From: AnnieW177@aol.com
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 10:03:33 EST
Subject: Two for Joy by Annie Wright
Source: direct

Title: Two for Joy
Author: Annie Wright (AnnieW177@aol.com)
Category: post-ep for 'This Is Not Happening'
Spoilers: see above
Rating: I dunno.....between a PG-13 and an R, but quite honestly
if you've ever been outside your house, you've heard these words.
It's nothing terribly shocking, but some may find it offensive. 
Summary: 'Mulder wouldn't have wanted me to mope, to sit and
mourn him. He would have wanted me to continue his work, to prove
to everyone he had been right all along, that Spooky Mulder had
bested them all. But the self-pity was too seductive, I had
become addicted to the luxurious pain of my memories.'
Disclaimer: Not mine but guess what?? At this point I am ready to
stage a military coup and take them away from him, seeing as how
he can't see fit to make them play nice. CC is an sick, sad,
sorry little man, and he has my pity. 
Notes: If CC doesn't have to use a timeline, neither do I. Many
thanks to Meg and Sarah for reading, and to Gillian, whose 
performance moved me to tears. 



     I shivered slightly as I pulled the comforter up to my chin
and snuggled further down into my bed. Once again, I was unable
to sleep. Outside my window, the dawn was breaking, and I watched
as the sky turned from navy to purple to orange. It was going to
be a beautiful day in Washington, or so the weathermen had
predicted, with not a cloud in the sky and the highs in the low
60s. They were predicting a warm spell, not entirely unusual for
Washington in March. They said they were expecting the most
beautiful spring on record.
     And yet I failed to see the beauty in it.
     How is it fair, I wondered, that on the saddest day of my
life, the weather found it fit to be so lovely? Today should be
cold and rainy, to hide the tears that were falling unbidden from
my eyes, should be as black and dark as the sorrow that
threatened to swallow me whole. 
     Today was the day I was to bury Mulder.
     I felt the familiar pricking behind the eyes and couldn't
fight the silent sobs that came as I tried to wrap my mind around
the fact that he was gone. Forever. That never again would I see
the face I held so dear, hear the voice that turned my knees to
jello, wake up in the arms of the man who loved me so tenderly
and completely. 
     I rolled over and curled up as much as I could, wrapping my
arms around my ever-so-slightly swollen abdomen that was the last
remnant of Mulder that I had, and I sobbed as though I would
never stop. I hated myself for crying; Mulder had always said
that I was the stoic. But the thought of him being gone, forever,
was more than I could handle. Never had I hurt so much, no broken =0Cheart h
ad ever been this painful, no loss this acute, no ache
this exquisite. 
     As though on a movie reel, my mind began to play back to me
the last night we had spent together here, in my bed. It was the
night before he left for Oregon, and he had come over here to
surprise me. He had brought me daffodils and Chinese food, and I
can still see the look of apprehension on his face as he
presented me with them, as though he were afraid I would reject
them, and the look of delight when I accepted them with a kiss.
He had fed me kung pao chicken and sesame noodles and then
carried me back to the bedroom, where his kisses burned my flesh
and he spoke my name with reverence, revealing his love for me
with a touch and a breathless whisper.
     We had watched the sun rise that morning, curled up together
under the blankets, his head on my shoulder and his breath warm
and thrilling on my ear. "When I get back from Oregon," he had
said, "we have a long weekend. Let's go somewhere."
     "Where?"
     "I don't care-the beach, the mountains, anywhere. You pick.
While I'm gone you choose and make the arrangements." I felt his
heated mouth on my ear as he kissed it. "We don't spend enough
time together. I want us to have some quality time, without work
or anything to distract us. And by that time you should have your
test results back, and we'll know what's going on."
     I rolled over to face him, smiling. "When are you coming
back?"
     "Hopefully, the day after tomorrow, but I don't know."
     "Mulder, let me come with you." I knew that this was out of
the question, but I felt like I was eleven again, left out of my
brothers' games. 
     "No, Scully." His voice was firm. "I'm not going to risk it.
