It's been a long
time since I associated myself with my
husband's name."

"I'm sorry." 

Catherine could see that Dana truly was
sorry, sorry for the grief attached to the
request. She didn't want the young woman to
be uncomfortable, and her drug-loosened mind
suddenly fastened on an old memory, a memory
of her son, so clear it was almost like
walking into the room to watch herself, more
than thirty years ago.

"Fox was a very sensitive boy, you know."

"That's not too surprising."

"It was as if he could feel my moods with me,
like a little walking barometer for my
internal weather. He had a very happy
temperament as a baby; everything seemed to
engage him and require a response. He would
laugh at anything, a butterfly, a piece of
lint on his shirt, his father's voice on the
phone in the next room . . .."

"I'm glad to hear that. His sense of humor
now is more wicked than happy, I'd say."

"But before long there wasn't much to laugh
at in our house any more, not even for an
innocent little boy. His father and I . . .
well, let's just say our lines began to be
drawn. I didn't approve of some choices Fox's
father had made, and he didn't want to listen
to my reasons. I think he felt he couldn't
afford to. He refused to explain himself to
me, as if it were none of my affair. Fox knew
it somehow, he knew something was wrong. He
wasn't innocent any more, we had corrupted
him. And neither of us cared, we were too
involved in our own warfare."

Dana didn't have anything to say in response
to that. Catherine was surprised to hear such
harsh words actually come out of her mouth,
when she had kept them secret so long. The
memory still tugged at her, and she continued
retelling it. It was easy somehow to say
these things to this quiet, deeply listening
woman.

"My mother passed away shortly after Samantha
was born, and it felt to me that something
fundamentally decent had gone out of the
universe with her. She had always been my
rock, my compass. I had a very hard time.
They call it post-partum depression, but it
felt like more than that at the time; it just
seemed as if the walls were closing in. I had
nowhere to turn. Perhaps now I would be able
to get help, but in those days I was just
being weak and irrational and irresponsible.
I loved my daughter, I loved her desperately,
but it became clear that in my present state
of mind I couldn't care for her by myself. So
Bill took the baby, he took the baby away to
his parents for a while, and he went away,
too, on business, he said. I didn't care
where he went. It was just Fox and me alone
together, with the occasional call or visit
from a friend or a neighbor, checking on us,
bringing us meals. There weren't many who
knew. It wasn't something you would want
anyone to know. They thought I wouldn't feed
him.

"I would wander aimlessly from room to room,
trying to remember why I had come there, and
Fox would follow me like a little puppy, not
saying a word, not moving from my side. I
would step on him, I was so lost inside my
own thoughts, and he didn't cry; he never
made a sound. On the day Bill was supposed to
come home, I spent most of the morning
cleaning the house in fits and starts, never
satisfied with the appearances we had so
carefully maintained. I was angry, but I felt
helpless. I wanted to take all of Bill's
papers and strew them through the hallways,
empty every bottle in the kitchen onto the
floor, run a knife through all the wallpaper.
But I didn't do it. I cleaned. I did what I
thought I was supposed to do so I could have
my daughter back. And Fox followed me,
helping a little the way little children like
to do. 

"Finally I sat down on the sofa, I just sat
and stared into nothing. And Fox, who hadn't
said a word to me for days, he crawled up
into my lap, and he laid his head on my
shoulder, and he gave a little sigh, and he
said, 'It's going to be all right, Mommy. We
just have to feel bad for a while, then we'll
find out what it is, and then we'll be all
right.'

"Ever since my mother died, I hadn't been
able to cry. But sitting there, holding my
sweet, tender-hearted son who knew we had to
find out what the matter was before we'd feel
better, I started to cry. And he cried with
me, I don't know for how long but it seemed a
very long time. We both fell asleep like
that, finally, and that was how Bill found us
when he came home with the baby." She fell
silent, treasuring the touch of that time in
her mind.

"Have you told Mulder that story?" Dana
Scully's face was somber, thoughtful.

"I don't know if he'd remember it. He wasn't
even four years old yet. I hadn't remembered
it myself until just now, the way he was
looking at me as I woke up. And things
changed after that. I could carry on, then,
but there was no compromise between Bill and
me. No room for negotiation. It wasn't long
before we slept in separate rooms. Fox knew
it, and he hated it. He was very
sophisticated for a small child, he would
talk back to us like an adult before he was
even eight years old.

"I never gave him back the tenderness he
offered me that afternoon. We gave him
nothing, we only turned on each other. So he
retreated. He made his bedroom his secret
hideaway; he would be furious if either of us
ever came in without his permission. And he
became a consummate smart-aleck."

"Now that's the Mulder I know."

Catherine's sadness overcame her again. She
suddenly realized how much she missed that
happy baby, that tender three-year-old. "And
then Samantha was gone, and none of us could
talk to each other any more. I wanted as
little contact with either of them as they'd
permit me. Fox battered at our silence with
his fury, but still we gave him nothing, no
explanations, nothing of what we knew. I
knew, Dana, I knew what was happening. I
hadn't been told directly, but I could guess.
I knew those men, I heard how they talked and
what human lives meant for them:
opportunities. Merchandise. They took her
from us, those devils he worked for. Her
father let them. He authorized it! He chose
for her to go, going to God only knows what!
But I didn't want to know. I refused to
acknowledge it, I didn't want to give it
official recognition. And Fox got nothing
from us. We gave him nothing. William Mulder
went to his grave with nothing in his hands
or his heart for his only son."

Dana Scully was brave enough to respond to
this muted tirade with something reasonable.
"Mulder was convinced his father was trying
to tell him something before he died, that he
had called him to the Vineyard to make a
confession of some kind. You did not give
your son nothing, Catherine. And neither did
his father. The man I work with decidedly
does not have an inheritance of nothing. Even
if you did not give him warmth and sunshine,
you played a part in shaping the gifts my
partner uses every day to try to make sense
out of nothing. He would not be doing the
important work he does now if it weren't for
that 'nothing' you gave him."

Catherine was impressed, and pleased, that
her son had such support, that he had earned
the trust and respect his partner displayed.
It was a good sign. "Do you really think his
work is so important?"

The answer was resolute. "Yes, Catherine, I
do. If I may say so, I think *our* work is
important."

Catherine smiled. She hoped the doctors would
let her go home so she could see these two in
action. It seemed that Fox had a formidable
ally. She didn't dare to hope for anything
more.

Mulder knocked to let them know he was back
and then let himself in, and was surprised at
the mood he found in the previously somber
hospital room. His mother was smiling, in a
way he hadn't seen her smile since . . .
probably since he was a kid. Dana looked
ready to laugh at something, but sobered when
she saw him. "Am I interrupting something?"
he asked, wondering if he'd ever really find
out.

"Not at all, Fox, we were just talking," came
his mother's response. "I'm glad you asked
Dana to come."

True to form, Scully got right to business.
"What did the doctor say?"

"It looks like we can take you home in the
morning, Mom. They just want to be sure that
there will be no internal bleeding, and that
your blood pressure settles down after the
shock of the fall."

"I'll be glad to be in my own bed, and in my
own nightgown," his mother said, and he was
surprised at her informality, talking about
bedclothes in front of company. She was
usually pretty stiff about things like that.
Maybe it was the medication.

"Can we bring you anything from home?" Scully
asked. "You're entitled, even for just one
night." Damn. He wouldn't have thought of
that.

"No, dear, I'll be fine. I'm just
complaining, like an old woman who craves
attention."

"My mother likes to say that until you're
eighty you're not entitled to feel old.
Everything up until then is young." 

"Well, give me another decade or two, then,
and I won't have to apologize for
complaining."

The two women smiled at each other again, and
Mulder felt like he needed to be let in on
the secret. Leave the room for two minutes,
and everything happens without you . . ..

His mother turned her head to address him. "I
assume you'll be taking Dana back to the
house for the night. There should be
something in the kitchen you can put together
for supper, if you want, and you know where I
keep the linens."

Whoa, take Dana back to the house? Don't get
any funny ideas, Mom, unless you clear them
with "Dana" first. "I thought I'd stay here
with you, Mom."

"Don't be silly, not when there's a perfectly
good house that you don't even have to pay to
stay in. You'd be helping me if you'd go
there, son, I don't want to leave my home
unattended. Besides, if you go there's a
chance you'll get some rest. You can come
back for me in the morning. The nurses will
take good care of me until then."

Mulder looked to Scully to help him out, but
she was on his mom's side. "We won't argue
with you, Catherine. You're the one who needs
to rest. We should go and let the nurses do
their work." She was calling her "Catherine"
. . . ? He really had missed something.

Mulder shut up, knowing when he'd been
beaten. His mother spoke again. "You should
take the suitcase with you." Then she turned
to Dana in explanation. "What I was carrying
when I fell. I made them pack it up and bring
it with me."  A shadow crossed Scully's face,
and she looked up at Mulder before
re-composing her expression and giving his
mother a nod. She stood up, and squeezed the
older woman's hand in farewell.

"All right then, Catherine. We'll see you in
the morning."

Mulder went over and leaned down to kiss his
mother on the cheek. "Rest well, Mom. Don't
give the nurses any trouble."

"Good night, Fox. Try to get some sleep." She
looked up at Scully, who had not yet left her
side. "You'll see to it, won't you?"

"I can't make you any promises. You may have
noticed that your son has a mind of his own."

No more words. Fox picked up his mother's
burden, and Catherine noted with some
satisfaction that her son's hand went
comfortably to his partner's shoulder as the
two of them went out together.



Mulder drove to his mother's house, Scully
following him in her own car. He kept
glancing back to be sure she was there,
pricked in the darkness by an irrational fear
that she would disappear, her headlights
would wink out and she'd be gone. He wanted
to talk with her--hell, he just wanted her
there next to him in the car, a silent, solid
presence he'd grown so used to on their long
drives and stakeouts together. A sudden flash
of Rex Harrison sing-speaking something about
being accustomed to her face made Mulder
disgustedly push that thought aside. That's
all it is, anyway, he told himself: I'm just
used to her.

It was a miracle they hadn't scratched each
other's eyes out by now, considering all the
time they spent together in such close
quarters with so many pretty striking
differences of opinion. Almost literally
"striking", sometimes. The tug-of-war between
them could get pretty old. There were days
when the last thing he needed was Scully's
arthritic insistence on scientific "reality",
a reality she should know by now was too
limited to describe the "impossible" things
they typically went up against in the
X-Files. But then, he knew he could get too
self-absorbed, and too easily misled by his
feelings, when he was working on a case he
cared about. And he cared about most of them.
Maybe that's what she was reacting to, not
the theories. Pull him back from the brink
one more time. He'd come to rely on that
power of hers to bring him back. And he
couldn't deny that her "scientific reality"
had gotten him a lot more evidence than he
could have hoped for on his own.

