Life While They Live It Part IV- ...And Sacred Memory by. Paul Wartenberg COPYRIGHT: Once again, let me state for the record that I am poor. I am not making money off this. Mulder, Scully, and additional characters are owned by Chris Carter and Co., and I hope they know that it would be very nice if they didn't sue me for this. RATING: Romance, but nothing naughty. There is vulgarity, but it's Scully saying most of it so we're cool about it, right?...oh, and hopefully a good-sized serving of humor (at least it was funny when I wrote it...) ;-) SUMMARY: Post-Gethsemane. What if Mulder DID commit suicide? What if Scully's cancer was incurable? I know, I know, that doesn't jibe with Redux, Redux II and most of season 5. Then what could possibly explain why Scully is back in high school?... YET ANOTHER CONTINUITY ERROR: It now seems, re: Christmas Carol, that the Scullys raised their Uber!kids in San Diego instead of Annapolis. So here's how it goes for this story: most of their youthful years were spent in San Diego, but the family got transferred to Annapolis both as Capt. Scully received an assignment at the naval base there and as Bill enrolled at the Academy. So there. OH, AND THANKS: to many of the people who have e-mailed me with their compliments on the story so far and who were patient as I finished this part. FINALLY!... Canceled from Heaven and sacred memory Nameless in dark oblivion, let them dwell -- Paradise Lost Book 6, John Milton Annapolis The Pier Apr.3, 1982 Night The voices remained calm even as the debate became heated. Scully did nothing to add to it, instead focusing her efforts on loosening the bonds securing her to the chair. Through it all, Jeremiah Smith, bound as much as she was, stared at her with remote, composed understanding. One of the committee members directly confronted the Smoking Man. "How do you know her? And what do you mean by `Agent' Scully?" He blew out a cloud of smoke, never flinching. "Like I said, a little spy. A joke, if you will." "Humor from you cannot be taken lightly," the Italian scowled. "She's a friend of Mulder's. I believe he has contacted her within the time he has returned from his Oxford studies. Interesting, if she had been warned by him of this meeting, it would mean there is a leak..." Most of the committee members stared in shock or anger at their fellow conspirators. This seemed to confirm the fears their rogue cataloger had raised earlier about dissenting voices within their group... Except for one, the Second Man who spoke earlier when Scully returned to consciousness. His staring at her had disquieted her then and alarmed her now. "What can we do with her, then?" "The obvious choice is to remove her." The Italian had always preferred such direct problem- solving. "Nothing is that simple," one of the other committee members whispered. "There's nothing wrong with just...letting her disappear." The Second Man smiled just slightly, but just enough to make her skin crawl. "It would be..such a waste to just...toss her away. I can find a...few projects to which..." "No." Another committee member, one with a French accent, stood firm on that point. "If she's here with others, there would be questions, investigations. The possibility of even one witness..." "Not to mention Mulder's obvious hand behind all this." CancerMan breathed deep with his cigarette. "He would re-double his efforts, and any control we have on him now..." "He's just a boy." The Smoking Man smiled. "Mulder is my creation. Turning out the way I...we wanted more quickly than I had hoped. But this...any loss of an ally...like her would shatter his self-control, and shatter our control as well..." "There is a way." Jeremiah Smith's whisper silenced the room. CancerMan moved closely to him. "I believe our cataloger here has an offer to make." Jeremiah didn't look at him. "My life has no value, concerning the lack of interest in my earlier plea for humanity..." "This is no time to restate your hopeless agenda..." the Italian interrupted. Jeremiah stared at Scully, seeing something that told him he couldn't refuse this. "This is a perfect moment to show my concerns for others. Especially for this innocent." CancerMan simply smiled. "I'm not so sure on that matter..." "This is my offer. I can assure she will not reveal anything of this night, in return for my obedience." "Your obedience we no longer value nor desire." "Very well then. My betrayal as well. Of the others who stand with me." CancerMan nodded to the others who nodded back. "Your assurance will be in the form of?..." "As you know, we have...healing abilities. I can, perhaps, treat her memory as a wound, sealing a part of it as I would seal a cut skin." "So all recent events of her life can be erased by this...healing?" "No, not erased. Sealed. Protected from her conscious, protected also from her subconscious. I can keep most forms of memory regression such as hypnosis from working on her, but..." "But?" Jeremiah Smith paused, weighing his options. "No, it would require a great traumatic event, which would shatter all sanity and drown her memories forever, or require another Healer to directly work on her mind. You need only make sure the others capable of such skills are informed not to help her regain these memories." The Smoking Man rolled his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. "Very good. And?..." "In return I will reveal all I know of the others who have spoken their...concerns to me. Ones you would like to know." The Italian nodded toward Scully. "You would reveal all that just to save the life of this...girl?..." "Yes." The Smoking Man sought to have all options covered. "You will remove all images Scully has seen here. Leaving no trace of this night, letting her resume her life as a normal teenage girl..." "Yes." "And no memories of her friend Fox Mulder." Jeremiah noticed the shocked stare in Scully eyes, and glanced away toward CancerMan's calm expression. "Yes. Even that." "What will this do?" The Second Man queried, almost angered as he noticed something slip through his grasp. "I thought you said..." "It will leave Mulder with one fewer ally here. One more person who will turn away in his hour of need, with no mysteries or surprises to suggest our hand in this. Giving us a better opportunity to mold him to our purposes." Scully struggled harder against her bonds. Mulder, she thought now of nothing else. I have to warn Mulder... The sound of chains distracted her. She watched as the bonds around Jeremiah Smith's wrists fell free. "Thank you," he whispered. "I do ask that we be alone. I cannot afford any outside distractions as I enter her mind. When I have finished you can test her and make yourselves content with my effort." "Very well." CancerMan put out his cigarette and nodded to the others, who silently moved to the door. "And in the meantime, I recommend no more emergency meetings such as this. An open location like this, without proper security...incidents like this would be inevitable." "Agreed. We must move this to New York at our earliest convenience..." The Italian closed the door, leaving Scully with Jeremiah. He moved quietly, reaching out behind the chair to loosen her bonds. Scully twisted her arms, anxious to remove them, desperate to find an escape. "I hope they haven't hurt you too severely," the cataloger whispered as he finally loosened the last knot, letting her practically leap from the chair. "Look, we've got to get out of here," Scully whispered, trying to push her way past him. The door obviously wouldn't be the right way out, perhaps if she could squeeze her way through one of the windows... His strong hands seized her firmly by the shoulders. "Miss Scully...I'm afraid there's only one way for you to leave here..." "Jeremiah." Scully took a moment to consider her words. "Do you know who I am?" "You are Dana Katherine Scully," he nodded. "There is something about you...yes, I can see that now. You have a knowledge of future events..." "Yes, I do. We have met before, just as I have met the man with the cigarettes. And I can tell you, these people can't be trusted. They'll break their deal with you without thinking twice..." "I know." The man calmly smiled, in a way Scully