You're not well, you shouldn't be traveling." He sighed and put
is forehead against mine, his moss colored eyes boring into mine
with an intensity that took my breath away. "I won't lose you
again, Scully. I feel like I've just found you."
     Tears pricked my eyes and I let them fall. "I've been right
here all along, Mulder. And I'm not going anywhere." And as he
kissed my tears away I cried harder, for I had never felt so
loved or so unworthy in my life.
     A knock on the door snapped me out of my reverie, and I
heard my mother's voice. "Dana?" I heard her come in, felt her
weight shift my bed ever so slightly. "Dana."
     "What?" I replied, my voice thick. 
     She reached over and stroked my hair tenderly, the way she
had done when I was a child. "You're going to be okay, Dana."
     "No......I don't think I'll ever be okay again." I hated
myself for my self-pity, and yet it felt good. "How can I be?" I
looked up at my mother, and I saw the tears in her eyes. "How can
 I be okay when I will never see Mulder again?" 
     My mother moved back on the bed and pulled my head into her
lap, where I cried selfish and lonely tears while she stroked my
hair in silence. "It's not fair," I wailed, wiping my nose on the
back of my hand. "It's not fair. We had no time. We were just
starting..........we had just discovered each other. It's not
fair!"
     "Dana, you have to calm down," my mother said. "You have to
get up, take a shower, and go to the funeral. Fox would want you
to be strong, put up a brave face for Mr. Skinner, for Agent
Doggett........I know you don't want to, I know it's hard. But
he's counting on you."
     I sniffled and nodded. "I know, Mom. But I don't know if I
can."
     "You can, honey."
     Slowly, I sat up. My mother reached out and wiped my face
with her thumb, pushing my hair back behind my ear. "Fox loved
you because you were strong. Show him just how strong you are."
She kissed my cheek. "I'll make you some tea while you're in the
shower."
     





     The small crowd at the cemetery was quiet as Mulder's body
was slowly lowered into the ground. I watched, stoically,
fighting back the tears that pricked behind my eyes. To my left,
Agent Doggett sat and watched, his face solemn; to my right, my
mother wiped her eyes and put on a brave face for my benefit.
Slowly, the crowd dispersed, leaving me alone with Mulder's
casket.
     I stood there at the foot of his grave, silent, unable to
move. It was all too final. There was so much left unsaid,
undone, so much that I had to tell him. And yet I couldn't.
Instead I stood in front of the gaping hole, willing myself not
to throw myself in after him. 
     "Dana." Skinner came and stood beside me, his arm brushing
against mine. "I wish I knew what to say."
     "There's nothing to say, sir." My voice sounded strange,
even to me. "He's gone." 
     "I'm sorry." I turned and saw the tears in his eyes, and I
felt the chasm of sorrow within me grow. "I should have done
more."
     "There was nothing more you could do," I replied. 
     "I know." He pulled me into a hug and I could feel his
large, muscular body convulse with silent sobs. "I'm so sorry,
Dana."
     The tears I had been fighting finally came, leaving hot
trails of wetness down my face. "What will I do without him?" I
whispered. "What can I do without him? It's been so long.....I
don't know how to be without him." 
     "You'll manage. Mulder always said you were the strong one."
Skinner pulled back and looked me square in the face. "You will
survive, Dana. You'll make the best of it. That's what he would
want."
     "I know." I pulled away from him and knelt down, picking up
a handful of dirt. I extended my arm over the hole and opened my
hand, listening to the soft sound of the dirt hitting the casket.
"Goodbye, Mulder," I whispered. "Goodbye."




     I folded his shirts carefully, placing each one gently in
the old suitcase Mulder had hidden in his closet. When the closet
was empty, I moved to the dresser and placed jeans and khakis and
t-shirts in the suitcase as well, being careful not to wrinkle
them. With each piece of clothing I packed, I felt like a brick
was being dropped in my stomach.
     When his clothes were all packed, I moved on to his videos.