He never claimed he was easy to live with.
After all the crap he'd pulled on Scully,
crap they both knew he'd pull again given
half an opportunity, he didn't understand her
loyalty to him. Sometimes he wondered if he
wasn't trying to drive her away, trying to
prove that he was incapable of forming a
lasting connection with anyone. It would be
the worst thing that could happen to him now
if she did leave, and he knew it. He was
lucky she was so bull-headed. A glutton for
punishment.

He parked on the street and let Scully pull
into the driveway, not caring if it was too
"chivalrous" a thing to do. She got out of
her car, reached into the back seat for her
travelling bag and waited for him, her eyes
falling to the old suitcase he was carrying
along with his own things. "It's hard to
believe your father had that all these years
and they never did anything about it. Do you
think it's possible they didn't know?"

"I can't explain those people to you, Scully.
Even if they did know, it's not likely they'd
have traced it to my mom. No one came to her
asking about Dad's papers after he died, no
one gave even an appearance of a debriefing.
Believe me, I asked. I expected some kind of
search, something, but either they trusted
him or they believed the clock had already
been cleaned. To tell you the truth, I don't
think any one ever considered my mom a real
part of all this; I know I didn't.
Chauvinistic, I guess." He paused, feeling
his stomach tighten as they came up to the
door. The house suddenly seemed menacing in
the weak moonlight; he was half afraid he
would open the door and find the place turned
upside down by those who wanted all evidence
controlled, or destroyed. He shook off the
thought. "Besides, we don't even know what's
in it yet."

"You wouldn't have called me up here if you
thought it was just baby pictures, Mulder."

"You never know, Scully. I was pretty hot in
my swimming trunks when I was five."

She said something under her breath that he
didn't catch as he got the key into the lock
and opened the door.

Mulder stepped inside and switched on the
lights. Everything appeared to be in order;
there was no sign of any intruder. Scully
came in past him, scanning her surroundings:
stairs facing them on the right, living room
off to the left that opened onto the dining
room, and behind the dining room the door to
the kitchen; ahead of them the hallway going
to the back of the house and the side door to
the kitchen. "Looks like the coast is clear,"
she said, echoing his thoughts.

"The guest bedroom is through here," he said,
leading her down the hall past the downstairs
bathroom. "It used to be Dad's study. My room
is upstairs," he added for no particular
reason, his voice sounding strange in his
ears. He always felt too tall in this house.
He opened the door for Scully and she went
in, laid her bag next to the bed and came
back out, heading back down the hallway
towards the living room.

"Your mom lives in this big house all by
herself?"

"Yeah. I'm not sure why she stayed here after
Dad left. Her sister lived with her for a
long time, but she had a stroke five years
ago. She's in a nursing home now." The words
were automatic. He hoped Scully wouldn't ask
too many more questions, he had a feeling he
wouldn't be able to control what came out of
his mouth tonight. Did she have any idea how
vulnerable he was right now?

"I'm sorry, Mulder." Her voice had that low,
throaty tone she got when she was trying not
to trespass on his secrets, and she put a
hand briefly on his arm: yes, she knew. "Are
you going to open that suitcase up tonight?"

"No. No, Mom wanted to be with me when I
looked at it." A silence fell, and he noticed
how Scully was looking at him, assessing him.
He couldn't hide how tired he was. He wanted
to sit down right there on the stairs and
lean his head on the railing. "I guess I'll
go up and put this away." No promises of
coming back down immediately, either.

Scully watched Mulder trudge up the stairs.
She couldn't stand it when he got that Little
Boy Lost look. Tomboy or no tomboy, tough
Bureau agent and forensic scientist or no,
she had always had maternal impulses that
could be stifling, impulses she'd learned the
hard way not to exercise on her male friends.
There were too many misunderstandings. And
her own feelings got confused. It was how she
had gotten involved with Jack, a thoroughly
inappropriate relationship since he'd been
her instructor at the Academy. She had
admired him, and felt sorry for the lonely
dedication that left him so absorbed in--and
so good at--his job, and he had been grateful
for the distractions she'd offered. It hadn't
been destructive in itself, but it was a bad
idea, both of them going in for all the wrong
reasons. Finally, it had just dissolved under
its own weight. She had vowed not to let
something like that happen again. It wasn't
worth it. If she ever ended up with anybody,
it would have to be someone who met her as an
equal, not someone she wanted to take care of
or be taken care of by. You just remember
that, Dana.



Mulder wasn't sure how long he'd been asleep
when he woke to the smells and sounds of
cooking coming from the kitchen below. He
didn't even remember lying down, but that's
where he was now, on his side on top of the
covers. This room had been his Aunt Esther's
almost as long as it had been his, but his
aunt was a no-nonsense kind of woman and the
room reflected her character. Mom must not
have changed it much. No frills, no flowers,
no dainty knick-knacks, just clean and
functional. He'd always liked his aunt, not
that they'd been close. Not that anyone in
his family had been particularly close. He
had a couple cousins somewhere, on his
father's side, but he'd be hard pressed to
remember their names.

The smells from downstairs became more
imperative, and Mulder's stomach growled
fretfully to remind him how long it had been
since he'd given it something to do other
than talk to itself. He ran a hand through
his hair and went downstairs.

Scully hadn't heard him come down, and he
leaned in the doorway a moment, watching her
clean up at the sink with her back to him.
One of his earliest memories was of watching
his mother bake bread in this kitchen,
kneading steadily at the mass of dough that
moved with her hands like an inchoate dancer,
her face focused in a clear line of distant
concentration.

He must have made a sound, or maybe his body
changed the airflow in the room enough to let
Scully know he was there, because she turned,
only mildly startled, and gave him a little
smile.

"Hi. I was hungry and wanted real food, so I
thought I'd take your Mom up on her offer.
10:00 is a little late for dinner, but that's
what happens when you do unexpected
traveling." She finished what she was doing,
dried her hands on a towel and started
getting dishes out of a cupboard.

He went over to look at what she had going on
the stove, lifting the lids off the pots and
a big skillet: herbed chicken with mushrooms,
peas and carrots, mashed potatoes. "Smells
great. I'm starving."

"Who said I was cooking for you?"

He looked at the kitchen table, where she had
finished arranging two quick place settings.
"You can't fool me, there are two plates on
that table."

"Who said I was cooking for you?" she
repeated, with one of her small smiles,
leaving unspoken any reference to the secret
lover he almost wished she really did have.
She never took that kind of thing very far.
He wondered what would happen if one day she
decided to really let it rip. She was so
careful around him, always ready to drop a
subject or just clam up if it got too close
to something intimate. She wouldn't even joke
about it. She must hate his sense of humor.
There was a lot he would never know about his
partner, not unless something pretty radical
happened.

Surprise: she changed the subject. "I wasn't
sure I'd see you again 'til morning. You
looked pretty wiped out when we got here."

"I guess my stomach had other ideas. I don't
think I ate before I left Washington." He
picked up a plate and went eagerly back to
the stove. "Is it ready?"

"Sure, help yourself." She got in line behind
him, reaching around him to turn off the
burners. He sat down with a satisfyingly full
plate.

"You seem to have found your way around the
place pretty well."

She sat down, giving him one of her looks
that said: don't start. "There's a certain
logic to most kitchens. I just had to look
around a bit before I got started."

"We've been set up, you know," he said, after
getting down enough mouthfuls to make his
stomach happy.

"What do you mean?"

"My mom. She wanted you to cook in her
kitchen."

"I had the impression she was talking to
*you* when she said something about fixing
dinner."

"Uh-huh. That's what I mean. Didn't you hear
her? 'I assume you'll be taking Dana back to
the house'. That was a distinct Mom
maneuver."

"I have no idea what you're talking about.
She was just being nice, hospitable. It used
to be a tradition."

"Uh-uh. Not my Mom. She has designs on you,
Dana Scully, I could see it in her eyes." He
didn't know why he was talking like this.
Maybe it was the domestic setting, all the
too-silent skirmishes he'd witnessed in this
room, making him feel dangerous.

"Designs? Does she know any nice young
doctors?"

"She has a son who works for the Department
of Justice."

"Oh, please. You're not serious."

"Dead serious. Doesn't your mom give you a
hard time about your marital status?"

He was making her mad, now. "I'm tempted to
say it's none of your business, Mulder. You
know my mom. She respects my decisions."

"Decisions? What's that supposed to mean?"

"I think I liked you better when you were
exhausted."

Something in him had the sense to shut up and
pay attention to his dinner.

"This is really good, Scully, thanks," he
said as he got up for seconds.

"I told you, I was hungry, too. I figured I'd
better fix enough for both of us or you'd
probably come down and eat everything and ask
me what was for dessert. Besides, I'm not
doing this for free: you get to wash all the
dishes."

"Anything you say." She seemed appeased by
his tone. 

Her eyes went around the room, her face a
little uneasy. "It's hard to imagine living
in the same house for so long. We were always
moving when I was a kid--one of the side
effects of being Navy."

"This was the only house I knew 'til I went
away to college," he said as he sat down. "We
tried having me stay with Dad once, over the
holidays, but that idea suffered a pretty
rapid demise."

Scully put her fork down, fixing him with
that assessing gaze again. "Mulder, whenever
you talk about your parents you sound like a
military strategist diagraming old battles.
But that's not what I saw on your face at the
hospital today."

He shrugged. "All of us have ambivalent
feelings about family, right? It's the
age-old struggle, control and independence
and the establishment of identity. That
doesn't mean I enjoy seeing my mom in pain."
He wasn't fooling her, and he knew it.

"Admit it, Mulder, you love that woman. And
you need her love as much as she needs
yours."

The flash of anger took him by surprise, and
his voice came out in a snarl. "What do you
know about it?! You didn't live in this
house." He scraped his chair back from the
table, wanting distance from her serious
eyes.

"No, I didn't live here, Mulder." The words
had that edge of impatience that always meant
she didn't like his attitude. "Apparently you
didn't, either. You weren't the only one in
this house in pain."

"Do you think I don't know that?"

"Sometimes I have to wonder if you don't
think you're the only one in the world who
knows what pain really is." She said it so
matter-of-factly, so wearily, that her voice
stopped him short. How many times had her
voice done that to him? Her face was like the
surface of a pond with fish at the bottom
that you couldn't see, unreadably balanced
between what should have been either
accusation or a wry smile. She got up, took
her plate to the sink and started
automatically reaching for the faucet and the
dishcloth.

"Don't you even think about washing that--I
still have to pay for my dinner." It was the
best he could do for a peace offering when he
was still angry.

She leaned on the counter and hung her head,
and he thought he did hear her laugh a
little. "That's right, you do." She wiped her
hands and came back to the table, but didn't
sit down again. "I'm sorry, Mulder. I
shouldn't push you like that, especially not
now."

