Date sent:        Wed, 4 Mar 1998 21:21:01 -0800
From:             EPurSeMouve@goplay.com
Subject:          Submission - S&E II

TITLE: Soap and Eggs II - An Ivory-White Christmas
AUTHOR: EPurSeMouve
CATEGORY: S R A
RATING: PG
SPOILERS/TIMELINE: This universe is current with the XF timeline up until
"Demons."  However, this story will not make sense without reading the
original "Soap and Eggs", available from the Gossamer Archive or me.
KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully romance.  Alternate Universe.
SUMMARY: A solitary Christmas in San Francisco, California.
DISCLAIMER: This story contains characters and mythology spawned by The
X-Files, a show copyrighted by CC and 1013 Productions. The other cultural
icons mentioned belong to their respective creators.  But the actual plot
and text are mine.  Video store clerks don't earn enough for decent legal
defense, so please don't sue me over anything within.
DISTRIBUTION: Please forward to A.T.X.C.  Archive anywhere you like, but
let me know (just because I like knowing where my stories are) and keep my
name with it.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: You guys asked for it...  Due to the overwhelming requests
for a sequel to "Soap and Eggs" (okay - fifteen letters!), I forced myself
to come up with this, though the idea had originally hit me,
unsurprisingly, around Christmas.  Sorry it's out of season - I think that,
if this universe continues, it'll be a regular pattern.  After all, "Soap
and Eggs" was a Halloween story.  A Halloween story released in late
December. <g>

I'm not religious - I just do research.  If I've messed up here on
important details, I apologize.

Dedicated to the absolutely super-cool beta-readers: Nicole Perry the
Grammatically Helpful, Whitney Cox (AKA Angel) the Enthusiastic, and Audrey
Cooper the Eloquent.  Read their fanfic!

Comments to EPurSeMouve@goplay.com - if only to tell me that I should
never have written this.  It's... different than the first story, and I'd
like to know if it worked, as well as whether or not the Soap and Eggs saga
should be continued.  That address once more is EPurSeMouve@goplay.com -
PLEASE write.

So here goes.  Hold on tight!


Soap and Eggs II - An Ivory-White Christmas
By EPurSeMouve

"'Oh, Hester!...  thou tellest of running a race to a man whose knees are
tottering beneath him!  I must die here!  There is not the strength or
courage left me to venture into the wide, strange world, alone!'"
                                            -_The Scarlet Letter_, by
Nathaniel Hawthorne

The petite, scruffily dressed blonde who got off the train at the San
Francisco station attracted no real attention from anyone passing by,
though it had very little to do with her practiced efforts to blend into
the background.  More likely it was a result of the holiday season - in
larger cites, Christmas usually meant long lines and skipped lunches and
crowded malls to average city dwellers, leaving them very little time to
notice a mysterious woman in their midst.  And this mysterious woman had no
qualms about using that fact to her advantage.

It was one of those things that living underground had taught her, along
with "Looking calm while your fake ID is being scrutinized" and "Driving
across the country with only 15 dollars for gas."

She didn't have a car this year, so that wasn't a concern, but it was for...

She cut herself off there.  That was one of those things she didn't let
herself dwell on.

There was a pretty long list of things she didn't let herself dwell on, and
the current lack of a car was fairly low in order of importance.  But she
still moved her train of thought onward, searching her memory for that
which was so important now.  A five-digit number.  The one that she had
quizzed herself brutally on until she could see it engraved upon her
eyeballs.

Remembering it wasn't the problem, though.  Finding the corresponding
rent-a-locker was.

Fighting the urge to murmur under her breath, the woman ran her finger
along the row of lockers, finding number 10243 after passing it twice.  She
grinned, quickly and bitterly, then used the key she had been left to open
up the metal box.

The check was in there, along with a red envelope and a tiny sprig of
mistletoe.  She almost laughed at the sight, but caught herself.  Instead,
she moved the items from the locker to her battered backpack, and walked
quickly out of the station.

She always wondered how far in advance the deliveries were made - whether
the delivers dropped the money off days before she was scheduled to find
it, or if they were there in the city, watching as she picked it up to make
sure the delivery was complete.  She preferred to imagine the latter - she
knew that she couldn't make contact, but it was nice to imagine that there
was somebody else out there, maybe even within eyesight, who knew her.  Who
knew she was a real person.  Who was specifically looking for her.  Who
would be able to call her by a name that wasn't made up and joke with her
and smile at old times...

She derailed that train of thought unmercifully.  Thoughts like those were
much higher up on the list of what she would not ponder.