likened to a lamb being led to slaughter. "But what I will tell them will provide enough distractions for now, and will disrupt and hopefully delay more than one project. While I may betray some, you and I can take comfort in the fact there are others beyond my knowledge who will oppose their agenda and will continue the struggle." "But you don't have to do this," she growled, keeping it under her breath, knowing full well an audience stood on the other side of the door. "Why keep your word to those who won't keep theirs?" "Because I would like to maintain some personal sense of honor." His smile remained constant. "And...I think I can get away with a loophole or two..." "This won't work. I won't let it. Dammit, I have to get out of here to warn Mulder!..." "I can assure you, Miss Scully, this is the only way out of this for you. As for Mulder, well..." He placed both hands over Scully's ears, letting his palms rest on her cheeks. "All you have to do is remember the magic words..." Scully tried to struggle against Jeremiah's strong hands, thinking one last desperate thought. Mulder... "Gah!" Scully bounced her head from the patio table, eyes wide open as she glanced about the pier. "How the hell did I get here?" she growled under her breath. She stood from the table and staggered close to the restaurant, catching herself as she moved against the tide of people swarming through the entranceway. She got close to a darkened window, giving her a good chance to catch her reflection. She saw little wrong with her, nothing wrong with an eighteen-year-old girl like her. Except... "What the hell happened to my hair?!" she nearly shrieked, picking at the now-straight strands and wondering why she couldn't even remember this event in her life. Scully took a moment to reflect on the wheres, whos, whys and whens. She knew the where, since she had been to the pier enough times to know which buildings still had damage from her previous night jaunts. She knew the when, since this felt like a Saturday night. She knew the who, Dana Katherine Scully, good Catholic girl and Par-Tay mistress extraodinare. The why, however, took some massive grey cell activity... Her memories of the weekend hinged on nothing more than the need to go out this night and break most if not all of the state of Maryland's criminal code. Something about Marcus, something about her boyfriend...no, wait, ex-boyfriend, since she remembered this bit about him and Andrea...but how did she find out about that?... That was it, then. Sylvia...oh THAT bit she remembered. Sylvia was keen on getting her some poor sucker to take her to the prom. Well, Scully sighed to herself, I might have to go find some German beer and get into the proper mind set... Except, when did she ever crave German beer?... "There you are!" A tall, imposing figure in white Navy dress stormed up to her. An older brother is usually too hard to forget. Bill wrapped one arm around her with a look of genuine concern. "Red, they're about ready to serve the buffalo wings. Where've you been?" "Bill?" Scully tried her best to remember the specifics of the past few hours. Apparently, she must have found earlier some German beer to establish her mind set for this evening. "I guess I needed some fresh air...clear my head a little." "Did it work?" "...No..." "Then maybe some spicy buffalo wings will do it for ya!" Grinning wickedly, her older brother dragged her back toward Armadillos. "By the way, we're going to hafta find a bottle of tabasco sauce so I can show that drinking trick to Sylvia..." Scully's sense of deja vu was unshakeable. For some reason, she knew she had met Keith before although she couldn't remember where. Also for some reason, she knew he had already bored her to tears the last time around, whenever that was. The buffalo wings did a lot to settle her stomach, and as she joked and bantered with her brother and her best friend her mind settled a bit as well. Any thoughts she had that confused her understanding of her world had faded away. Even her new hairstyle seemed somewhat acceptable, yet another impulse in the wake of her ending one relationship and quest for a new one. Poor Keith, in the meantime noticing Scully paying little or no attention to him, had thankfully begun flirting with this cute blonde sitting at the table behind him. That gave Scully more time to demonstrate to Sylvia the drinking trick with the tabasco. She guzzled her fifth beer mug with gusto, as the surrounding Midshipmen pounded their tables like Vikings in salute to her valiant effort to empty another glass. A throaty cheer went up throughout Armadillos as she slammed the mug down and gasped for breath. "Excuse me." An imposing figure with a serious necktie stood next to the table, staring straight at this petite red-headed beer consumer. "I've just noticed you ordered about five more beer mugs from the waitress, young lady." "Ah." Scully took a moment to do the tabasco trick, clearing her head of the imbibing influences of the alcohol just consumed. "Thank you for the compliment of being young, but I assure you I'm not much of a lady right now..." "Indeed. But to see how young you really are, I'd like to see your ID..." Oops. Sylvia grimaced, her expression thankfully missed by the restaurant manager whose attention was fully on Scully. Dana grimaced back, but calmly reached into her pocket and pulled out her ID. "I hope I can help in your inquiries, mister police officer sir..." The manager stared at the photo and then stared at the birth date and other pertinent information. "Perhaps you might be born this year," he noted, tapping it with one hand against his other thumb. "But I don't think you were born a male..." Excessive oops. Scully's eyes opened wide with shock. Someone mixed up her fake ID with her brother Charles'...Damn, poor Charlie was all she could think at that moment. His ID must not be impressing any of the guys at the nearby 7-11... "Uh, must be a typo, officer sir..." "A typo." The manager tossed the ID into Scully's lap. "I strongly suggest your table leave a hefty tip for the waitress and that you kindly enjoy our restaurant at a later date...with the proper ID, of course..." "Agreed," Bill smiled, nodding to the manager as he stood and dug into his pocket for his wallet. "Sylvia, Keith, time to go..." "Uh," his Middie compadre pointed to the blonde smiling behind him. "Bill, if you don't mind, I'd like to catch up later with you guys..." "All right. But stick to the curfew, spud." Her brother threw a wad of bills on the table as a tip, and with a confident smile calmly dragged his sister by her elbow. Leaning in close as they stepped closer to the register, he whispered with a severe snarl, "Dammit, Red, I thought I could trust you to get a proper fake ID!..." "Hey, it was your guy I went to, Ensign Expendable!..." "Guys," Sylvia whispered, leaning in to give her two cents. "Let's just pay here and go get kicked out of some other joint, okay?..." The siblings sighed with a synchronous effort, and Dana fished out a few dollars to help her older brother pay off the full tab. With that paid, Sylvia yanked on Scully's sleeve, pulling her toward the front door, which as usual was blocked by a wave of people eagerly staring at the newly emptied table. Her friend's yanking didn't do Scully much good in getting through the crowd, especially when she slammed at half-speed into this older gentleman, impeccably dressed as though he just left a meeting. It actually wasn't her fault, mostly. It seemed the guy was so eager to move he practically stepped into her path at the worst possible moment. "Excuse me," the man noted with more bemusement than anger, his cigarette breath hitting Scully full in the face. "In a bit of a rush, are we?" Scully didn't have much time to answer the man before Sylvia dragged her off through the crowd. The man simply sighed, turned away, and pulled another cigarette from his pack, placing it to his lips before reaching for his lighter. It seemed, as was hoped, that... A hand tapped him on the elbow, and he turned to see Scully standing there with a dollar bill in her hand. "Mister. This is for the Life Savers. I strongly suggest getting the Pep-O-Mint, dude." The Smoking