"Don't worry about it. I probably deserved
it."

Now it was her flash of anger that surprised
him. "Jesus, Mulder, you don't 'deserve' any
of this! Any of it, do you hear me?!" She
made a violently dismissive gesture with her
hands and a growl of frustration, and stormed
out.

He found the courage to follow her into the
bedroom. "Scully . . .."

She was sitting on the bed with her knees
pulled up to her chin, her head turned away.
He sat down next to her, and she seemed to
shrink further into herself. <I'm not going
away 'til you talk to me,> he thought at her,
putting a hand to her shoulder. "Dana," he
tried again.

She wiped roughly at her cheek, then turned
to face him. She was crying . . .? He took
his hand away. "I can't think what it was
like in this house, for any of you, for you,
for your Mom, for your Dad. For Samantha,
too, before she was taken. I know it's none
of my business, but you asked me to come here
and now I can't just ignore it. I'm sorry."

"Don't you be sorry. I'm the lunatic with the
sick family history who's putting you through
this."

"Oh, no, you don't! You don't get
responsibility for me, too. It's not your
fault, Mulder, OK?"

She usually reserved this kind of vehemence
for telling him off about his more marginal
theories. He must have really struck a nerve.
He had no idea what to say. He got up. "I
guess I'll just leave you alone, then."

"Don't worry about me. Sometimes you just
have to feel bad for a while, then you figure
out what it is and you're all right."

He was half-way up the stairs before the
strange words sank in, striking right into
his bone marrow. 

He flung open the door to her room. "What was
that?! What did you just say to me?!?"

Scully froze where she stood, reaching for
her suitcase on the floor. She straightened
up. "It was something your Mom told me today,
something you said to her when you were a
little boy, after Samantha was born." She was
so quiet, so still.

"Tell me! I don't remember!"

She sat down carefully on the edge of the
bed, eyeing him as he paced into the room,
plunging a hand into his hair as if to get at
the brain beneath and force the shadowed
memory out into the open.

"Catherine's mother died after Samantha was
born, and it hit her pretty hard. Apparently
she was having problems taking care of the
baby. If it happened today she'd probably get
therapy and anti-depressants, but in 1964
your father's solution was to take Samantha
to his parents and go away on business. It
was just you and your mom left here. She says
you seemed to know how sad she was; you
followed her around like a shadow, never
saying a word. Then one day you helped her
clean the whole house--"

"--I remember that, the ammonia smell on the
rags . . .."

"She sat down on the sofa, and you got up in
her lap and told her that it would be all
right. 'We just have to feel bad for a while,
then we'll find out what it is, and then
we'll be all right,' you told her. She hadn't
been able to grieve for her mother, but when
you said that she started to cry, and you
cried with her, until you both fell asleep."
She paused, her face tight with sympathetic
pain, her voice breaking to a whisper.
"Mulder, I'm so sorry."

Mulder rubbed at his face, eyes stinging with
unwanted tears at the shock of the memory. He
made it to the bed, dropped down on it and
turned his face to his partner, finding her
eyes like an anchor. "I remember it, Scully.
I remember how much she was hurting, how much
I wanted to help. I thought . . .." The words
choked off, sobs coming up from his gut with
the force of more than three decades behind
them.

Dana couldn't just watch this. She thought
briefly of simply leaving him alone (he might
not want her to see this, after all), but
didn't have the heart. Her arms went around
him, and he leaned against her, a hand
reaching blindly for her waist. "You did help
her, Mulder. She told me so. It's all right."
She found herself blinking back a few slow
tears herself, and decided to just let them
fall. It's not like Mulder would know. 

Slowly he quieted down, and let out a big
sigh. She was wondering why he hadn't pulled
away from her yet when she suddenly realized
from his slow breathing that he'd fallen
asleep, slumped against her shoulder.
Reliving it . . . ? Good thing he didn't try
to get in my lap. She eased him carefully
back on the bed; he stirred a little, but
didn't wake up. He couldn't have slept much
more than two hours before coming down to
eat, she reflected. He still had some
catching up to do.

She debated undressing him and getting him
properly into bed, as she'd done more than
once before when he'd been sick or injured.
But she wasn't a doctor right now, she was
Dana, whose heart was aching for her friend,
and who was pretty exhausted herself. If Dana
put Fox to bed right now, she'd probably go
to bed with him, if only to be sure he was OK
and wouldn't wake up alone and hurting. Yeah,
right, you just keep telling yourself that,
she told herself drily. You're no more
innocent where he's concerned than he is with
you. Besides, if he woke up in bed with you
next to him he'd probably hurt himself with
the shock. And so would you.

She settled for pulling off his shoes, left
him to figure the covers out for himself,
picked up her bag and went looking for a
place to sleep.



Mulder found her on the sofa the next
morning, huddled under covers that looked
like they'd been taken from his room
upstairs. Why didn't she just sleep up there?
he wondered, impatient at the inconvenience
she'd put herself to. Then of course it hit
him: she'd never sleep in his bed, even if it
hadn't been his for more than fifteen years.
He noticed that she'd brought his father's
suitcase down with her as well. Always
careful.

He left her alone and went into the kitchen.
She'd put the food away, but the dishes she'd
left in the sink: good, that was his job.
Banging around in the kitchen now probably
wasn't a good idea if she needed to sleep
longer, but it was time for her to get up
anyway, if they were going to have enough
time for proper breakfast and showers before
leaving for the hospital. Better to do the
deed in person: he crossed back into the
living room and stood over the sofa,
hesitating.

She looked so little, curled up like that. He
never thought of her as little. Her feet,
maybe, but not her. He allowed himself a full
minute of watching her eyes move in a dream
before leaning over to trace the line of her
cheek with a finger.

She practically jumped out of her skin. It
took her a long moment to figure out where
she was. "Oh, God, Mulder! I was dreaming."

"You OK?" He wasn't sure whether to laugh or
feel guilty. He wanted to laugh.

"It's not funny. What time is it?"

"7:30." He sat down at the end of the sofa,
and she drew herself further up into her
corner. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't laugh at you
after what you did for me last night. Thank
you, Scully."

"I didn't do anything. I just made you cry."

"I think I needed a good cry."

"This is starting to get maudlin, Mulder.
When do we need to be at the hospital?"

"They said we could come for her after 9:00." 

"All I need is enough time to get these
covers back the way they belong. I wouldn't
want to try to explain to your Mom how I tore
up your bed last night."

"I woke up in your bed, Scully; we must have
been pretty busy." He was willing to take
this as far as she was.

"I don't think that was what Catherine had in
mind. Now get out of here, I want to go take
a shower."

"Aw, come on, I've seen you in your p.j.'s
before."

"This is different. I'm in your mother's
house."

She was sure in a strange mood. Must have
been some dream she was having. One minute
she's indulging in double entendres, the next
she's going all modest on him. She hadn't
accepted his thanks yet, either, and he
wasn't going to let that slide. He reached
for her hand over the covers. "I mean it,
Scully, thank you for helping me."

"Helping you? Mulder, I yelled at you, and I
stomped off, and I told you a story about
yourself that I had no right to know in the
first place, and then I didn't even leave you
alone to react to it in peace. That doesn't
sound very helpful to me." She looked like
she meant it, but she didn't take her hand
away.

He looked completely serious, gentle even,
not kidding around any more. He obviously
wasn't going to let her brush it off. Then he
stood up, looking down at her. "You helped me
remember, Scully. And I'm glad you didn't
leave me alone." Then he bent down and kissed
her lightly on the cheek, his voice touching
her ear with the words, "Thank you," before
he stood up and let go of her hand.

"Go away, Mulder," she told him, and she
couldn't help it if her voice came out like
Bacall telling Bogie how to whistle. Go away
before I pull you down with me on this couch
and we forget all about your mother, maybe
even your father and your sister, too. No,
that will never happen, she thought. I'm not
that good. Nothing's that good. It's not
worth it.

"I'm going," he said quietly, not a bit like
Bogart. She waited 'til he was all the way up
the stairs before uncovering herself and
getting up.



Catherine waited as patiently as she could,
sitting up in the wheelchair the nurses had
gently bundled her into not half an hour ago.
She was anxious to be with her son, to be
brave and tell him everything. She wondered
if there would be anything left after that,
if this one deed would empty her out and be
the end. She couldn't imagine, couldn't think
of herself with the burden gone.

Ah, there they were. It suddenly struck her
with an irrational and unfamiliar mother's
pride that she had a strong, handsome son,
and she allowed herself the similarly
irrational pleasure of observing how
naturally he and his impressive partner
seemed to fit each other as they moved
together into the room.

"Good morning, Mom," he said as he kissed her
cheek. She was beginning to like this new
habit of his. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, I did, thank you. Dana, I hope my son
was a decent host to you."

"Above and beyond the call of duty,
Catherine." What did that look mean? "He even
washed the dishes."

"Let's get you home, Mom."




Scully found herself dozing off, curled up in
an easy chair at the far end of the living
room, turned away from the dining table where
Mulder and his mother were turning over
photographs and pages and speaking in hushed,
restrained voices. Not wanting to listen, she
tuned their activity in the next room into
background noise, quiet rustling and buzzing
sounds that became instantly soporific. Not
even a trusty Jose Chung novel could save her
now. She gave in and settled more comfortably
in the chair, hugging herself a little. She
really hadn't slept well last night, a night
full of restless, incoherent dreams. If
Mulder startled her awake again when they
were finished she would simply have to kill
him, and make her apologies to Catherine
later.

Catherine had invited her to join them, and
the older woman had seemed genuinely
disappointed when Scully had turned her down.
The invitation was generous, but Dana didn't
feel it was her place to witness these
revelations. Mulder hadn't said anything. She
felt she'd already intruded on him enough, no
matter what he said (or did) about thanks. If
he wanted her to know any of it he could tell
her later, in his own time, which was how it
should be. Besides, she could use a nap.



Mulder fingered one of the photographs on the
table, trying to see more in it than the
guarded faces of these men, trying to
remember his father as he appeared here:
young, forward-looking, if a little haunted
already around the eyes. His father had
always seemed frozen to him, too far away to
be reached even when standing in the same
room.

"They came to the house many times when you
were small," his mother said. "I knew the
names they used here, and that your father
worked with them, but I wasn't expected to be
concerned with the details of their work. I
was their hostess," she said bitterly, "I
killed the fatted calf for them. This one,"
she said, pointing to the man Mulder had once
known as Deep Throat, "was always very
complimentary toward my cooking. Your father
called him Morse."

"I knew him," Mulder said softly. "He
approached me about my work. He saved my
life, once. Maybe more than once. He died
trying to help me."

"Hmp. Perhaps it was his penance." She showed
no trace of pity. She dismissed the man and
his picture without effort. "This was all
when you were very young, Fox," she stressed.
"I wouldn't expect you to remember these men.
You were often in bed before they arrived, or
soon after."