Though, as she began looking for a place to stay, she did look to see if a
small, gnomish toadman, a scraggly arrayed hard rocker, or a dignified
gentleman with earnest eyes were anywhere within the vicinity.

She knew they were too good to be spotted, but she looked anyways.

Just because.



At the Dominion Hotel, the woman took a small single room for the cheapest
rate possible, and once inside the cramped space, she dug through her
backpack to digest what had been delivered.

The check was standard - made out to her assumed name, she could cash it
with "her" driver's license at a nearby bank without arousing suspicion.
No problems.  She put it down without a second thought and reached for the
envelope next to it - it was something she had been looking forward to for
a while now.  After all, it was the only personal contact that she had had
with anyone for close to two months.

The envelope ripped open easily and she pulled out a glossy holiday
greetings card, though not exactly a typical Hallmark statement.  A
red-and-green-bikini-clad bleached blonde adorned the front, clutching a
pair of large beer mugs to her unnaturally generous chest.  And a little
speaking bubble was positioned next to her mouth, reading:

"Want some bonbons with your jugs?"

A face unaccustomed to laughing found itself in an unusual position as the
woman chortled loudly, a little too loudly to be natural.  The cards she
received every year were growing more and more unseemly as the ritual began
to degrade, but she laughed every time, no matter what.

At this point, she'd probably giggle madly if they left her a copy of
"Hustler".  Or "The Adult Video News"...

New train of thought, she reminded herself.  That one's on the list, too.

She pushed her mind onward, opening the card and quietly tracing the words
inscribed within.

*Merry Christmas, Lea.*

That, she barely paused at.

*He's okay*

But that simple phrase, she gazed at adoringly for ten minutes.

For as long as she got notes and cards with those precious words written on
them, she could manage anything.

Even being alone.



She took a few things out of her backpack and set them up in the hotel room
- her toothbrush in the bathroom, the one book she carried with her on the
bedside table, a second pair of shoes in the closet.  From a hidden pocket
in her jacket she removed a small plastic case, which she shoved underneath
the mattress.

With that attempt at settling in done, she took the flimsy chair and wedged
it under the doorknob, checking the locks on the door and windows, and
then, somewhat comforted, stretched out on the bed.  She was asleep in
seconds.

And was awake in three hours, due to her body's inability to relax for too
long.  But she felt strong and alert, which she knew was good for what lay
ahead for her.

For she'd done some crazy stuff in her lifetime.

But shopping on Christmas Eve at 2:00 in the afternoon was probably the
craziest.



Ignoring the elbows being jabbed into her sides, the woman fought her way
to the bargain counter of Macy's, running her hands through the various
scraps of cloth that probably two thousand people had pawed already.  She
always took a long time deciding on this one purchase - always purchased it
on Christmas Eve - though she wasn't sure why.

After all, the receiver wouldn't receive it for months yet.  It didn't
matter if it was tasteful or tasteless - he would like it anyway.  And even
when he did receive this present, he would only wear it for a few minutes,
and then put it away for God knows how long.

Maybe it was part of a deep desire to be part of the holiday season, she
mused as she pondered various color combinations and shapes.  To be able to
buy a holiday gift for someone in her life, just like everyone else.  One
last effort to fit into society.

The idea almost made her laugh.  Conformity was one of the last things she
worried about nowadays.

Lifting up one pile of polyblends, her eyes alighted upon the perfect item
near the bottom, and she snatched it up before the 200 pound plus
grandmother next to her could.  It got her a glare, but by then, she was
moving on to the sales counter.

The line stretched across the store, just like every other year.

Sighing, the woman got in line and waited.



The necktie - a map of the United States on rayon - was purchased and
packaged into a gift box, which the woman tucked carefully into her
knapsack.  Dodging more elbows, she walked out of the store and bundled her
coat more tightly around her, shocked by the frigid outdoors in comparison
to the sauna of Macy's.

Her next stop was, by necessity, the bank - this purchase had pretty much
wiped her out and if she wanted to pay for her room and board for the next
few nights, she had to do it before the banks closed.  So she picked up her
pace for the march to the nearest Wells Fargo.

On her way, though, she passed a Salvation Army Santa Claus manning a
donation pot on one of the more busy street corners.  Her first instinct
was to simply pass by, as she normally did, but something stronger made her
stop.

She knew that she shouldn't do what she was about to do, but it was only a
tiny, small, insignificant risk - a tiny, small, insignificant risk that
she needed to take.  For the sake of her sanity, if for nothing else.

Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out three dollars and forty cents -
the only money left from her November check - and walked over to Santa.
Not daring to look into his eyes, she simply shoved the bills and coins
into the pot, turning abruptly, but halted at the words the man in red
shouted to her retreating back:

"Merry Christmas, ma'am!"

She turned around, startled.  It was the first time in weeks that anyone
had said anything more to her than "Cash or Charge?"  And slowly, her lips
turned up at the corners.

"Merry Christmas to you, too," she answered, too softly to be heard by the
man.  But her smile got the idea across.

She knew that the money she had just given wouldn't have much of an impact
- that it would probably just go to buy paper clips or stamps.  But it was
an impact.  An impact upon something of the Real World, not the limbo she
dwelled in.

She got by on those small impacts nowadays, when memories of the larger
impacts she had once made were unsatisfying or painful.  The small ones
kept her grounded, and she needed grounding, sometimes.

After all, in the old days, everyone had thought of her as the sane one.
And she still had a desire to keep around some of who she had been.  For
sentimental reasons, if nothing else.

She just hoped that her sentimental reasons wouldn't end up getting her
killed.



Everything at the bank went smoothly - the cashiers were as intense and
focused as you'd expect cashiers to be on Christmas Eve, and barely glanced
at her driver's license.  Just another benefit of large cities during the
holidays.  She walked out of the bank with a fairly large amount of cash,
the complimentary candy cane that "Nicky" had pushed upon her, and a low
amount of stress.

But then she was thrown off-kilter completely as she saw a tall figure
moving in her direction, his face obscured but his hair obviously a dark
brown.

As she stared at the slowly approaching man, one part of her mind began
trying to figure out if what her instincts said was right.  Another part
frantically ran through the procedure and protocols that they had set up,
speculating about what might cause this kind of breach.

But the rest of her was consumed in a combination of pure hope and pure
joy, as inevitable as sunrises or sunsets.

Although she had no idea what it would do to their plans, to their lives,
she was so happy to see him - she was positive it was him - nobody else but
him walked like that, or let their hair fall in their eyes like that man
did - she couldn't be wrong this time...

However, Sherman Winters, divorcee and father of two, would probably have
disagreed with her.  He passed by without anything more than a casual
glance to make sure that he wouldn't accidentally brush up against the
sickly-pale waif.

Realizing her mistake, she quickly schooled her features into the
expressionless mask she favored, and tried not to think about what had just
happened.

*Can't attract attention.  Can't start crying.  Can't make a scene.  Can't
attract attention.  Can't start crying.  Can't make a scene...*

She began walking quickly and numbly, keeping up that litany, and didn't
stop until she was back at the hotel.  The tears flowed freely once she was
safely in her room, but only for a few minutes.

For it was just one episode of a series of disappointments.  And she had
better things to do with her time.

And one demand upon it that she had yet to meet.

She sighed and reached for her knapsack, removing from it a very large
bottle, from which she retrieved a very large pill.

She moved to the bathroom for a glass of water, shutting the door behind her.

The moans followed soon after that.



After finishing up in the bathroom, she laid down upon the bed and tried to
sleep again, knowing that her body needed the rest.  But it didn't happen,
in part due to its being only 6:30 PM, and also due in part to the numerous
trains of thought that were available for pondering.  She kept on
remembering the man she had seen - how closely he had resembled *him*.  And
when her restless mind grew sick of that torment, she could agonize about
how much more painful the cramps had been that day - worry about what that
could possibly mean.  Then she could think about how it was Christmas Eve
and she was completely alone...

She got up from the bed and started pacing around the hotel room
restlessly.  No doubt about it, she was getting cabin fever - she needed to
get outside, among people.  She tried to do that fairly often, these days,
given how isolated she was.  Even the slightest human contact helped keep
her sane, but she knew what would happen if she went out that night.

Purely coincidentally, she would end up wandering by a church around 11:45
PM or so, and it would be brightly lit up and she would say to herself,
"Let's just stop in and get warm."  And then she'd decide to stay for
Midnight Mass - and she couldn't let that happen.  No matter how much she
wanted it.

It wasn't that she believed in God any more, really.  But sentiment was a
powerful force in her life, and she fondly remembered past Midnight Masses
on Christmas - the peace and the hope she had found from them.  And she
wanted to be able to find that peace and hope again.

But sentiment, she reminded herself, was what would eventually bring about
her end.  She had no more room in her life for sentimentality over the
past.  And a clean break from the past would ensure her safety - keep her
from making mistakes.  She took enough risks for sentiment's sake - and she
knew that They knew of her background.  If They suspected that she was in
San Francisco on Christmas, They would keep an eye on the Catholic churches
in the area on Christmas Eve.  She knew that she would do the same,
positions reversed.