Man calmly took the dollar from the teenager, who grinned wickedly before running off to catch up to her friends. "Suggestion noted, young lady. Enjoy the rest of your life..." Three hours later "We're being followed." Sylvia was having a hard enough time keeping the car driving in a straight path to notice. "What say, Dana?" The rest of the night had fared badly, at least in Sylvia's opinion. It didn't matter that Dana had broken her earlier promise to drive Sylvia's car, but that Dana remained defiantly sober even though she had drunk more than she had. What made it worse was that Dana was now having more fun than she was, and somehow that ticked Sylvia off to no end. Sylvia rarely found herself amazed by Scully's ability to change from loyal daughter to rebellious partygoer, but this time it was different. The night had started with an oddly sober Dana measuring herself for a long night. But as soon as they ran into her older brother and she ran off for that hour, Dana came back transformed. Any hint of maturity that existed since Friday disappeared behind a guise of an immature young girl partying like there was no tomorrow. The best example was when they got to Bill's favorite hangout, Jim A's. Sylvia had let Bill in on her plans for finding Dana a prom date, and he knew a few Midshipmen buddies who might qualify for the task. Sylvia and Dana worked their way to the pool tables while Bill hunted down some of his classmates and sent them one at a time to Sylvia for the proper intros to Dana. Dana proceeded gleefully to make the night as hard as possible for Sylvia's plans. She mercilessly flirted, taunted, and ultimately humiliated every plebe sent their way. Some of the boys had potential, and Dana did show slight interest in them. The rest she simply beat over game after game of billiards and retort after retort in the verbal sparring the boys dared to start with her. It's her damn interest in physics, Sylvia once noted when Scully ricocheted three balls at one time into three different pockets, a shot that promptly sent one plebe back to the bar in tears. You'd think Einstein would make as good a hustler as Dana... Her lack of interest in the plebes, however, that Sylvia couldn't figure. While Dana said she didn't want to date those working in her "family's business," she still should have known in this town the eligible guys wear white outfits and crewcuts more often than not. It was like Scully already had in mind someone, some ideal to which she measured all the victims sent her way. If they only figured out that ideal, the whole thing could get sewn up and finalized. Or maybe, she tasked herself, you liked it when you played the bad girl while Dana acted so responsibly. Now that the shoe's on the other foot, you're upset that Red's having all the fun... It got worse the more Scully drank. The problem was the more she drank, the more she did her tabasco trick and the more it made her maddingly sober. The only one to keep up with her pint for pint was her brother, and none the plebes could get past their second mugs. Sylvia gave up after the fifth beer and the ninth attempt to keep the tabasco down. Finally, when Bill failed to find any more victims, he shrugged his shoulders and said he had to make it back for curfew. Sneaking off with his Middies, he tapped Dana on the shoulder and growled at her to call it a night. His sister promptly saluted and dragged her friend back to her car. "I said, we're being followed," Dana growled, scrunching her head below the front seat as though hiding there would help. "The same car's been keeping four lengths distance from us ever since we left Jim A's." "Really?" "Yeah. Another car's been keeping three lengths distance on the first car." "Damn." Sylvia tried glancing at the rear view mirror, but her grip on the steering wheel seemed to slip a bit and the yellow stripes on the road suddenly went in a diagonal pattern. She steadied the wheel and wondered why the tabasco hadn't worked on her yet. "Seems like you figured this out in driving school, or what?" "Nah." Scully's scowl came more from her troubled thoughts than from the shadowing cars. "Almost like instinct." "Damn Scully instinct," Sylvia muttered under her breath, but she didn't have much else to say before the lights behind their car got brighter. Scully's face turned pale and she turned about in her seat, thankful for the seat belts. "Hold on, Sylvia! They're gonna ram...!" The car jolted forward as the sound of grinding metal echoed throughout the interior. Her grip on the wheel remained steady but the car itself seemed to tilt in a dangerous direction, her senses still out of whack from one too many beers. "Get off the road! Get off the road!" Scully screamed, but Sylvia didn't need much encouragement. A side entrance to an alleyway behind a group of stores provided a decent exit point, and she hit the brakes hard as the car swerved hard into the dark corner of the alley behind a deserted grocery store. She swerved to miss a dumpster and slammed on the brakes. Bright car lights flooded the back window as the car that ran them off the road pulled in close. "Aw, hell," Dana gasped, and struggled with her belt lock. Shadowy figures moved through the light and surrounded the car. Something hard rattled against the glass next to Sylvia, and she turned to see cracks in the driver's window. A sudden shattering on Dana's side brought out screams from both the girls. Hands reached through the broken glass, one seizing Scully while the other pawed for the door handle. A third one clicked open her seat belt and held her down. When the passenger door finally swung open, Scully was dragged from her seat. She stared up and saw through the bright car lights a twisted, patched face. Behind her, Sylvia screamed as other figures reached through the car to grab her. Jacob, his nose taped down and showing the scars left by Scully's destruction and the doctor's resetting, growled as he tossed Scully against Barry, who grunted as always and placed both hands on her shoulders. "Okay, bitch. Fun time's just starting." The Choir Boys. Scully did her best to shove her fear down tight into her stomach. "A fun time? Gee, Jacob, get a better screenwriter." "You Scullys." His sneer was all the more menacing with that broken nose. "Arrogant as hell..." Giggles mixed with screams as two of the Choir Boys, Daniel and Vince, dragged Sylvia from the car and pushed her against its side. Their intentions were too damn obvious. "Leave her out of this, dammit!" Scully screamed as she pulled against Barry's grip. She had the feeling she was the reason they were here, although for the life of her she couldn't remember why. She could tell, in Jacob's eyes, that he had something to prove, some retribution to exact. "Guys." Jacob's order silenced the two. "Just hold her. Let's do this one at a time." "Just try," Dana snarled her best, but her voice cracked just slightly, enough to let a hint of fear escape. Jacob simply smiled back, letting go of the rusted chain he had wrapped around his wrist. He pulled something small from his pocket and thrust it forward in his hand, letting the light catch the blade as it popped free. "Considering what happened to my nose, bitch..." He pushed the switchblade to her cheek as he held her chin with his other hand. "There's an old trick about how you mark a girlie so you know she's a slut..." Tire screeching interrupted them. They all turned as the second following car finally pulled up, off to the side. A tall stranger in a trench coat with something in his right hand rose from the car and stepped toward the scene. "This ain't your place, man!" Jacob shouted out, turning away from her and toward the stranger. "This doesn't concern you!" "Oh, but I think it does." Mulder stepped out of the shadows, staring intently at Scully with a recognition she couldn't understand. "You stay, you die." Jacob waved his switchblade at him. "I think you need a few lessons in pain, man..." "I think you need a dialogue coach, man." Mulder dropped his right arm down, letting something long and rusted slide out from underneath the trench coat sleeve. "And I think you need to understand that your knife doesn't have the reach my