"I do remember. I would lie awake, sometimes,
listening to their voices coming through the
floor. Men's voices, full of secrets. I would
go to sleep pretending I was on a pirate
ship. I remember that."

"It was worse than a pirate ship. I listened
to those voices, too." She paused, and Mulder
watched her face. Her anger seemed as fresh
as if what they were talking about had
happened last week, but the bitterness, the
tang of it, was old. "They stopped coming by
the time Samantha was talking. I wondered if
your father had told them how things were
between us, or if my good breeding had failed
and they had seen what I really thought of
them." 

Another picture suddenly caught her
attention, and she drew it out to tap a
finger on one of the faces. He was looking
into the camera with a cool, ironic smile,
and Mulder recognized him, remembered
standing in a greenhouse, demanding answers.
"This man, Willy, they called him. I
particularly disliked him. He enjoyed playing
with the baby when he arrived early enough;
he liked to give her coins. That kind of
thing is very dangerous for a small child.
She would put them in her mouth; I always had
to snatch them away before she choked. I
wondered later if he knew, even then, what
they would do to her, if he was rendering
payment with those coins. I had to see him at
your father's funeral, the devil. Devils, all
of them." Her voice was quiet, measured,
despite the poisonous feeling behind the
words: almost like speaking a litany, which
of course it had to be. 

"This man, Mom. Who is he?" Even in the old
photograph, standing next to "Willy" and
looking at something off-camera, the man was
smoking, eyes hooded, gaze insolent.

His mother shook her head. "They only called
him Jack. He didn't say much, he mostly
listened. He would look at people as if he
wanted to eat them."

"He has eaten people, Mom. He thought he ate
me. He ate Dad. He gave Scully back, I still
don't know why. I had him once, I should have
taken him out, but I couldn't--I couldn't . .
.." His voice broke, the rest of the sentence
fleeing back into the shadows it had come
from. He had never told anyone about that
night--nothing specific, anyway. It still
felt like his most inexcusable failure not to
have pulled that trigger, even though he knew
what it would have cost him to "succeed". He
would have become what the man his mother had
called Jack had challenged him to be: a
Player. One of Them. No. That would have been
the real defeat. But the knowledge that he
had saved his soul didn't make it taste any
better, still didn't make it feel like much
of an accomplishment. He wasn't sure he had
really said those words at all until his
mother's hand came over his, and when he
looked up he saw her eyes glisten with
grieved understanding.

"They haven't left us alone, have they?"

"No, Mom, they haven't. And they took Dad
away from us before he could . . .." His
mother shook her head and looked away, her
mouth set in a firm line against any
suggestion of forgiveness.

"Too late, Fox. Too late." She turned to face
him again, and a tear traced her cheek. "I am
so sorry for what we did to you. We were no
mother and father to you. You deserved so
much better."

Mulder didn't know what to say. He'd thought
it and even said it himself often enough:
these weren't his parents, these were
temporary custodial domestic associates who
made sure he had food and clothes and hygiene
and manners and education. A bad joke. "Don't
say that, Mom."

"It's true, son. You know it as well as I do.
Better, I'm sure."

Mulder didn't want to argue with her. "Maybe
we should stop this for a while. The doctor
said you should rest as much as possible."

She looked down at the scattered testimonies
on the table, and was about to protest that
she wasn't finished, she didn't want to stop
now, when she felt her shoulders sag. "You're
right. I am tired. How long have we been at
this?"

Mulder looked at his watch and was startled
by the answer. "Almost four hours."

"Oh my goodness! I wonder what Dana has been
doing all this time?"

Mulder realized with a shock that he had
completely forgotten his partner was even in
the house.

"Well, I'll at least say hello to her before
I go lie down," his mother said.

They found her still asleep in the easy
chair, a book closed beside her. Catherine
felt her heart warm, watching Dana sleep,
seeing what could have been a daughter and
might, she hoped, be a friend. "Oh . . ..
Well, I guess we can talk later." She backed
away from the chair, not wanting to disturb
her. "I like her, Fox."

Mulder didn't look up. "I like her, too, Mom.
She's a terrific partner, probably the
sharpest agent I've ever worked with."

"Is there something you're not telling me,
son?"

"What do you mean? About Dana . . . ?"

The panic in his eyes made her want to smile;
but this was serious, now. "Why is she here,
Fox? Your work together has been dangerous on
more than one occasion. Do I need to be
afraid? Have I opened more than a suitcase in
bringing this to you?"

He blew out his breath. "I don't know, Mom. I
just wanted to be on the safe side. And I
didn't want to go off half-cocked. Scully is
very good at fighting me, and sometimes I
need that more than I like to admit. Are you
satisfied?"

"For now. Would you mind helping me
upstairs?"

"Of course not. But don't start dreaming
about grandchildren, Mom. I mean it. We work
together. Period. There are rules against
that kind of thing."

"I've never known you to be very friendly
with anyone's rules but your own, Fox."

"Like I said, there are rules. Scully would
tell you the same thing. There are good
reasons for it. The FBI isn't always stupid."

"Mm." She leaned on him gratefully as they
slowly mounted the stairs, appreciating his
accommodation to her pace. Even when she was
annoying him. Or scaring him silly.

"I mean it, Mom."

"I know you do, son. It's all right."




Scully came slowly awake and stretched all
over to get the kinks out from having slept
in the chair: the Cat Stretch, her Mom liked
to call it. The Dana Katherine Cat Stretch.
As she got older it had started embarrassing
her Dad, and she had learned not to do it in
front of people. Then she remembered where
she was, and realized that even if in her own
head she was invisible and inaudible relative
to Mulder and his mom, and they to her,
reality might have other ideas. She turned
and saw Mulder sitting quietly on the couch.
Watching her. Thankfully, he looked a little
distant, holding a picture in his hand.

"That was quite a performance. Do you always
do that when you wake up, and I've just
missed it every time?"

"Only when I fall asleep in a chair and I
don't know I'm being watched. How long have
you been there?"

"I don't know, maybe half an hour, maybe
longer. Mom's upstairs, she needed to rest."

"Why didn't you wake me up? Look what time it
is."

"Mom didn't want to bother you."

"Ah." She looked at him, trying to see what
affect his session with Catherine had had on
him. She didn't want to seem as if she were
pressing for details. "Are you getting what
you need from this?"

He tossed the picture on the coffee table and
leaned back against the sofa empty-handed. "I
don't know. She knows these men, or knew
them, anyway. They used to come to the house
when I was little; I'm starting to remember
that. She has some names, at least the names
they used when they visited my father here. I
don't think she knows anything specific about
the work they did, but she got an idea.

"The letters Dad kept don't go into any
detail. It's mostly coded communications and
informal correspondence. The Lone Gunman guys
might be able to do something with it. I
didn't see anything that's explicitly
incriminating, anything you could take to
court. It's almost scrapbook material. I
don't know why or how he kept this stuff;
maybe it was considered too trivial. Or *he*
was considered too trivial. I still don't
know the extent or duration of his
involvement. Enough to get him killed for
talking to me, I guess." He paused, trying to
weigh it all in his mind, and found what was
lacking in his assessment. "Mostly, what I've
learned is that my mother hates these men.
She hates them so much it scares me."

"Are you OK?"

"I think so. I will be. Do that stretch
again."

She could feel herself blushing. She hated
that. "Like hell, Mulder. Go get one of your
magazines, and leave me alone. I wouldn't
have done it if I'd known you were there."

"Ignorance is bliss, then." He got up. "Do
you want some lunch?"

Scully looked at him warily, not sure whether
he had stopped the game yet. If it was a
game. It had a better be a game. She knew he
liked teasing her; it had become a
recreational sport and an occupational
hazard. "Sure." He waited for her to go past
him towards the kitchen.

Mulder had to stop himself from putting his
hands on her hips and burying his face in her
hair. He would have to ask her some time what
shampoo she used, what made her smell so good
without being perfume. Get a grip, Mulder, he
told himself sharply. She's right; it's too
bad I didn't bring anything with me to keep
me occupied. This has nothing to do with
Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, M.D.:
you just want something else to think about
after what you've had to deal with this
morning.

Liar, he answered himself back. Coward. This
has everything to do with Dana. You're never
going to find out the truth about the soul
moving inside those hips if you keep an
attitude like that. He cut his second self
off with the final argument: I don't have
anything to offer her but more grief. Listen
to the lady and leave her alone.

Scully decided the most practical course was
to ignore Mulder's mood and hope it went away
quickly, for her own sake as much as his. She
was all too aware of him walking behind her,
part of her anticipating his hand touching
her shoulder as they went through the door.
This time it didn't happen. She shrugged off
the unwanted disappointment, irritated with
herself. Those maternal impulses were moaning
in a corner about how much they'd like to
comfort him, to help him confront the ghosts
that had to be haunting him after these hours
with his father's papers and his mother's
memories shared for the first time. But in
the corner those impulses were going to stay,
behind bars if necessary.

She didn't like intruding on someone else's
kitchen. "I feel bad just coming in here and
helping myself. Your mom wasn't planning on
having house-guests."

Mulder opened up the breadbox on the counter
and got out the bread, then reached into a
cupboard for some plates. "She wants you to
feel at home. She likes you, she told me so."

"That's right, I forgot: we were set up." She
opened the fridge and started hunting
sandwich fixings, hoping he'd just drop it. 

No such luck. "I didn't think my Mom knew me
that well. One conversation with you, and as
far as she's concerned we're a matched set."

Scully deliberately deflected again: this is
about our job, nothing more. "That's not such
a difficult observation. We've worked
together long enough now, it ought to show
that we're pretty used to each other. She's
probably just desperate to get rid of you."

"She got rid of me a long time ago, Scully.
The funny thing is, I think she wants me
back. I think that's what this whole suitcase
thing is about. Part of it, anyway." His face
went a little strange. "You should have seen
her watching you sleep. Now she's getting
greedy and she wants *you* into the bargain."

Scully chose to firmly ignore any appeal
Mulder might be making. He wasn't, he
couldn't be: it was just teasing, like
always, plus his own unsettled feelings after
the morning he'd spent. She could understand
that. 

She set the sandwich things on the counter.
"I like Catherine, too, Mulder. And I'd like
to get to know her better. But this is not
the proper time or place. This is about
family--private things I don't have a right
to intrude on. I feel like I shouldn't be
here."

"My Mom will be really disappointed if you
go."

OK, that wasn't working; try getting to
business. "You said the home health aide
starts coming tomorrow. How long are you
planning on staying here?"

"There's still more to do with that suitcase.
I shouldn't push her too hard--and I don't
want her to wear herself out with it. She
wouldn't have stopped today, even though she
was tired. And she was so let down that you
were asleep. She wanted to talk with you."