There was probably some joke to make about the hunted becoming the hunter,
but she wasn't in the mood.

She turned on the room's television set and found "It's A Wonderful Life"
half-way in progress.

"Damn Mr. Potter," she muttered.  "It was all his fault."

She settled in for what would be a long night.



Good intentions are odd things.  As the saying goes, the road to Hell is
paved with them - but the motives behind them are pure.  And it seems,
sometimes, that the intentions themselves should count for more than the
actual actions.

Given that perception, it's truly too bad that actions are what really
matter.

The woman's good intention was clear - to spend the night in her hotel
room, watching old movies until she fell asleep, then wake up the next
morning and take a train to her next destination.  But at 11:00 P.M., she
realized that she needed ice.  So she went out to get some.

By 11:45, she was standing in front of the Grace Cathedral, waiting to be
admitted inside.  And she was livid with herself.  This was exactly what
she had wanted to avoid.  Everything she had learned these long years said
that she should not be there, in the open, exposed and vulnerable.  The
whole block was lit up, there were hundreds of people waiting to be
admitted into the majestic cathedral - and one of them could so easily be a
Them.

And one of Them would be all it would take to ruin everything, set the
forces of darkness upon her.  Only one rat to report to the other rats.
One rat to tell his brothers where to find the long-chased cheese.

She could almost feel them descending upon her, tiny teeth biting into her,
consuming her, leaving her mind for last as they sucked out everything
important, the knowledge that she had gained, the knowledge she had traded
everything for...  Stealing all that she was...

A shove in the back recalled her to reality, and she caught up with the
person in front of her quickly, her head lowered towards the ground.  But
she looked up from her shoes the second she was inside the church, awed by
its beauty for a few short seconds.  Then she began berating herself again,
even as she genuflected at the entrance.

*you're going to get yourself killed you're going to lose everything
everything you've worked for over a few prayers and hymns you're putting
yourself exactly where They'd expect to find you you're going to get
yourself killed you're going to get HIM kil-*

She cut that line of thought off the second it began touching upon sacred
territory, and moved through the vestibule towards the pews, taking a seat
near the back.

*It's a risk.  But I'm taking it.  It's my choice.  And I'm already here -
there's no point in leaving now.*

She opened up the Bible in front of her and flipped to the Book of Luke,
trying to guess which passages would be featured that night.

And when the priest entered, she rose with the rest of the congregation.

But her eyes searched the crowd furtively as she listened to the blessing.
Looking for someone who might be looking around as well.  Someone looking
for her.

Part of her was scoffing at the idea, the part that usually remained silent
when her more suspicious side was ranting.  This was a place of God, after
all.  They wouldn't pull anything here.  She was just being paranoid.

An old line, used a thousand times before, popped into her head.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

The service held little meaning for her, consumed as she was by her
suspicions.   After all, what can messages of peace and harmony with one's
neighbors really mean when one has no neighbors and can find no peace?

The entire occasion was an exercise in futility.  And she left as soon as
she could, heading for the anonymous safety of the streets.

The streets soon grew cold, though.  And by then, it was close to 2:00
A.M..  And she was tired.  And what was really lurking in that alley she
had just passed...

A yellow blur passed by her left elbow, and she threw her arm up in an
instantaneous reaction.

"Hey!" she shouted.

The taxi stopped.



The driver was grizzled, gray, and cliched in the extreme.  He even said
"Where to, ma'am?" like the stereotypical cabbie in bad movies was supposed
to.  Given how her evening had been going so far, she wasn't surprised by
this plot twist.

Frowning at the "ma'am", she gave him a curt nod and a cool "Dominion
Hotel," then settled back in her seat to watch the scenery flash by.  It
was too dark to really see anything, though.

Of course, she forgot the most important thing about stereotypical cabbies.
They love to talk to their customers.

"You from around here, ma'am?" was the first question he threw back to her,
looking over the seat to hear her answer.

She sighed forlornly.  The "ma'am"s had to stop.

"It's Lea," she said, slightly pleased by how easily and naturally the name
came off her lips.  Almost like it was really hers.  "And I'm not from
around here."

"Just passing through, then?" he asked.

Even though she intellectually wanted nothing more than to be left alone,
she kept the conversation going.  She had a vague idea why.  "Yeah.  Just
passing through."

"So it's your first time in San Fran?" he asked.