crow bar has." Jacob growled, tired at being shown up like this. He glanced at Daniel and Vince, seeing if any of them would make a distraction. Daniel nodded back, and promptly rushed Mulder. Mulder turned quickly, not swinging with the crow bar but dodging whatever blow Daniel sought to deliver. He lifted up one leg, tripping his attacker who sprawled to the ground. Jacob moved in at the same time, feinting with a few martial art moves before swinging in low with the switchblade. Mulder waited for that, though, letting Jacob pull his fakes and waiting for the hand holding the blade. When the blade showed, he swung with the crow bar. Metal ran into flesh and bone. Jacob's switchblade didn't come close to Mulder as the bar slammed into the Choir Boy's wrist, snapping it. The blade fell as the pain shot up the teen's arm. Another sudden scream of pain echoed through the alley, and Mulder turned in Scully's direction, fearing the worst. Instead, he saw the bulky teen that had held her was now writhing in pain. Bill, who for better and for worse accepted his responsibilities as the older brother, took it upon himself to teach Dana a few special fighting moves, especially after the family moved to the East Coast and Scully began her forays into the New York night scene. He also decided to reveal the one secret no boy wanted a girl to know: the best place to land a blow within the lower abdomen area, and it wasn't where most people think it is. Bill, of course being the older brother, had Scully try it out on Charles. The little brother hasn't given Bill a Christmas present since. Scully stood over Barry, grateful for once about having an older brother. She turned in time to see Mulder staring intensely at her, unaware of... "Watch out!" He turned, crow bar at the ready, a short end sticking out to keep a firm grip. Daniel stopped in his footsteps, just a few inches away from landing a fist on Mulder. They stood there, facing each other, until Daniel raised both hands. "Let go of her, Vince." Vince shoved Sylvia, sending her to the ground. Daniel turned to Jacob, who had risen to his feet but was still bent over in pain, cradling his shattered arm in his good one. "Let's go, man. While we still have our body parts." Jacob glanced up, not at Mulder but at Scully. Scully stared back, unwilling to cower. "Just how far do you want to take this?" she whispered. The Choir Boy simply stared, his anger and wounded pride feeding off the other. Someone like him never wants to back down, never wants to walk away, never wants to lose. Not to anyone. Not to her. "C'mon," Daniel hissed, grabbing his compadre by his good shoulder. "No," Scully added, stepping toward them, reaching down to pick up Jacob's chain. "I want to know. How far are you going to take this?" "I'll kill you if I have to," the leader of Choir Boys whispered. Mulder made a move toward him, but Scully raised a hand. "Then I'll die," she whispered right back, handing to Daniel the chain. "But I know you're smart. Smart enough to know just how long you can enjoy such a small victory before they strap you down and light you up, you son-of-a-bitch. Am I really worth it? Because that's how far this can really go, if you want it to." Jacob kept glaring, but the light of his anger dimmed some in his eyes. The pride, though, still burned fiercely. He stumbled behind Daniel as they returned to their car. Barry, having regained his footing but walked now with a noticeable limp, groaned as he reached down to secure Jacob's knife and grimaced at Scully as he walked past her. Scully went to her friend and helped her off the ground as they watched the Choir Boys drive off. "What was that all about?" Scully nodded into the distance at the fading car lights. Sylvia squinted at her friend. "You broke his nose and beat them all senseless." Scully arched both eyebrows, her mind drawing a blank. She had no reason to disbelieve her friend, and it would explain Jacob's anger, so if she had done that... She did her best to recover from that revelation. "Oh. I guess I should have expected this response, then." "This? This was the easiest thing they could have done. From now on check your locker for explosives." Sylvia turned to this rescuer of theirs and gave him the once-over. "And who might our dashing young man be, eh?" Mulder simply nodded to the blonde and stared intently at the redhead. "You okay, Scully?" Scully stared back. The young man stood tall, with broad shoulders yet there was a hint of a slim build under that trench coat. The long hair smoothed down his long neck, which reached up to a chiseled chin and a soft face. And those puppy dog eyes... If she had ever seen this man before, she would have remembered. So how did he know her?... "Oh, um, I'm fine, um..." Sylvia circled behind her friend to lean in for a whisper, taking a moment as this damn good- looking young man checked her car's damage. "You KNOW him?" Scully shrugged her shoulders, doing her best to think through her mind's fog. "Ah, well..." The blonde started pushing her toward Mulder. "Introduce us, introduce us!..." "Ah, all right, all right." Scully made eye contact with him and then pointed to her friend. "This is my good friend Sylvia." "Charmed," she smiled, reaching over with the back of her hand outstretched, ladylike. He glared at the hand, smirking as he reached up and slapped her palm in a pathetic high-five attempt. "Call me Mulder." "Got a first name, Mulder?" He glared disdainfully at Sylvia before rolling his eyes down to Scully with a look that said he didn't want to answer that. He finally muttered a feeble "No, no first name at all." Scully grimaced back at him, still unable to place a face to that name. Considering the trench coat the man wore, she impulsively reached her hands inside the coat. Mulder's half-hearted protests went unheeded as she felt the inside linings of the coat, finding a large, lumpish booklet in one pocket. Pulling it out, she recognized a passport from her earlier years between Japan and San Diego and all those Mediterranean vacations. Turning her shoulders to keep Mulder from grabbing it back, she flipped it open. "It says here his first name is...Fox." "Scully!" Mulder finally succeeded in getting back his passport, but the damage was done. "Ooooh, Fox." Sylvia's grin widened the more Mulder's discomfort became noticeable. "Relax, girl." Scully turned back to face him with an accepting smile. "It's probably a family name, maybe he's got some Native blood in him. And it's obvious he doesn't like it. Right...Mulder?" When Mulder gratefully smiled back at her, and when it was obvious Dana wasn't going to ridicule and humiliate this one, Sylvia's mind made a logical conclusion and swiftly made plans. "Oh, okay. Um, how's the damage to my car?" "Oh. Just some shattered glass here on the passenger side, but the driver side seems cracked so it'll need a replacement too." The young man leaned back to get a good look at the rear bumper. "Of course, I'm not sure how many dents were on the rear before you got prodded off the road." "Great." Sylvia circled the car. "Can you help us get it to a repair shop? Like, follow us there so I can drop it off?" "Yeah, if you're asking me to take you two back home, I think I can do that." He looked at Scully as he stepped backward toward his car. "You coming, Scully?" Dana stared at him, still unable to fathom his familiarity with her. He seemed so relaxed toward her, something strangers rarely do when they meet someone new. He did know her, but from where?... "Um, let me ride with Syl. We gotta, um, you know. Girl talk." "Oh." He shrugged and turned toward his car. Dana swept out the glass that piled up on her seat and stared forward as her friend started up her car and reversed it back onto the road. Mulder's car followed carefully close behind. It wasn't until they got to the repair shop that she finally spoke. "Sylvia. What are you planning?" "What makes you think I'm planning something?" Scully glared at her as they sat there in the parking lot, Mulder's car idling in the distance. "Dana!" Sylvia's grin was uncontrollable. "Don't tell me you're not interested..." "Sylvia, I..." "He saved our lives. He's a good guy. He knows you. He's