I knew Frohike would want most of them but there were a few I had
wanted to keep, like 'Plan Nine from Outer Space', which Mulder
had seen 42 times, and 'Caddyshack', which he had insisted I
watch and which I had loved. I set those aside and packed up the
rest of the tapes, marking the box 'Frohike' in my shaky
handwriting. 
     The last thing I cleaned out was his desk. 
     Sitting down, I opened the top drawer and removed the photo
albums, dusty from neglect. I knew I couldn't look through them,
not if I wanted to finish cleaning and get home. I set them aside
as well; I would look at them later, when I had time for the
luxury of crying. There were scraps of paper, names and phone
numbers, many of which were familiar to me, and I kept these as
well, loathe to throw out anything that he had touched. 
     At the bottom of that drawer, I found a small black
jeweler's box and a card with my name on it. With trembling hands
I opened the card. On the front were two small children, a boy
and a girl, and the boy was slipping a soda can tab onto the
girl's finger. On the inside, Mulder had written, "It's not much,
but it's better than a pop top." 
     My hands were shaking violently, and I had to take several
deep breaths before I could open the small box. I took a final
deep breath and pried open it's small, velvety jaws.
     Nestled in a bed of oyster colored satin was a diamond ring,
more beautiful than any I'd ever seen. It sparkled brilliantly,
even in the dim light of the apartment, bringing tears of anguish
and elation to my eyes. With a sad smile, I slipped the ring out
of the box and onto my finger, wondering how I could feel so
happy and at the same time, so incredibly sad. Unable to do
anything else, I went and lay down on Mulder's bed like I had for
so many nights since he'd been gone and cried myself to sleep,
inconsolable.






Five Weeks Later

     
     I rolled over and looked at the clock, it's red numbers
mocking me: 3:34, 3:35, 3:36. I always seemed to look at the
clock at this time every day, and I wondered if it was some sort
of internal alarm telling me it was time to do something. I knew
it wasn't time for Oprah, a fact that irked me; I didn't want to
like Oprah, yet I found myself watching it every day. It served
as a marker, reminding me that there were only 8 hours left in
the day, 8 hours less I would have to live without Mulder. One
day less I would have to live without Mulder. Another day to be
marked off the calendar I kept, counting down the days until I
would join him.
     I hadn't left the apartment in weeks. I left the bed to use
the bathroom and to get the paper, a stack of which lay unread on
my dining room table. It was such an effort to get up, to face
the day, to make myself a cup of tea and a piece of toast.
Instead, I lay in bed all day, counting down the hours until
midnight, and then noon, and then midnight.
     I heard a knock on the door and I chose to ignore it,
burying my head in the blankets. After a few moments of insistent
knocking, I heard the key in the door and then a voice.
     "Agent Scully?"
     I sighed and settled further down into the covers. I heard
him walking around, opening doors and searching rooms, eventually
approaching the bedroom. "Agent Scully?"
     I knew he knew I was there, I could all but see those eyes
looking at me through the blanket like Superman with his x-ray
vision. "What?" I finally mumbled, hoping that an answer would
get him to leave.
     Instead, he came over and yanked the covers off of me. "Get
up."
     "What?" I was incredulous. "Who the hell gave you permission
to come in here and order me around?"
     "If you must know, your mother called me."
     I sighed and buried my face in the pillow. "Tell her I'm
fine, I've been busy, I'll call later."
     "Agent Scully, when was the last time you took a shower?"
His voice was low and recriminating.
     "None of your business," I replied hotly.
     "None of my business? When my partner goes AWOL for three
weeks, I make it my business."
     "I wasn't AWOL, you knew exactly where I was." He was
beginning to irritate me. "Look, Agent Doggett, all I really want
is to be left alone, okay?"
     "No, that's not okay."
     Finally I sat up, annoyed. "What do you want, Agent
Doggett?"
     "I want you to get your sorry ass out of bed and take a
shower." My jaw dropped, but he continued speaking before I could
get a word out. "I want you to put a stop to your gratuitous
pity-party and join the land of the living."