"All right, Mulder, I give up. Why am I
here?"

He wasn't done giving her a hard time: she
knew that ginsu-knife smile. "Because I asked
you to come, and you came."

"Why?"

"Because you couldn't stand not knowing what
was going on."

"Mulder, I thought you were in trouble."

"I thought I might be, too. I told you, I
don't want to go off like a crazy man. I
didn't know how this would affect me. I still
don't."

"And our old friends still might show up, I
suppose. It wouldn't be too surprising if we
were being watched, or listened to." The
thought chilled her, but it was a practical
one. She blew out a tense breath and leaned
back against the counter beside her. "All
right. How long do you want me to stay?"

He shrugged. "As long as you can stand it."
He looked around the kitchen, eyes clouding
with memory. "This house always made me want
to leave, too." Something through the kitchen
window distracted him. "Hey, the weather's
not too bad. Do you want to take our
sandwiches outside?"



Catherine woke as the afternoon sun slanted
through her bedroom window. She got up
carefully, stiff from her bruises and from
her nap, and went to the window. Spring was
beginning to show its face, and the day had
turned bright and almost warm. A good time
for new beginnings, she thought, and the
thought pleased her. Her window looked out
over the back yard, which boasted two old
fruit trees, an apple and a pear, carefully
tended flower beds, and her modest vegetable
patch. She'd already begun preparing for her
summer gardening.

Then she saw them. Her son was lying sprawled
out on the grass, his partner sitting with
her knees pulled up a little away from him.
Dana had her sandwich plate balanced on her
knees; Fox kept his plate on the ground and
lifted the sandwich as he wanted it. A breeze
was blowing, and it toyed fitfully with
Dana's hair like an invisible hand making
mischief, pushing strands into her face as
she tried to eat. Then Fox did a strange
thing. He sat up, and he brushed Dana's hair
out of her mouth. He left his hand against
her cheek. Dana didn't move away, and
then--oh, my goodness. Catherine wasn't sure
who had started it, but this sweetly hesitant
contact looked for all the world like a first
kiss. Catherine knew better than to stand and
watch, but in a perverse way she felt this
was a significant occasion that ought to have
a witness. In case there were to be denials
later. And she had so rarely seen her son do
something she knew to be good for him.



What was the cliche? It all happened so fast?
We couldn't stop ourselves? It just happened?
Dana thought vaguely that the time between
Mulder touching her cheek and her lips
touching his must have taken at least as long
as half her life, the remainder being taken
up by what they were doing now. Infinite
opportunity to push away, to scream, to stop
him with a sarcastic comment or frightened or
angry look, to stop herself. But she had done
and was doing none of those things. Her
mother's voice rang faintly somewhere in the
back of her head. <What do you think you're
doing, Dana Katherine?> I'm kissing Fox
Mulder, she replied calmly.

She wasn't pulling away, she wasn't
protesting, she wasn't tense or
defensive--she was soft and sweet and . . ..
It took a moment for it to sink in that she
was kissing him, too; he wasn't just imposing
his feelings or his mood on her. It hadn't
occurred to him yet to question the feelings. 

Somehow their faces came apart, and it was as
if a bell had been sounding and suddenly
stopped. He found his hand now in her hair at
the back of her neck, his thumb moving
against the side of her throat. He didn't
know where the words came from, but they were
true: "How is it possible that you taste like
roses?"

"It isn't," she breathed, contradicting him
almost by reflex, and her eyes reclaimed his
mouth before her lips did. This was
definitely her doing now as much as his: he
wasn't making it up. She shifted closer to
him, and he felt his skin twitch under his
shirt when her hand met his side. It occurred
to him that he didn't know what had happened
to her sandwich that had been on her knee a
moment ago, and he decided he didn't care.
His hand found her back, and he was happy.

<You know this isn't right,> the voice in the
back of her head said, and it was getting
louder. It wasn't her Mom now, it was
herself. <It may be nice and sweet and
powerful and good,> it continued, <and it may
feel right at the moment, but I shouldn't
have to list for you all the reasons why
neither of you can afford to be doing this,
or at least not to put any credence in it.>
She told the voice very firmly to go away as
she became better acquainted with Mulder's
ear and his breath warmed her shoulder, but
it ignored her. <If you do this,> it went on,
<you can't work together. And if you do this,
and it doesn't work, then you lose not only
your partner but your best friend.> But what
if it works? she demanded. Why can't it work?
<You know why. You've been rehearsing all the
reasons why ever since you started this trip.
Don't make me spell it out, this is going to
be hard enough as it is. It's not worth it,
remember? You can't trust these feelings, his
or yours.> I don't believe you, she answered
back. I don't care. <Oh, yes you do.> But she
had stopped listening.

She wasn't ready for him to stop when he did,
but apparently he had something to say.
"We've seen a lot of impossible things. I'm
telling you, Scully, you taste like roses."

She started to say something, then her eyes
went up to the house, drawn by a motion at a
window, and her mouth fell open, all the
blood leaving her face. "Oh my God, Mulder .
. . your Mom was at the window! She saw us."

"Are you sure? Oh, no." He fell back on the
grass with a groan. "You know as soon as we
go in there she's going to be setting a date
and asking you what your colors will be."

<See,> whispered the voice as she tried to
ignore her now-burning cheeks and reminded
herself to breathe. <It's not what he wants.
Don't forget how vulnerable he is right now,
how distracting he'd like you to be.> I don't
like being vulnerable, either, dammit. 

"She'll probably pretend nothing happened,"
she said out loud, "and we'll have to pretend
we didn't see her. I highly doubt she'll be
asking me what my intentions are toward her
son." I'm not sure what I'd tell her if she
did, either.

Mulder wanted to know. "Which are?"

She gave him the straightest, safest answer
she could manage. "I don't know yet. It
depends on how her son feels about it in the
morning, and how it looks when we're back in
D.C. and have to explain ourselves to our
boss."

Mulder's face got serious as he remembered
something he'd said about rules. "Dana . .
.." He reached for her hand. Her hand . . ..
He almost twitched again.

She stood up, pulling him up with her. "Come
on, let's go in. We don't want to make her
check on us." He was glad she didn't let his
hand go right away. It was interesting to
walk hand in hand with Dana Scully. He
definitely felt too tall.



Dana maneuvered an arm-load of groceries out
of the car in a light rain. She was glad she
had thought of the errand; it got her out of
the house and gave her something to do while
Mulder and his mother got back to that
suitcase (as opposed to sitting indoors
trying not to think about Mulder and the
taste of roses). And it made her feel better
about being Catherine's unexpected guest. 

As Scully had predicted, Catherine had acted
as if nothing had happened, and Dana could
only hope she'd done as well herself. Mulder
had just been quiet. With the power of
wishful thinking Scully began to doubt having
seen Catherine at the window, and to hope
that what hadn't been witnessed might not
have to be true.

What she really wanted was to go for a run.
Run away bravely, she chided herself wryly.
But she hadn't brought her running gear, and
Mulder would probably have tried to come with
her, anyway. That would be the last thing she
needed when she was trying to clear her head,
spend some of that energy safely, and get
some things straight. What had possessed her?
Why hadn't she kept it from happening? An
involuntary shudder almost made her drop a
grocery bag. Under normal circumstances, it
never would have happened. But then, what did
"normal" mean where Mulder was concerned?

She had forgotten to ask for a key, and had
to knock to be let in. Mulder opened the
door, of course, stealing a deep look into
her eyes as he came close to take a bag from
her. Gulp. "Here, let me help you with that."
Dana had to stop herself from running
immediately back to the car; it would be rude
not to come in and say hello to Catherine
first. Oh, this is great, she thought,
reluctantly following Mulder into the dining
room, each with a load of groceries: the
perfect image of the domestic partnership.
She really will be setting a date.

"Goodness, Dana, I thought you were only
going to get a few things!" Catherine
exclaimed.

"There's just one more bag in the car. I
wanted to make up for the damage we've been
doing to your larder." Her voice sounded
cheery enough in her ears; that was good. 

"Don't argue with her, Mom. It's never done
me any good." She felt like kicking him.

They made their way into the kitchen and set
the bags down. She was turning to go right
back out when Mulder stopped her with a hand
on her arm. "Thanks for coming back," he
said.

She couldn't help smiling at that. "I did
give the matter serious thought. Let's not
give your Mom any time to wonder about us in
here, OK?" 

Mulder volunteered to get the other bag, and
Scully asked Catherine to come into the
kitchen and show her where to put things. "I
tried to match the brands you already had,"
she told her hostess. "I hope I've done all
right."

"I'm sure you've done beautifully, dear. I'm
overwhelmed. Here, I like to keep those in
the top cupboard." Under Catherine's
direction Scully refilled a sugar canister on
the counter and placed the half-empty bag in
its accustomed place. 

Mulder came back in, setting the last bag on
the kitchen table. "Look what Scully brought
you, Mom: fresh flowers." Scully had taken
special care with that, noting the colors in
the dining room and the arrangement there on
the sideboard that had started getting old.

"Oh, Dana, you shouldn't have. How lovely!"

Scully hadn't been looking for brownie points
from Catherine; she had just wanted to
brighten things up a little. Under the
appreciative gaze of her partner's mother,
Dana felt a sudden need to leave the room.
"I'll go get the vase."

"What a remarkable thing to do," Catherine
said to her son. "Does she always do things
like that?"

"Well, she's never brought me flowers, if
that's what you're asking," he replied drily,
hiding his face in the refrigerator as he put
a few things away. So defensive. Perhaps he's
only protecting her. Catherine hadn't meant
to pry, but she couldn't help wondering about
this partner her son had brought home to meet
his mother. Maybe more accurately, to guard
himself against his mother, and against the
ghost of his father. Would this mother and
this son ever stop speaking daggers to each
other? Catherine sighed.

Dana came back in with the vase, and Fox and
Catherine had all the groceries taken care of
by the time the new bouquet was settled.

"Did you find that lotion I told you about?"
Dana asked Catherine as she turned around. "I
was able to pick up a tube while I was out.
My Mom swears by it for soothing tired
muscles and joints. I could help you with it,
if you like."

Mulder had just set it on the counter, to be
taken to the medicine chest later. "It's
right here," he said, handing it to Scully.

Catherine once again could feel her
weariness, and the aches that accompanied it.
"It's probably time to start thinking about
dinner, isn't it?" Catherine asked, wishing
she could be a better hostess. With a cast on
her arm and the stiffness she felt, she was
certainly in no condition to cook for guests.
The pain was bearable, but to be unable to do
her duty here . . ..

"Let me do that, Mom," her son answered.
"While I'm at it you can go upstairs and let
the good doctor here take care of you."