cute as hell!" Her friend banged her hand on the dashboard. "Go for it, girl!" Scully listened to her friend's arguments and knew she was right, that he seemed to be a good guy and that he WAS cute as hell. But the fact that he knew her gnawed at her the wrong way. She started to bring up her concerns but then she noticed the worried look creeping into Sylvia's smile. Scully sighed. She knew Sylvia was eager to go to the prom, and that she was the only way to share the expenses that Sylvia and Burwood otherwise couldn't afford. She also knew she had wasted the whole evening in that regard, sending away mostly the jerks she couldn't stand but also the poor souls she didn't even try to meet. Was it really that important to get a date? She thought to herself. Even if it's just for one night?... Mulder's face appeared through the shattered opening on Scully's side. "Everything okay?" "Yeah, we'll just leave it here." Sylvia got out from the driver's side. "I'll put in a call Monday morning. Let's go, Red." Mulder leaned in to whisper to Scully as they walked to his car. "Do you like it when people use nicknames like that?" "Unlike you?" Scully smirked back at him as she took a minute to answer. "She's my friend. It's okay. As long as I know they're not being rude about it. I take it a lot of kids were rude about the Fox thing." "A little." He opened the passenger door to the back, offering the full limo service for the evening. Sylvia piled in from the other side, but waved to Scully to take the front seat. "Um," Dana muttered, opening the front passenger door for herself. "I'll sit up here, okay?" "Okay," Mulder grinned, walking to the driver's side. "But in the immortal words of Nicholas Cage, if anyone attacks the car, save the radio..." Scully scowled. "Who's Nicholas Cage?" He paused. "Oh, right. That movie's not out yet. My mistake." Scully glared at him, her unsettled feelings stirring in the back of her mind as she got in the car. The ride to Sylvia's went well, at least in Sylvia's perspective. The whole ride back, she pestered Mulder with questions about his background, where he came from, why he was here, why he followed them, his favorite color, and so on. Mulder, for his part, didn't answer too many of them. The vibes he was getting from Scully indicated that she was keeping her distance for some reason. He assumed she didn't want her friends to know about him, that she wanted to keep their knowledge of future events to as few people as possible. He had called Mrs. Scully to find that Dana had gone out for the night, and had spent the rest of the evening searching the town's hot spots for her. He finally caught up to her at Jim A's, but saw she and a friend were hanging out with her older brother Bill. Mulder had met Bill once before, during the discovery of Scully's cancer, and that meeting went about as smoothly as the Titanic crossing**. Even though this was now the past and Bill wouldn't know him, Mulder knew he wasn't going to get along with the elder sibling. So he waited. When Scully and Sylvia finally left, he tagged along in his car, keeping a respectful distance. He wasn't expecting another car to pull out and get between his car and theirs. When that car slammed into Sylvia's, Mulder knew something was wrong and stopped in the distance, taking the time to grab the crow bar from his trunk. He didn't know why those punks attacked Scully, and he was going to have to straighten it out with her later. "No, really, where did you and Scully meet?" Sylvia was doing her best to get all the juicy details. Mulder glanced at his partner. "You never told her, I take it?" Scully shook her head, grateful that he finally acknowledged this mystery. "Well," he grinned. "I guess it's too embarrassing. I'll let her tell it." "Okay." Sylvia turned to her friend. Scully glared back at her. "Later." She whimpered like a lost puppy. "I mean it, Sylvia, not now." The redhead pointed to a house coming up on the left. "Here you go." "This one?" Mulder stopped his car in front of the house. "See ya at Mass, Sylvia," Scully nodded, giving her the double arched-eyebrow stare that suggested she leave before anything more embarrassing happened. Her friend growled and jumped out from the back seat. She strolled up to the driver's window and rapped on it. Mulder lowered the glass and she leaned in. "By the way, did you know that our school's prom is coming up?" Scully dropped her head into her hands. Mulder did his best to look confused. "No, I...did not know that." "Uh-uh. And Dana, poor Dana here, had been jilted by her stupid boorish ex-boyfriend." Mulder pondered that, trying to picture Jack Willis or Ed Jerse in the role of boorish ex-boyfriend. "So now she's got no one to take her, well, no one as nice as you." His eyes now opened wide with shock, but only for a moment. "Oh. Ah, I'll uh, keep that in mind..." "Good night, Sylvia," Scully hissed her friend's name, ever so politely suggesting that she shut up. Sylvia smiled back and strolled to her house, confident she had done her good deed for the night. Scully paused before shrugging her shoulders. "Sorry about that..." "That's okay." Mulder seemed to relax now. "I guess now we can talk." "I guess we can." She paused again. "What are you doing here?" "Well, I went to take care of a few things, especially at our old headquarters." Mulder shifted the car to Drive and accelerated down the road. "Oh, and I got a surprise, considering Frohike..." "It's going to be a surprise, because...because I don't know who you are." Mulder was tempted to hit the brakes. "What?" Scully stared at him. "Who ARE you?" He slowed the car down, and stared at her. A lot of thoughts bounced through his head, none of them any good. He glanced into her eyes, and even in the faint light of the dashboard he could see nothing of the Scully he knew. He swerved the car and revved the engine. Thankfully, at that time of night there was little traffic to worry about. "We have to talk." "I thought you were going to take me home." Scully glanced up at the roadside hotel, her nervousness building. "It's not what you think." Mulder pulled the key from the ignition and opened the door. He glanced over his shoulder as he stepped out. "Are you coming?" "Why are we here?" He paused. Her reversal from the Scully he knew from the future to the Scully of her youth was unsettling to say the least. Could it be the effects of the time travel were temporary, that his Scully had returned to the future without him? Did her interactions with those she knew from this time overwhelm her, submerging her true identity in order to survive here? "There are things I need to tell you." "What about?" She stepped slowly from her side of the car, but kept her distance from him. "About what might have happened to you." "Regarding the Choir Boys? Well, I know those jerks will probably be back for..." "No." He shook his head and walked slowly toward the building. "Something else." "About you, then?" He stopped, waiting for her to keep up with him. "No. About us." Scully tilted her head slightly. What us? she queried within herself. A part of her screamed to run away, that this man was too...spooky to be trusted. Another part reminded her that he had saved her from Jacob and the others when he had no responsibility to do so, that there was something about him that said he could be trusted. A third part noted how cute he was. "I don't like mysteries." "On the contrary. I know you too well. I know that you do." He smirked and slowly went up the stairs to the second floor. She waited at the start of the stairs, glaring up at him. She didn't want to follow him, she didn't want to let him know that she... She sighed to herself and ran up the stairs, catching him as he unlocked his hotel room door. "How do you know me that well? How do you know me at all?" "That's why we need to talk." He waved one arm into the hotel room. She took a few steps closer, but stopped. Her stare told him full well she didn't want to go in, she didn't want to explore this mystery that far, she didn't feel anything about him except her fear... "TRUST me," he insisted, giving her a wounded puppy dog look that few women could ignore. His...distress, or was it his