Memories flashed by her mind's eye - a drive from SFO Airport to Marin
County and the house of an exsanguinated man.  The herbal scent of tiny
Chinatown groceries.  "Not really.  I've come through once or twice."

He looked over the seat again.  "If you don't mind me askin', Lea - I get
that right?"

She nodded.

"If you don't mind me askin', Lea, what's got you out here at this time of
night?  Christmas Eve, no less?"

Better to deflect questions than answer them.  "It's Christmas Day by now.
And I could ask the same of you."

"Well, Lea, I get double time for the night shift, and an added bonus for
holidays.  And by the time I'm home, Mrs. Taxi Driver will have gotten the
little cabbies off to bed, and we can get the tree set up without worries
about knee-high spies.  It pays the bills and doesn't really inconvenience
anyone.  'Cept my employer, because he has to pay me the extra that he
wouldn't have to pay a Mohammed or Mordecai."

She smiled slightly at that, though she probably shouldn't have.  It was
just hard to avoid.

"You didn't answer my first question, Lea," he reminded her.

The smile faded as she tried to come up with a safe answer.  "Wandering the
desert," she said at last.  "Searching for the land of milk and honey."

"For forty years?" he asked with a grin.  A religious man.

"Not that long," she replied.  "I hope."

Just then, they pulled up to the front of the hotel.  "How much?" she asked.

"Seven fifty," the cabbie answered, and she passed it to him, then grabbing
her backpack and exiting the car.

"You'll be okay, Lea?" he called out as she made her way to the hotel
entrance.  She nodded, and he pulled away.

By the time she was back in her room, she had realized that she had made
more than enough mistakes that day to ruin everything.  Giving the
Salvation Army some of what little money she had.  Going to Mass.  Talking
to the cabbie as if she was able to live a normal life.  But nothing bad
had happened - no shadows had lurched from the darkness to swallow her
alive.

Must be a miracle, she thought ruefully.

Certainly the season for them.



The Christmas morning sunshine brought the woman from sleep around 7:00
A.M. - she had slept in.

And now, she was in a hurry, because she had a train to catch at 10:00.
There was a nice little city a bit south of here called Los Altos - she
remembered it from her second trip to San Francisco - and she figured that
a day or so of absorbing the small-town atmosphere would do her some good.

So she quickly packed - loading the book, toothbrush, and second pair of
shoes into her backpack - and paid her bill at the front desk.  Since it
was Christmas, she treated herself to a cranberry bagel and coffee at a
nearby Starbucks, then hiked over to the train station.

She bought herself a copy of _The Chronicle_ and began skimming through it
on a nearby bench, though her thoughts were elsewhere.  It was Christmas
Day, after all, and here she was, in a city of millions and completely
alone.  So her overactive mind was dragging up memories of past
Christmases, reminding her of what she was missing.

Her favorite Christmas memory was rolling around in her mind - the one from
the second Christmas with *him.*  The only celebration they had done
together had been dinner at her place and an exchange of small presents -
but they had been so recently reunited, and they had been through so much,
that each minute felt like perfection.  And she had really loved the Marvin
the Martian mug he had given her.  That had been the most perfect thing of
all.

A memory like that was on her forbidden list, but she ignored the
subconscious urge to push it away.  It was Christmas, after all - she
deserved a treat.

Besides, on a day like this, she needed to remember why she was doing this.
Why she was alone on Christmas Day.

For *him*, she thought with a smile.

For her, also.

And for their quest, as well.

But mostly for him.

And for what they had found together.

Remembering that *he* was out there, that one day, maybe, they wouldn't
have to do this anymore, was what she needed to remember right then.  That
one day, they'd do everything she had done this Christmas - but they'd do
it together.

She had that to live for.  She had *him* to live for.

And with that determination rushing through her veins, she stood up and
moved towards her train.

A chill breeze blew around ex-Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully as she
boarded the economy car.  Then it moved up and away to better places.

And, after the train had pulled away, there was almost nothing left of the
woman in San Francisco, California.

For the sake of all that mattered, she was glad.



"'Oh, Hester!...  thou tellest of running a race to a man whose knees are
tottering beneath him!  I must die here!  There is not the strength or
courage left me to venture into the wide, strange world, alone!'

It was the last expression of the despondency of a broken spirit.  He
lacked energy to grasp the better fortune that seemed within his reach.

He repeated the word.

'Alone, Hester!'

'Thou shalt not go alone!' answered she, in a deep whisper.

Then, all was spoken!"
                                            -_The Scarlet Letter_



Comments to EPurSeMouve@goplay.com

Thank you for reading