Catherine decided it would be foolish to
pretend she wasn't in need of help, and gave
in. She had to admit the prospect of some
relief to her joints was tempting; and she
had been waiting for time alone with Dana.
"All right, then. Can I trust you in my
kitchen?"

"I'll just do spaghetti and salad, Mom,
nothing adventurous."

Catherine tried not to notice the look that
passed between Fox and his partner as she and
Dana left the room together.




"How's that? Am I rubbing too hard?" Scully
asked Catherine as she applied the lotion to
the older woman's shoulders. Catherine had
changed into a sleeveless nightgown, and sat
now in the chair pulled out from her vanity
dresser while Scully stood behind her.

"No, Dana, that's just right. Maybe just a
little less. It feels wonderful; please thank
your mother for me. How did you get to be so
good at this?"

Scully decided not to be nervous about the
possible "intentions toward my son" subtext
of this conversation. It helped that she had
something to do. This kind of work always
relaxed her, let her mind go free. She liked
being able to make a difference for someone's
discomfort, not with drugs or a scalpel but
with her own hands. She was used to doing
this for her mother, who was someone she
missed pretty badly right at the moment.
There was no one she could talk to so easily
as her mother, about most things. And she did
want to get to know Catherine better. 

"I do it for my mother sometimes. I first got
into practice working as a therapy aide in a
nursing home when I was in college. It was
what decided me on medical school, actually,
even though my degree was in Physics. My
father was so proud. It took him a long time
to forgive me for signing up with the Bureau
instead of pursuing a medical career."

"Was your father a doctor, too?"

"No, he was a Navy man. A captain by the time
he was forty. My mom was pretty traditional;
she kept her hands full with us kids. I'm the
third of four, two girls and two boys. A good
Catholic family." She thought she might as
well give Catherine all the statistics up
front.

"It must have been a boisterous household.
Very different from what Fox knew."

"We moved around fairly often while I was
growing up, so family has always been pretty
much a bottom line for me, like a
gravitational constant." Scully kneeled down
to apply the lotion to Catherine's left elbow
and hand.

"That's becoming all too rare these days,
isn't it?"

"I suppose so. I think I took it for granted
for a long time." She paused. "I don't any
more. I mean, it's not like we always get
along or always agree. Probably no collection
of human beings could be expected to be
perfectly harmonious all the time. But it's
always been a place I know I can go back to.
Not the house--the house can change--but the
people. My mom, especially."

"I envy your mother, Dana."

Scully looked up into Catherine's eyes, taken
aback. The last thing she wanted to do was to
pain Catherine by reminding her of her own
lost daughter, who would have been Scully's
own age (something else that had occurred to
her concerning her partnership with Mulder
and his tendency to treat her like a kid
sister, something else she had added to her
list of reasons why any erosion of the
neutral zone between herself and Mulder was
Not a Good Idea). "I'm sorry, Catherine, I
didn't mean . . .."

Catherine smiled, but it didn't take the
sadness from her eyes. "Of course not. I'm
not taking offense, Dana. I'm thinking of
Fox. I envy your mother that she has such a
strong daughter who trusts her so well. I
would like to build that kind of trust again
with my son, if that's possible."

"I think it is, Catherine. I think he wants
that, too." They shared a smile. "Would you
like me to work on your knees?"

"Yes, please. You know, Dana, if Fox can
spare you I might have to hire you to come do
this for me on a regular basis. You have a
gift."

Dana hesitated a moment, spreading lotion on
her palm, and chose to accept both the
compliment and the offer. "Thank you,
Catherine. I'd like that, actually. Does
Mulder have to come along?"

"Not if you don't want him to. I do hope he
can come to visit more often, though. We fell
out of that habit a long time ago."

"I spend so much time with him sometimes I
think he's the only person I know." Dana fell
comfortably into the rhythm of her fingers'
activity. "Even so, it's strange to be here
with him now. I mean, what we do is work.
This is family. I told him I feel I shouldn't
be here, Catherine: this is between the two
of you."

"Oh, but I'm so glad you came." Catherine let
herself lay a hand on the russet head now
bent over her feet. Dana looked up and gave
her a quick, warm smile.

"I'm glad, too. I'm not complaining. It just
feels strange, that's all."

"Strange?"

Perhaps because Catherine had shared so much
with her in their first talk, Dana felt
comfortable speaking more freely now than she
normally would. For the moment, it was a
relief to speak her mind. "Well, being
somebody's partner means that you have to be
pretty close, to rely on each other a lot.
But there are places where it stops, where
you disengage and go home at the end of the
day. Things you don't know about each other
and don't need to know. Now I'm in his
mother's house and it isn't really for work,
and it's more ambiguous, I guess."

"I'm not such a monster, am I?"

"Oh, Catherine, no. Of course not. But this
is a family matter."

"I'm glad Fox has someone like you to turn to
when he needs family, Dana. He never learned
that kind of thing from his father and me.
It's always been difficult for him to form
close attachments."

Dana was silent, wondering if this weren't
some kind of warning. Paying attention to
what her fingers were doing, she felt
Catherine's hand caressing her hair again,
and almost wanted to cry. Why were tears so
easy this weekend? She had just gotten too
close to all of it. Autopsied cadavers of the
most gruesome description never fazed her,
but two conversations with her partner's
mother and Dana Scully felt like a
marshmallow. She managed a response, keeping
her eyes on her hands. "I don't know if I'd
call our work together an 'attachment'. We're
partners, Catherine."

"Yes, of course. But it's a good partnership,
isn't it? He told me he doesn't like to admit
how much he needs you to fight him."

Dana looked up to see whether Catherine were
serious and met a soft smile, which she was
able to return. "Well, that's interesting.
I'll keep fighting him, then. We've always
been good at arguing. I spend a lot of my
time contradicting him. Sometimes I wonder
why he keeps me around."

"That would just be his side of the story,
though, wouldn't it?"

"Well, yes, it does go both ways. There are
days when I wish I could hit him over the
head with a blunt instrument and make him
stop *pursuing* things the way he does. But
if he stopped, he wouldn't be Mulder, would
he?"

"No, I suppose not."

"Besides, it would be pretty pointless to
even try. I don't think anything could
possibly hold his attention the way his
Mission does. He'd just add me to his list of
persecutors and obstructors and keep going."

"Oh, Dana, I doubt he'd do that. He couldn't
possibly think that of you."

"You have no idea, Catherine."

"You're right, I suppose I haven't. You
probably do know my son better than I do, at
least where his work is concerned. But I can
tell you one thing." Catherine reached out
her hand again and turned the young woman's
face toward her with a touch on the cheek.
Dana flinched but didn't move away, luminous
blue-green eyes flooding Catherine's own. "My
son is a fool if he thinks he can do any of
this without you. Mothers can be irrational
about these things, but in my opinion, my son
is a fool if he is not in love with you heart
and soul. You are a remarkable person, Dana
Scully."

Dana's face went completely white, and for a
moment Catherine thought she might faint, or
strike out. It was a good thing she was
already sitting on the floor. " . . . in l-l
. . . ?" she stammered. "No, Catherine, you
don't understand, it's not possible, not
Mulder . . .."

Catherine laid her hand back in her lap. "I'm
sorry, dear. I shouldn't have said anything.
I'm just meeting my son again, perhaps for
the first time, really, and his happiness is
important to me. Forgive an old woman's
foolishness."

Dana hung her head, fighting the urge to
confide in Catherine the way she would in her
own mother. She felt in desperate need of
good advice. There had been few times when
she felt as much like Margaret Scully's "baby
girl" than right now. What could Catherine
possibly be thinking? Had she said anything
to Mulder? Oh, God. "There's nothing to
forgive, Catherine. Excuse me." She got up
and fled.

"Goodness gracious," Catherine said into the
empty air. "What have I done?"

In the upstairs bathroom Scully splashed cold
water on her face, striving to fend off a
rising tide of panic. This is ridiculous, she
told herself. After all the things we've
seen, I find out that my worst fear is . . .
Mulder. Or Mulder's mom. But I like her. I
like him. Oh, Jesus. This is ridiculous. Is
there any way I can gracefully leave before
dinner? The thought made her laugh, which
helped. OK. I'm going to be OK. Nothing
serious has happened here. Nothing we can't
handle. Nothing unexplainable.

She got herself together in short order, and
went bravely, sensibly back to Catherine's
room. Catherine was brushing her hair left-
handed in front of the mirror at the vanity
dresser. "I'm sorry to run out on you like
that, Catherine." No explanation offered:
Catherine probably wouldn't probe for one.

"No, dear, I'm sorry. I should never say such
things. It's all right for a mother to think
them, but to say them to anyone involved is,
well, putting the cart before the horse, I
think. I'm just very grateful that Fox asked
you to be here. I suppose the two of you will
be leaving tomorrow . . .?"

"I don't know yet. I might leave in the
morning. Mulder has his reasons to stay
longer. We do operate independently, on
occasion."

"Of course. Do you think Fox will mind if I
come to dinner in a bathrobe? It's so much
trouble changing clothes with this cast, and
I'll probably want to go to bed early
tonight."

"It's your house, Catherine. You should do
whatever makes you comfortable."

"When I was a girl, ladies advanced in years
still made themselves presentable. My
grandmother was more distressed over the fact
that she couldn't dust and polish everything
in the house every day than she was over the
fact of her cancer. I suppose a lot of the
rules have changed since then."

"I wouldn't have my job if they hadn't." She
would never have known Mulder if they hadn't.
Maybe change isn't always good.

"An excellent point. We'll have to make a
toast to changing rules then, won't we?"

Dana didn't answer, helping Catherine into
her robe.



Mulder enjoyed waiting on the two women at
dinner. He couldn't help being glad they were
getting along so well. He just wished it
didn't seem like they knew something he
didn't. He had never known his mother very
well, really, and couldn't remember ever
having seen her at her ease. He associated
her with formal occasions, stuffy places you
had to go to, uncomfortable clothes you had
to wear, boring people you had to be polite
to. And here she was sitting at the dinner
table in her bathrobe, laughing with his
partner about something her neighbor's dog
had done. And that was another thing: seeing
Scully laugh. He realized that no matter how
important his partner was to him, he only
knew her as his partner. He didn't know what
she looked like when she relaxed, what she
did for fun (other than read Jose Chung
novels, a literary taste that made Mulder
roll his eyes). He'd have to call her mom and
find out. Turnabout's fair play, right?
Besides, he liked her mom.

Scully cleaned up in the kitchen afterwards
and then came out to read, while Mulder and
his mother tackled the suitcase again. He
found he had a hard time concentrating, and
was relieved when his mother confessed how
tired she was, helped him pack away the
documentation of his father's professional
life, said goodnight to Dana, and let him
help her up the stairs. The suitcase would
stay in his room for the night, just in case.
He hesitated to go back down right away, to
be alone with Scully, knowing his Mom would
probably be curious and paying attention to
how long it took him to come back up. She
hadn't said anything to him about what she
may or may not have seen from her window,
exhibiting remarkable self-restraint if she
had been a witness. He had been trying not to
think about it, himself, without much
success. 