desire?...felt overwhelming. Glaring at him with absolute suspicion, Scully slowly entered the hotel room. He followed, closing the door but not securing it. Circling the young redhead, he stood close to the bathroom and turned on its light, giving her a clear path to the door if she wanted to leave. If she wanted. "All right," she whispered, refusing to relax. "Talk." "You are Dana Katherine Scully." "I know that." "What year is this?" She shrugged. "1982. So?" "What's the last year you remember?" She squinted at him now. "1981. Does that mean anything?" He sighed. "You're here, in Annapolis, with your family, your brothers, your mother, your...sister. Your father..." "Don't forget the dog." Scully's smirk indicated her patience was fading. "Why don't you tell me something I need to know. Like where we first met." He shrugged his shoulders. "In the basement." Scully scrunched up her nose, trying her best to think back to all the basements she had been in. There were a few summer camps out west, a few house parties over here the past two years... "Whose basement?" "J. Edgar's." Huh? Scully tried to remember someone from her school by that name. The only J. Edgar she knew was the... Hoover? The Hoover Building in D.C.? "Are you saying we met at FBI headquarters?" Mulder nodded. "We...we couldn't have met there. I mean, I've never been there..." She scowled and stepped closer to him. "When did we meet there?" He gulped, knowing this was the hard part of the sale. "We met in the basement...in 1992." Her scowled disappeared, her face turning completely blank. "What?" "Scully." He stepped a foot closer. "Trust me on this. Just here me out." Her blank stare faded in favor of a dark one. "We met in 1992. We worked for the FBI. We were assigned to a project I had uncovered called the X-Files, unsolved cases of murders, abductions, and disappearances that may have involved the paranormal. We worked on these cases and on new ones, some involving a mysterious cartel of powerful men in government, business and science. At some point in 1997 fifteen years from now, something happens, I don't know what yet but I'm finding out. What happens somehow catapults our identities from that year back to this year, 1982. We came back with full recognition of future times. I met you again last Friday night, and we agreed on finding out what happened to us and what we need to do. I want to know if you remember any of this." Scully simply stood there. "Scully, you're the only one I trust, then and now." Mulder moved closer. "I need to know what you know." "Fox," she growled, knowing what that would do to him. "You're nuts." "I know you need proof." He stepped back just a bit, shrugging off his trench coat. "I want to show you something." Oh, wonderful, Scully scowled to herself, he's taking his clothes off... Not that she minded seeing him get naked, now that she saw how firm was his slim build underneath that shirt. What she minded was that this guy was moving too fast for her, with the added bonus of him buying into one too many science-fiction fantasies about time travel. He unbuttoned his shirt, but only so far as to pull the collar over his shoulder. "Do you see this?" She moved closer, letting the bathroom glow on his skin. The scarring on one side consisted of a single circular mark, while the other side had an irregular pattern of smaller scars, suggesting an exit wound. "On one assignment, I...wasn't myself," Mulder whispered. "Before I had committed a murderous act, you had to stop me by shooting me here. You trusted me then to know I would accept this, and I have." She ran a finger along the front of his shoulder, noting how his skin fluctuated under the touch of her fingernail. She spread her fingers, reaching her pinky to the scar while her thumb found the center of Mulder's chest. "Hmm," Scully whispered before pulling away with distrust in her eyes. "I gotta work on my aim." "Scully," he continued, knowing she had said that before, that she may have always felt that way but with some respect underlining it. That respect was missing now, but he didn't want to change what he was to accommodate the moment, he wanted to be who he was and to say what needed to be said. "You're from the future. You know full well I'm telling you the truth. You're just blocking this now. For some reason, you don't want to know this. But you have to know this. You HAVE to. There's something wrong with you..." She couldn't take this any more, not with this cute but spooky jerk bugging her every damn second. "Dammit, Mulder, I'm FINE!..." The magic words, Jeremiah Smith's voice echoed in her mind as her memories flooded back into her thoughts. Her life, her future life, her return to her youth, all of it came back to her in wave after wave of intense images. No, not all of them, somehow... "No, Scully, you're not fine," Mulder ranted, not even noticing his partner's frozen expression. "Dammit, you're never fine! Without you, without the understanding I need from you, without your trust, I... Don't you realize you're the only one I can trust here!..." "What about Frohike and the Lone Gunmen?" "Oh, well, Frohike's cool, but..." Mulder paused. "How come you remember then Lone Gunmen but not me?" "Jealous?" Scully couldn't resist a wicked grin. "Well, no...No! Of course not, but..." He paused again, absolutely confused by the sudden change of events. Again. "Do you remember what happened?" "I remember. What happened was that we died." Mulder shook his head. "Scully, a second ago you couldn't remember and now...now..." "Shh." Scully moved in close enough to touch. She tugged at his shirt and pulled it back over his wound. "First, I want to apologize for all that. I do remember, at least NOW I remember..." "...Okay..." "Second, I have a very good reason why I forgot." "Why?" "Our friend with the cigarettes." Mulder's chinbone thankfully remained connected to the cheekbone, otherwise it would have hit the carpet. "You saw him?" "Yeah, it's just..." Scully shook her head, trying her best to get to her memories. "I was out on the Pier, and I saw...him. Hell, I bumped into him. He...I can't remember, but I also remember...Smith, Jeremiah Smith. I saw him. We...we were in trouble, and so he sealed up my memories so that I could leave unharmed." "The Conspiracy," he whispered. She nodded. "I bumped into CancerMan after Smith did...what he did to my mind. I can't remember the specifics, but... No, that part's still in there, but I can't get to it." "He probably bumped you to make sure you didn't recognize him." Mulder nodded, his shock turning to rage. "The bastard, he also tried to make you forget who you were..." "Making your life more miserable than it already was." Mulder stared back into Scully's smirk. "I'm not miserable. Am I miserable?" The glass and far wall of the hotel room unexpectedly exploded into a hundred pieces. Bullets silently ripped into the room as Mulder instinctively wrapped Scully into his arms and rolled them both behind the bed, which provided their only cover. "Maybe not miserable," Mulder gasped in shock. "But certainly a moving target." Scully glared into his eyes, her Quantico training flooding back to her in a flash. "Gun?" He shook his head. "I only had that crow bar. And that's back in the car." She glanced toward the sound of the shattered glass and shredded drywall. "Silencer on a semi- automatic. Military, I would guess." The hail of bullets stopped. Mulder lifted himself up just enough to peek over the edge of the bed. A figure pushed its way through the shattered door, the splintered wood hanging precariously on the bottom surviving hinge. He kept his rifle, with its oddly protruding snout, close to the hip as he moved close enough to the bathroom light, his finger ready to twitch. "Oh my God," Scully whispered. "I remember him now. Oh, God. He was at the meeting." "What meeting?" Mulder whispered back. "Enough." The Second Man lifted his foot, pressing it against Mulder's shoulder and shoving him away from Scully. "I was right. Smith lied to us. Used you, you bitch." "Look," Mulder tried his best to distract or delay him. "I don't know what you're talking about." The Second Man slammed the rifle butt against Mulder's