     "Fuck you!" I all but jumped out of the bed and faced him,
my hands on my hips. "How dare you march into my house and order
me to do anything? Who are you to tell me what to do or how to
feel? Get out!" Angry tears threatened to spill, and I was
finding it hard to care. "Leave!"
     "I ain't leaving until you go take a shower and put on some
of your own clothes." He pulled at the collar of the shirt I was
wearing-one of Mulder's oxfords. 
     "Get out!" I heard my voice crack with emotion, and hated
myself for it. 
     "No." Agent Doggett stood there, looking almost placid. "Not
until you take a bath."
     "Maybe I don't want to."
     "Have you smelled yourself?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.
"You look like hell, Agent Scully."
     "What do I have to look good for?"
     "Well, for one thing, it would be nice to see you at work."
     "I can't go back there." 
     "Yes, you can." His icy eyes bored into mine. "You won't.
There's a difference."
     "No, there's not." He was pushing me, I knew it, and I would
be damned if he won. 
     "How long are you going to let this go on, Dana?" I flinched
at his use of my name. "How long are you going to sit here and
mourn? A year? Two? Ten? How long would Mulder have wanted you to
sit and grieve for him?" 
     Damn him. His words cut to the quick. I wiped my eyes with
the sleeve of my shirt as I replied, "It doesn't matter."
     "The hell it doesn't." Doggett handed me a handkerchief.
"You know exactly what he would want. He would want for you to
get up and go to work every morning, to continue his quest and to
stop sitting around moping."
     "Who are you to tell me what Mulder would want? You didn't
even know him." My words were fierce but deep down, I knew he was
right. Mulder wouldn't have wanted me to mope, to sit and mourn
him. He would have wanted me to continue his work, to prove to
everyone he had been right all along, that Spooky Mulder had
bested them all. But the self-pity was too seductive, I had
become addicted to the luxurious pain of my memories. 
     "No, but I know you, and this is what you would tell me if
our places were switched."  His face was a hard mask but his
voice was gentle. "And it's what you would tell Mulder."
     He was right; a virtual stranger, and yet he was correct. I
had kept him at bay and yet he could read me like a book, almost
the same way Mulder had. I sat down on the bed, exhausted. 
"Yes, it is."
     He sat down next to me, the bed sinking slightly under the
weight. I was more surprised by that than I should have been; I
knew from experience that he was a lot stronger, a lot meatier
than he looked. He shifted uncomfortably and they said in his
low, accented voice, "I know what you're feelin', Dana. I know
how good the pain can feel."
     I looked over at him, watched his eyes dart around the room
as if looking for something hidden that only he could see. He
reached into the breast pocket of his trenchcoat and opening his
wallet, handed it to me. 
     "That was my son, Luke."
     The little towheaded boy looked up at me from the picture,
his grin as big as his face. I noticed his eyes were the same
piercing blue as his father's, he had the same straight nose.
"Was?"
     "Yes." 
     "What happened to him?"
     "I was working in New York, in violent crimes. We had
recently cracked a drug ring that, as it turns out, was supplying
a religious cult with drugs." At this, he gave a bitter laugh.
"This religious cult turned out to be Satanists, and they
kidnaped my son and turned him into a ritual sacrifice."
     My hand wandered down to my abdomen, and I prayed silently
that nothing like that would ever happen to my child. "I.....I'm
so sorry, John." His name felt foreign on my tongue, but I
couldn't bring myself to call him anything else. "I had no idea."
     "We searched for him for days...........it felt like years.
I don't think I slept. All I could see when I closed my eyes was
his little face, crying for his mama. When we finally found him,
I was devastated.......for weeks, I refused to talk to anyone. I
sat in my living room watching old home movies, thinking that if
I had only done something different-not gone to work that day or
dropped him off a half hour later-that I could have prevented
it.......thinking that if I had been a better father that none of
this would have happened."  He took a deep breath. "A year later,
my wife divorced me, and that only made it worse. But I know how
it feels......it's like pickin' a scab. It hurts, at
first.......and then it gets to feeling good." 