Roses: he could swear that's what she tasted
like. Wierd.

What the hell. Let his Mom think whatever she
wanted to. He went downstairs.

"Hi," he said, and sat down on the sofa.

"Hi," she said back, and put down her book.

"How's the book?"

"It's pretty good. I can't seem to keep my
mind on it, though."

"You and my Mom sure seem to have hit it
off."

"I told you I liked her. She's sweet."

"Sweet?" He gave that thought an assessing
downpull of the mouth. "That's a word I never
really associated with my mother before."

"Well, you should. She wants me to come up
and give her rub-downs on a regular basis.
She says I have a gift for it."

"Do I have to fall down a flight of stairs
before I can find out for myself?"

Forget the joking, Mulder: here comes the
spooky part. "She gave me quite a scare up
there, though."

"What do you mean?"

"She didn't ask me about setting a date, but
she did tell me she thinks you're a fool if
you're not in love with me."

"She said that?!"

"M-hm. I wouldn't make it up."

"And that scared you?"

"Yup. I almost ran right out the door, never
to be seen or heard from again."

"In love with you."

"Heart and soul. I quote."

"Well, I wouldn't want my Mom to think I'm a
fool . . .."

"Please, Mulder, don't joke about this. It's
not funny."

"I wasn't joking."

"I don't think I can take much more of this.
How can you be so calm?"

"Calm? You think this is calm? This isn't
calm, this is shock."

She looked at him a second, trying to
remember how this got started. "Mulder, what
are we talking about?"

"Me being in love with you, I think."

"That's what I was afraid of."

"Why aren't we talking about you being in
love with me?"

"Because nobody's brought it up yet. I almost
fainted when Catherine said the first part,
and she didn't push the issue after that."

"So?"

"So, what?"

"Are you in love with me?"

"Oh God, Mulder, I don't know."

"What kind of an answer is that?"

"The only one I have for you right now.
Mulder, I'm so scared of getting close to you
I don't know what I'm feeling. I know I've
had a whole long list of reasons why it can
never happen, why it would never happen, why
neither of us would ever want it to happen,
why it could only end in disaster. You've
certainly kept your distance, so you've got
to have your lists, too. And now we're
talking about it."

"This isn't helping my self-esteem very much,
Scully."

"It's not doing much for mine, either. Look,
do you think we can just call a time-out on
this 'til we get back to Washington? I don't
think either of us can really trust our
states of mind right now. I don't want to do
anything stupid."

"I guess this means our chances of making out
in front of the fire tonight are pretty
slim."

"Don't tempt me. Why do you think I'm still
sitting over here? If I was on that sofa with
you I wouldn't vouch for either of us still
having clothes on ten minutes later,
Catherine upstairs or no Catherine."

"Now I'm feeling better."

"Jesus, Mulder, don't make this harder than
it is. We could maybe make our hormones happy
for a while, but what happens after that?
What are we risking?"

"I know. I'm sorry. You're right, I shouldn't
joke. I just can't help feeling happy about
it. You really do taste like roses, Scully."

"That's sweet, Mulder, but you haven't
answered my question. What happens after
that? My mom likes you a lot, but she'd still
want to know what your intentions are."

"Right again. I haven't had a chance to think
about that. I keep getting stuck at the roses
part."

"You'd better get un-stuck if you want to
keep having this conversation. Hasn't it
occurred to you that we might well end up
hating each other pretty fast if we got any
closer than we already are? I mean, we have a
hard enough time refraining from strangling
each other over our differences as it is,
without making it personal."

"You've got a point there. But I don't know
anybody else I could ever be that close to."

"Close enough to want to strangle?"

"Close enough to get under my skin so
completely. Close enough to be so
indispensable."

"As crazy as this may sound, Mulder, I don't
want to imagine my life without you in it,
either."

He looked at her a moment, not yet completely
un-stuck. "What are we talking about,
Scully?"

"About being in love, I think."

"Mutually."

"I guess so."

"Openly."

"That's the tricky part, isn't it? It's not
like people haven't talked about us already,
but this would be different."

Mulder suddenly felt giddily philosophical.
"I don't know if I like the phrasing, 'in
love'. That always sounds too ominous to me,
like being 'in trouble'. It's also something
you can get out of. I think I like the verb
form better: something you're doing, a mutual
endeavor. We're used to that; we've been
working together a long time. It shouldn't be
so hard."

Scully didn't like his mood. Hello in there .
. .? "Then why can't you say it?"

"What? 'I love you'?"

"Bingo. I love you, too." A brief silence
hovered over the furniture.

"Well, now we've got that settled," Mulder
said, not really believing this was
happening. "What happens if we get back to
Washington and one or the other of us decides
it's not such a good idea after all?"

"Maybe nothing too terrible: you can love a
person and not be involved with him or her,
like caring about a friend. We've both been
doing that already, I think. Technically,
this doesn't have to really change anything."

"I like the way you think, Scully."

"I'm not sure I do. The reason I'm so scared
is a big chunk of me doesn't want to settle
for that, doesn't want to be reasonable any
more. A big chunk of me is screaming
something about all or nothing."

"Sounds like a dangerous chunk. Maybe your
chunk and my chunk should get together and
write songs or something."

"You, too, huh?"

"Me, too. But we could still just be friends
who love each other. You never know." They
couldn't possibly be talking like this. He
had fallen asleep upstairs again, that was
it. You can say anything you want to in a
dream.

"I just don't want the Bureau to split us
up," she answered back. If this was a dream,
it was too realistic: she was fighting him
with her version of Reality, like always. "I
mean, there's no point if we're not working
together, is there? And I sure as hell
wouldn't want someone else to get all the fun
being your partner in the X-Files."

"I'd resign before I'd let them give me
another partner. Look what happened with the
last one."

"Mulder, if you resign, you lose all your
work. Those files are the property of the
Department of Justice."

"We're starting to argue about things that
haven't happened yet. Can't we just make out
in front of the fire and call it a night? We
can argue some more tomorrow."

"Mulder, there's not even any wood in this
fireplace."

"I'll go outside and chop down a tree. The
neighbors won't mind, it's for a good cause."

"Could you please be serious?! This isn't a
joke!"

"No. No, it's not a joke. It just still seems
pretty surreal, that's all. I mean, we're
talking about loving each other from across
the room. If the memory weren't burned into
my brain I would have a hard time believing
we did anything in the back yard today but
eat lunch. We're basing this whole
declaration on what couldn't have been more
than five minutes' activity."

"And four years of partnership, and watching
each other almost die more times than I'd
care to count, and being ready to die for
each other and each other's beliefs. This
afternoon wouldn't have happened if all of
that hadn't happened first."

"Would you please come over here and say that
to me again?"

"All right." She set her book aside, came to
the couch, and sat down next to him. She
carefully picked up his hand and held it palm
up in her lap, studying it. "What happened
this afternoon was not just about five
minutes' activity," she told his hand. Then
she looked up at him. "You mean a lot to me,
Mulder." She let herself reach up and touch
his face, not caring for the moment if it was
too risky. It seemed the only decent thing to
do.

She cupped his cheek with her palm, running
her thumb across his cheekbone. He closed his
eyes and rolled his face into her hand, just
breathing in for a moment. Un-stuck. Then he
took her hand away from his face and held it
in his. "I don't ever want to lose you, Dana.
Not to the Bureau, not to the bad guys, not
to my own mistakes."

"Mulder, you're not liable for me. You can't
be responsible for everything."

"No, but I can be responsible for what I do
to you. I don't want to drag you down with
me."

"I'm not about to let you. I make my own
choices."

No denying that. "I'm not good at being close
to people, Scully. Basically, I'm a selfish
jerk. You might have noticed that before
now."

"You're not a jerk, you just get so full of
your need for things to be a certain way that
you won't listen to anybody else's
interpretation." 

"Case in point. I know what I want right now,
but probably the main reason I'm reaching out
for it is because I want some relief from
what I'm doing here with my Mom." From the
pained look on her face he could guess that
thought had crossed her mind as well. "This
isn't fair to you, Scully.  I suppose it's
not fair to me, either. It's not honest, no
matter what we just said. Not completely."

"But what about what I want? This isn't just
about you and your pain and your needs.
That's what scares me so much, Mulder. I
could fend you off, I could tell you it's a
bad idea and you should just leave me alone,
but what do I do with myself? What do I do
with how much I want you?" She brought her
hand to his face again, and drew him down to
meet her mouth still holding the word "you".

My God. Roses. It was like eating roses, like
licking out a bowl of roses, like being
swallowed by a bed of roses that had come for
your soul.

She wanted him inside her, all the way inside
her. Not sex, *him*. She wanted him so bad
she could feel sounds welling up in her
throat that she shouldn't let out in his
mother's house with his mother upstairs.
Melissa was right, this is what you get for
repressing your feelings: you don't know what
they'll do when they come out.

Somebody had better stop this, they both
thought at almost the same time. Scully
wasn't sure whether she had pulled Mulder
down on top of her or if he had laid her down
on her back. With their height difference it
would have made more sense to go the other
way 'round, but what they were doing didn't
make much sense in general . . .. Maybe
they'd have other chances to work it out. He
made his way back to her face, and pulled
back enough to focus on her eyes, as she drew
her hands out from under his shirt. They both
knew. She unwrapped her leg from his, and he
started to sit up. "What was that somebody
said about a time out?" he said. He stroked
her hair spread out on the sofa, and brought
the back of his hand to her cheek.

"That was me, wasn't it?" He nodded at her,
smiling a little. She sat up. "Do you think
your mom would get suspicious if I took a
cold shower at this hour?" He laughed. She
liked hearing it, it made her smile.

There was that smile again. He could die a
happy man, now. Well, no. There were some
other things he'd still like to see. He
touched the corner of that smile with a
finger, then kissed the whole thing. They
both burst out laughing.

"Now she's really going to wonder." He didn't
think he'd ever heard Scully giggle before.
This was getting more interesting all the
time.

"Maybe we can be friends who make out in
front of the fire every now and then," he
said.

"Maybe. We'll have to find a different
fireplace, though."

"I'll build one."

"Promise?"

"I promise you, Dana Scully."

Somehow they had ended up holding hands, a
union of fingers resting on Scully's knee. "I
wish I could promise you something other than
the fact that I'm almost guaranteed to freak
out about this later. I might not want you
anywhere near me for a few days while I try
to figure myself out on this." Hard words,
but sensible. Typical. He was glad he could
count on that part of her even now.

"Do you mind if I call your mom, then?"

"My mom? Why?"