cheek, not hard enough to leave a mark but enough to bang the young man's head into the wall. "Shut up. I don't care what that black- lunged-son-of-a-bitch wants to do with you, in fact screwing up his agenda would be good for a laugh..." He pointed the rifle toward Scully. "Stand up. Slowly." She complied, using her time to calculate what she needed to do. The Second Man glanced her over again, a noticeable glare of lust gleaming in his eyes. "Oh, the things I can do to you...the things I can train you for..." Her anger overwhelmed any fear she may have had. "Just how far?" He seemed surprised by the question. "What?" "Just how far are you going to take this?" "Oh." The Second Man shuddered. How could he explain to her the exquisite possibilities running through his mind?... Mulder jumped up from his half-prone position, a noticeable growl of outrage passing his lips. The Second Man raised his rifle, this time to strike down harder into Mulder's skull. Scully took that moment and moved. She intentionally jumped over the corner of the bed, close enough to the Second Man to make him react to her. It worked by distracting him from finishing his swing, and he turned away from Mulder before the young man could secure his grasp. She knew her attacker's next move. She had gotten too close for it to be otherwise. She felt his free arm slide around her and seize her about the stomach while the second arm, its hand firmly gripping the rifle, wrapped about the shoulders. He liked it when they tried to run, all the other times he had secured his subjects. He always gave them that opportunity in the labs or holding cells, that last gasp of hope. He liked the sense of palatable fear they enacted for him before any such thoughts were purged forever in his projects. It amplified itself here, in such close quarters, without prying eyes of supervisors keeping him from total enjoyment. He pressed one arm the wrong way about her waist, raising his hand where he shouldn't have. "Are you scared enough now, little girl?" "Maybe." Scully stopped squirming. "Have you considered this?" She remembered the self-defense training, on how to use your position when an assailant has you wrapped up from behind. With her first blow, he had dropped the rifle. With the third blow, he was too stunned to provide a proper defensive posture. With the fifth blow, he was barely conscious. "Maybe," she gasped, keeping him from falling prone to the floor by seizing his collar. "Maybe I'm not a little girl that gets scared." Scully slammed a simple punch to the face, and let the Second Man fall to the floor. "Scully," Mulder grinned as she glanced back at him. "It's a good thing I DO remember your birthdays..." A sound from outside the disintegrated hotel room caught Scully's attention, and she reached for the dropped rifle, turning in time to point it at a slow figure calmly stepping into the mess. "That would be disappointing, Miss Scully," a deep Southern drawl escaped from the new arrival's lips, the man's raised hand showing a gun he would not use against her. "I was told you wouldn't shoot someone you know." "Oh my God." Shocked, Scully let the rifle slip from her hands. "You." Deep Throat nodded to her, then nodded toward her partner. His face had yet to achieve the weathered, wrinkled appearance they had known, and his hair had few strands of grey, but his eyes reflected the same dark understanding only he would know, even to his grave. "Mister Mulder, I presume." "You presume correctly." Mulder stood in shock as well. "I guess you're in time to clear a few things up." "Not exactly. I am in time to...clear up this disaster area." The elder shadow agent glanced about the room, a sort of embarrassment reflecting in his eyes as he surveyed the destruction. The embarrassment turned into disgust as he stared down at the Second Man. "I am thankfully present to clean up this particular disaster my colleagues call an associate." "Friend of yours?" Scully kicked her attacker, letting him moan as he regained consciousness. "More like a fiend of ours. Someone we allowed into one of our projects, a highly motivated man with...highly unforgivable appetites." Deep Throat grimaced as he glanced at the young couple. "But then, I was told you had some knowledge of what types of projects my colleagues oversee..." Mulder tried to start a narrative of things yet to be. "Sir, if I can..." "I've been warned, Mister Mulder. Something about you and your young, rather enigmatic friend here being from the future. That we already know each other. That..." "But sir..." "That," the older man raised his empty hand, "is all I need to know. I was told to keep an eye on you and make sure no harm comes to you and that is all. It's a good thing my...associate anticipated this man's potential to disrupt your interactions with your friend here." The Second Man moaned, then fell silent as he opened his eyes and saw a fellow co-conspirator. Deep Throat glared at him with righteous indignation. "You've overstepped your authority this time. Your patron can't help you now." "Kill them," the Second Man hissed. "She knows. Smith lied and let her keep her memories. If she knows, he knows..." "Quiet. Mulder has protection. If he lives, Miss Scully lives. This issue will be handled later by those entrusted to handle it. You, because of your actions, have no protection. Stand up." The Second Man glared at the gun now pointed to his head. "You're one of Smith's friends, aren't you?" "I don't know who you're talking about. I said stand." He growled but slowly stood. Deep Throat stepped back a bit to clear a path, waving the gun to indicate his associate walk ahead of him. The Second Man adjusted his coat and walked slowly toward the tilted doorway. As he past the older conspirator, he jumped, making a concerted effort to knock Deep Throat away from him and then running for the opening. "Traitor," he snarled. Both Mulder and Scully flinched as Deep Throat pulled the trigger, sending the Second Man through the damaged window onto the second floor ledge. "Deviant," the old man whispered, justified. Mulder moved past Scully and stood behind his old mentor, watching as dark-clothed soldiers moved about the ledge surrounding the body. "You didn't have to do that." "On the contrary," Deep Throat sighed, a gesture that suggested far more experience than any one man needed to know. "It actually makes things a lot simpler." The elder man waved to his soldiers. "Remove this. Call Clean-Up and have him and his team over here within ten minutes. You, go and secure the other rooms and especially the manager. I want this quick and I want it quiet." He turned to Mulder. "There's not much time now. We'll have to move you to another location." "Wait," Mulder seized him by the arm. "There are things I need to tell you, things you need to know..." "Mister Mulder." Deep Throat calmly pulled his arm away. "I have been informed that you would have something to tell me..." "But...but I know how you die..." "We all die, Mister Mulder." He remained oddly calm. "It's merely a question of what we do before we die." "Then let me ask you." Mulder tried to keep his agitation from showing. "If you're willing to help us here, then..." Deep Throat leaned in. "Let me tell you a secret." Mulder nodded, hoping for something toward his investigations. "If you are from the future, if you've returned to your youth, I think you have a wonderful opportunity to appreciate your youth rather than waste your energies elsewhere." The young man glared at him. "That's your secret?" "In a way, yes." The older man stared back. "My secret is that by now I have seen and done so many things I regret, so many opportunities lost or underappreciated. My life became my job, and I didn't enjoy my life. You should think about enjoying yours." "Then what about my sister?" Deep Throat glanced away and nodded. "I see. Your...request to the FBI that started this all tonight..." "This started when my sister was taken from me." "If you learned of her fate, would you accept to end this...search of yours which is causing some...discomfort in some circles?" Mulder didn't want to say yes, knowing already the deadly agendas of some of those circles, knowing someone