     I found myself laughing sadly. "Yeah, it does."
     "You gotta fight it, Dana, you can't let it win." He turned
his wintry gaze to me. "It feels so good, but it'll eat your life
away........and you have another life to think about." 
     I met his stare briefly, then looked away. "I know. But it's
so hard.......I don't remember how to live without him." I faced
away from him, hoping to hide my tears. 
     His hand reached out and grasped mine, and I was surprised
not only by this almost intimate contact, but by the warm
softness of his hands. I turned to him, surprised but not
displeased, and he smiled at me. "You're not alone. As long as
you remember him here-" he tapped my forehead, "-and here-" he
tapped my chest "-he's with you." He paused, tilting his head
towards the bathroom. "Now you go get cleaned up." I must have
looked doubtful because he raised his eyebrows at me. "The first
step is the hardest. But it's the most worth it."
     I extracted my hand from his grasp and walked towards my
bathroom, and when I reached the door I stopped and turned to
him. "Thank you, John. I know I haven't been the easiest person
to work with but........" I trailed off, at a loss. "I appreciate
it."
     He nodded silently, accepting my thanks. And for a moment,
it was enough.



     I had forgotten how warm April in DC could be, how colorful
everything seemed. I felt like Dorothy having just opened the
door to Oz, everything seemed to be so bright, so vivid. Even the
grass just beginning to grow over the mud of Mulder's grave
seemed greener. 
     Silently, I leaned over and placed the flowers I had bought
up against his headstone. John had smiled at my choice of
flowers-bachelor's buttons and forget-me-nots. I had chosen them
because of their incredible color, but it was Agent Doggett who
pointed out to me that the flowers I had chosen were stunningly
appropriate, at least in name. He had driven me to the cemetery,
but had left me to walk to Mulder's grave alone. At the moment he
stood about 10 feet away, watching me but pretending he wasn't. 
     "I miss you, Mulder," I said, reaching over and touching the
headstone. "I don't know how I'm gonna do this without you, but
uh......you haven't left me much of a choice here." I took a deep
breath. "I never got to tell you this, but, uh........" my voice
wavered and I could feel the tears start once more, "I love you.
More than anyone or anything else. And I'm sorry that I wasn't
brave enough to tell you when you were alive. But I'm going to
continue with the X-Files, like I believe you would want me to.
I'm going to find the people that took you from me and I am going
to show them that you may be gone, but your work lives on in
me......and in our child." I wiped my face with the back of my
hand, glad I hadn't put any makeup on. "I'm going to make sure
that out child knows just how brave it's father was, how strong
and how smart.......and just how much I loved him. Because I do,
Mulder.......I love you with every fiber of my being. And I will
until the day I die."  I reached into my pocket and pulled out a
small stone, perching it on top of Mulder's headstone. 
     "Mulder's gonna need a bigger headstone if everyone who
comes by leaves a rock." John was behind me all of a sudden, his
voice startling me. 
     "I don't think he'll have all that many
visitors.......probably just myself, maybe Skinner." I turned to
him. "Sad.......for a man who did so much good, there aren't many
people left to remember it."
     We stood in silence, watching the world continue on as we
stood, motionless, in front of this grave. Beside me I heard John
give a chuckle, and I turned to him. "Something amusing?"
     "Those two blackbirds over there.......I think there's a
rhyme about them," he replied, motioning to two blackbirds
perched on a split-rail fence. 
     "I'm not familiar with it."
     "I think it was an old children's verse, a kind of
premonitory game. One meant sorrow, and two meant joy." He looked
over at me. "Two for joy." 
     We turned to watch the birds, and they were soon joined by a
third. They sat on the top rail of the fence and stared at us,
looking at us like we were looking at them.
     "What does three of them mean?" I asked, not really
expecting him to know.
     He smiled, a big smile that lit up his face. "Three for a
girl."
     No sooner had he said that than the birds flew away,
gracefully sweeping past us as in  greeting. I watched them fly
away until they were but dots on the horizon, my hand on my
abdomen and a smile on my face.