"It occurred to me today that I only know you
from work, essentially. Maybe she can tell me
a few stories that'll make *you* cry."

"You'd better be prepared for her to start
buying stuff with our initials on it if you
do talk to her. She already considers you a
part of the family, you know."

"I like her, too." They sat and looked at
each other a moment, the dikes starting to
crumble again. "Come on, Scully, let me walk
you to your room and we'll call it a night."

At her door she surprised him by encircling
him in a gentle hug. "Good night, Mulder,"
she said against his chest, and seemed
content to keep standing in his arms a while.
He wasn't about to complain.

"Dana . . . ?"

"Hm?"

"You called me 'Fox' back there."

She pulled back, looking mortified. "I did?!
I'm sorry . . .."

He grinned at her. "Don't be sorry. I
llliiked it." He rolled the word to be sure
she knew just how much, and in what way, he
liked it. "Just save it for special
occasions, OK?"

Her eyes had gone all huge. If he wasn't
careful he'd go swimming. "OK, Fox," she
answered, the name seeming to come from the
base of her throat, and she reached up to
kiss him on the cheek. "See you tomorrow,"
she softly told his ear. Then she moved
carefully away, gave him a shadowed smile,
went into her room and closed the door.

Mulder blew out his breath, made sure his
body was still in the same place he left it,
and made himself take it upstairs as quietly
as possible and put it to bed.



Scully wasn't sure what had woken her up.
Some instinct told her not to turn on any
lights. She thought she could hear something
moving in the living room. Maybe Mulder
couldn't sleep . . . maybe not. She got out
of bed, found her gun in her bag, and went
silently down the hall.

The man in the dining room was dressed in
dark colors, just under six feet tall, wiry.
From behind he looked too much like a man who
was supposed to have killed himself in a jail
cell, a man who had killed her sister and
nearly killed a man she worked for and
respected, a man she had had in her gunsights
and knew now she should have sent straight to
Hell when she had the chance. No, it couldn't
be him. 

He didn't know she was there yet. In the dark
room, moonlight faintly coming around the
drapes, he held a flashlight in gloved hands
to aid in a search of the room, opening
drawers in the sideboard. She could see the
bulge of a pistol under his jacket.

She stepped carefully, barefoot, directly
into the living room to get a clear line of
fire, braced herself, took aim, and cocked
the gun. "Federal agent, I'm armed!" she said
loudly, hoping Mulder was not a sound sleeper
tonight. "Don't turn around yet. Put your
flashlight on the table. Slowly. Remove your
weapon and put it on the table, too. Keep
your hands where I can see them and put them
in the air when you're done. I have excellent
night vision." The man complied, with an ease
that made her nervous. He must have known
from her voice that she was a woman, and from
the angle of sound he would know her height.
If he knew anything at all about what he was
looking for, he probably knew who she was.
Why had they sent him here with them all in
the house? Were they looking for a
confrontation? What was the game now?

Keeping her eyes and her aim firm, she used
peripheral vision to step to a lamp and
switch it on. Come on, Mulder, help me out
here . . .. "Now step away from the table,"
she told the man. "Turn around slowly, and
tell me what you're doing here."

He turned, took in the sight of her ,small
and disheveled in her pajamas, and his mouth
twisted in a nasty imitation of a smile.
"Some federal agent," he said.

"I'm the one with the gun," she reminded him,
and adjusted her aim from his shoulder to his
lower abdomen. "Who told you to come here?"

The icy smile became flint. "Your mother." He
twisted sideways as he came forward more
quickly than should have been possible,
reaching into a pocket as he came. A knife
suddenly gleamed in his hand as her first
shot went where he no longer stood, and her
second grazed his shoulder. He slashed across
her belly, knocking the gun from her hand
with the same motion and keeping his momentum
as his attack knocked her to the floor, the
lamp crashing down with her. No time yet for
the pain: she grabbed at his ankles and he
kicked hard at her face as he fell forward
onto his hands and quickly recovered. His
heel just missed her eye, glancing off her
temple, and the explosion in her head blocked
her sight.



Scully was on the ground and a man was
scrambling toward the half-open door as
Mulder slammed on the hall light and
thundered down the stairs. He fired at the
man just as he saw something bright flash out
of the intruder's hand, and felt something
cut past his ear with a whistle as he ducked.
There was no time to aim precisely as he
fired again at the retreating figure and saw
it go down. Then he saw the blood on the
floor where Scully was. Too much blood.
"Scully!" 

She was curled in on herself, and wouldn't
let him see the wound. "Don't lose him!" she
gasped.

"Scully, you're hurt!"

"It's not as bad as it looks. He wasn't
trying to kill me, he just wanted me out of
his way. Go!"

Scully's attacker lay sprawled face forward
on the porch. Mulder's second shot had hit
the man in the lower back, to the left of the
spine. There was still a pulse. If he was
going to live, if he was going to give them
any answers, there would have to be an
ambulance.

"He's not going anywhere, Scully. Hang on."
Please, hang on. He went to the phone to call
911.

"Fox? Dana? What in Heaven's name . . . ?"
Catherine's panicked voice came from the top
of the stairs. She saw the man on the porch,
heard her son's furious voice giving her
address over the phone, saw Dana curled up on
the floor, saw the blood. "My God, Dana! What
has happened here?"

"It's all right, Catherine, don't come down.
We're OK. Please, go back to bed."

"But you're hurt!" Catherine started to come
down the stairs.

"I'll be all right. The ambulance will be
here soon. Please . . .." Dana's voice faded
out.

Then Catherine's son was at her side, and she
was transfixed by the sight of the gun in his
hand. His face was grim, but his hand on her
arm was gentle. "Mom. Go back to bed. Let's
not have any more accidents tonight."
Catherine moved with numb obedience back
toward her room as Fox returned to Dana's
side.

Scully had nearly passed out. An ugly welt
flared over her right eye; he'd have to keep
her awake 'til the ambulance came. "Come on,
Scully, stay with me. Say the alphabet for
me, anything." She got stuck in a few places,
and so did he, but they got all the way to Z.
His heart was in his mouth as he examined the
gash that angled from above her left hip
across the ribs of her right side. Breathe,
he told himself, you'll be no help if you
pass out, too. "This was not how I planned to
get my hands on you, Dana," he joked lamely,
which got a smile. A few hours earlier, and
he would have given a year of his life to be
this close to her skin. Now he didn't want to
look where her torn pajama top gave way,
didn't want this to be the first way he saw
and touched the body under the clothes. His
hands were shaking as he pulled off his
T-shirt to staunch the bleeding. Let that
bastard die, I don't care. He picked Dana up
and cradled her against his chest, wishing he
knew how to pray.



Dana had been right: the knife hadn't caused
any serious damage beyond nicking a rib,
although she'd lost a fair amount of blood.
The stitches shouldn't leave much of a scar.
The blow to her head had left her concussed,
which in combination with the blood loss was
more of a concern, but allowing for some time
off in bed she should be fine in a few days.
Kissing was fine, but anything more would
have to wait. She discovered that she was not
freaking out after all. Maybe that would come
later.

Her assailant was not so lucky. Mulder was
not allowed to question him. Local police
were calling it a breaking-and-entering, and
federal (or personal) interference would not
be tolerated. The intruder was identified as
migrant worker Jose Dies, no family in the
U.S.--a convenient cover, but one they
wouldn't be able to crack. His gloved hands
had left no prints. He died in the hospital
the next day after a visit from a priest not
known to the hospital staff.

With apologies to Catherine, Dana went home
to spend her recovery with her mother. Mulder
took the suitcase with him when he took Dana
back to D.C., telling his mother he knew
people they could trust who would know what
to do with it. 

At Margaret Scully's house, Mulder sat with
Scully on the bed they'd tucked her into. A
timely phone call had taken Scully's mother
out of the room. "All this really isn't
necessary, you know, I'm not an invalid," she
protested. "It's just a glorified cut."

"The doctor said you needed to rest as much
as possible for the next few days, let
yourself heal. Isn't your mother's house the
best place for that?"

"Where will you be?" she asked.

He took her hand and smiled. "Not far, you
can count on it. Your mom likes me: I've got
an in."

"I like you, too. Is Catherine going to be
OK?"

"She'll be fine. They know I have the
suitcase. Don't change the subject."

"Which is?"

"How you feel about me."

"I like you fine. We have to get out of our
mother's houses if we're ever going to finish
this discussion."

"Give it a few days. I still have to build
that fireplace."

Scully smiled, but shook her head. "What
about Reality, Mulder? What about the Truth?"

"Let's burn that bridge when we come to it.
We haven't figured each other out yet; I
think that ought to come first. Even 'Spooky'
Mulder can take a vacation sometimes. The
truth isn't going to go away."

"I'm surprised to hear you treat it so
casually. We're talking about your life's
work, here."

"I'd rather be talking about my life. Certain
things became very clear to me when you were
bleeding all over my Mom's floor the other
night. Get better quick, OK?"

"OK." She brought her other hand to join the
two already settled in the space between
them.

Margaret came in, saw the hands on top of the
covers and tried not to react. They didn't
seem to want to hide it or move apart. When
did this happen? The last time she and her
daughter had talked about her partner, Dana
had seemed to be a pretty solidly closed book
on the subject. "That was your brother
Charles on the phone; he'll be coming by
tonight to see how you are. Fox, I have to
thank you for bringing Dana home. Will you
join us for dinner?"

Mulder stood up, letting Dana's hands go.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Scully, I have some loose
ends I need to take care of tonight. I'll
come back tomorrow, if that's all right with
you."

"You know you're always welcome here, Fox."

Mulder turned back to Scully. "I guess I'll
see you tomorrow then." And he bent down and
kissed her. On the lips. As if this were the
most natural and appropriate thing to do. And
Dana seemed to have no objection. Even in
front of her mother.

"Tomorrow," Dana said back to him. 

Her daughter's partner gave Margaret the
smile of a happy man as he turned to go.
Although Fox had many fine qualities,
Margaret wouldn't have described him as
"happy" before. "Fox . . .?" She was too
surprised to articulate the question further.

"Goodnight, Mrs. Scully." 

Dana didn't look at Margaret 'til after he'd
gone. Dana, the tomboy, the doctor with
nerves of steel, the Starbuck of this family,
was blushing. Dumbfounded, Margaret had to
ask. She sat down on her daughter's bed, eyes
still wide at what she'd just seen. "Do you
have something to tell me, Dana?" She
couldn't help but smile, expecting happy
news.

"Don't start planning anything, Mom. We don't
know how we're going to handle this, yet.
There could be a lot of complications. But it
looks like . . .." She couldn't bring herself
to finish the sentence. She didn't have to.
Margaret Scully wrapped her baby girl in a
celebratory embrace.



THE END

Abbie Anderson
amanders@att.net