had to hear the truth about them. He still nodded. "I'll...see what I can find." Deep Throat waved his hand toward Scully, gesturing her to move out of the way of the soldiers as they entered the room. One soldier grabbed Mulder's clothes while the other found all his toiletries and stuffed them into his travel-kit. "I would suggest," the older man nodded as he led them along the ledge, the two soldiers carrying Mulder's things behind them, "that you find another place to stay, Mulder. This hotel will be closed for...renovations for awhile." "What about everybody else here in the complex? What about...some accountability to the proper authorities?..." "Mister Mulder." Deep Throat glared at him, upset that the young lad who even had knowledge of the future hasn't learned some rules yet. "Regarding this matter, we ARE the proper authorities." "Mulder." He turned toward Scully who stared back with resignation. "He's right. Who can we tell this to?" He stared back as they made their way down the stairs, trying silently to make his partner recognize...recognize what? A Conspiracy killing one of its own? A hotel room shot to hell, a room that would be fixed before sunrise? Witnesses that were now being harassed into silence? And who were they to testify, how to explain what they fully knew? Even if it was the Truth, Mulder wasn't THAT stupid. "Well, finding a place to stay on short notice..." "Ahem." Scully stared at him again, this time with a smirk. "Good thinking, Miss Scully." Deep Throat smiled as well as he led the small group across the parking lot. "I just hope your parents have already met your friend here." "Oh, they have. I'm just worried about the dog." "That's not funny, Scully." Mulder unlocked the car trunk, letting the soldiers pile in his things. "By the way," Scully whispered to Deep Throat as Mulder opened her car door. "What did he mean by you being Smith's friend?" "You mean you don't know?" She shook her head. Those particular memories weren't there. "Then I guess Mister Smith did suppress your memories, at least the ones that count to us." "Then why did he let me remember Mulder if that wasn't what CancerMan wanted?" Deep Throat took a moment to understand who she meant by CancerMan, then smiled when he knew who that was. "Ah. Perhaps those were memories that count to you." Scully smirked at that and crawled into the passenger seat, letting Deep Throat close the door for her. "Good night, Mister Mulder." He patted the roof of the car. "And Miss Scully, it has been a pleasure meeting you for the first time. I hope the previous first time we met was just as pleasant." Scully stared at him, sadly. "It wasn't." Scully residence Apr.4, 1982 1:21 a.m. Scully did her best to keep things quiet as she unlocked the front door. Unfortunately, nothing is quiet enough for an alert German shepherd. From the far end of the house, the dog bounded his way down the hallway. Billy Budd recognized the rattle of keys as someone who lives here, so he had no need to bark. He wagged his tail and waited for the door to fully open, hoping to see a human he liked. One of the humans was definitely part of his tribe, the one called Dana that did such a good job rubbing the back of his ears. The taller human that entered with her, however, was a new one, from yesterday, and he didn't like his scent one bit. This human needed the proper treatment. The dog sat there, ears pinned back and a snarl on his lips. "Try to relax, Mulder," Scully whispered. "Dogs sense fear, so if you get the proper mental attitude he won't attack." "Okay." Mulder did his best to smile, and the dog stopped growling. "Well, yeah, so he's not going to attack me, right?" Billy Budd promptly leaped up and knocked him to the foyer floor. Scully shook her head, knowing full well the dog's snarling attempts to chew Mulder into a thousand pieces and Mulder's helpless pleas for mercy were bound to wake up the adults. "Starbuck?" Her father stumbled to the stairwell, staring down at the scene below. Buddy had succeeded in clamping down on one of Mulder's arms, not piercing the skin with his teeth but certainly keeping a good grip. "Hon, is Buddy ripping that young man of yours into a thousand pieces?" "Yes." "Good. Clean up afterward, will you? If you need to bury anything you know where the shovel is." The elder Scully stumbled back to bed and promptly forgot the entire thing. She reached down to the family dog and rubbed his tummy. "Buddy, stop that! Stop that now!" Buddy glanced sideways to her, not yet letting go his grip on Mulder's arm. "Bad dog! Bad dog!" Dogs don't understand English but understand the emotions underlying the words. The tone in Dana's voice told him his human tribe members aren't liking his decision to defend the home, especially from this Spooky One. Against his better judgment, he let Mulder's arm slip from his mouth. "Dana?" Mom's groggy voice floated down the stairs. Mrs. Scully stepped into the foyer, turning on the lights. "Is Fox all right?" Mulder stood and rubbed his arm. "Yeah, Mrs. Scully, I think I'm okay." "Mom." Scully hugged her. "Sorry to wake you up like this." "Well, we were worried. Your friend Sylvia called asking about you and Fox here, and you hadn't shown up or anything..." Mrs. Scully smiled at the young man before leaning in to whisper directly in her daughter's ear. "I just want to make sure, did anything happen?..." "...Mother..." Dana whispered back. "Nothing happened, okay?" Her mom's arched eyebrow either suggested she didn't buy the excuse or was surprised that nothing DID happen. "Mom, it seems that..." The younger Scully shrugged, looking for a proper excuse. "Well, Mulder's hotel kicked him out and he needs a place to stay for awhile." "Oh!" Her mother smiled and nodded. "You are welcome to stay here, Fox." Mulder grimaced a bit. "I...just don't want to be any trouble, or in the way or anything." "Well," Mrs. Scully grinned. "Let me just find a room for you." "Damn," Mulder sighed under his breath. "The basement. Your mom's putting me in the basement." "Be cool," Scully grinned as her mom finished tossing out the pillows from a nearby closet. "I don't think you'll find a sleeping bag very comfortable..." The basement had been divided into three rooms. The room connected to the stairs was the guest bedroom. Fake Formica wood covered the walls, which were themselves covered with pictures of all the bases the Scully family had been encamped. Japan, San Diego, some pictures of Spain and Italy, all covered in dusty frames with smiling faces of children and their mother. Through one doorway was the room referred to as the toy closet, remains of many of Captain Scully's hobbies and the forlorn playthings of the children's long ago youth. The other door led to the laundry room and food storage. Mrs. Scully was by now a thorough master of bed-making, wrapping the sheets over it and covering the pillows in record time. Mulder had never seen anything like it: neither his father nor his mother much insisted on teaching him the skills, and it took him a long time to even figure out on his own how to tuck in the corners of the top sheets. Futons and sofas became so much easier to handle. "There." Mrs. Scully smiled at her achievements. "I hope that is to your satisfaction, Fox." "Oh, it is. I'm impressed." Mulder turned to a stern Dana and nodded. "No, really, I am. You know me." Scully arched an eyebrow, remembering the futon. NOW it made sense. "He'll be okay now, Mom." "All right." She reached over and gave her daughter another hug. "Remember, we've got an early morning, dear, so get to bed." "I will, Mom. G'night." She watched her mom stroll up the stairs. "By the way, Dana. Is that tabasco sauce I smell?" "Uh, I had buffalo wings for dinner. With Bill." Mrs. Scully scowled at her daughter before continuing up the stairs. "I wish you wouldn't do that, Dana..." "What did she mean by that? That she didn't like you drinking?" Mulder had seen her do the trick at Jim A's. "No. She meant the bit about me lying." Scully grimaced at her partner. "Also the drinking bit." "Have you ever tried lemons?" "Yeah, but tabasco bottles are easier to get to." She turned and gently shoved him onto the bed. "Sleep, G-Man. I gotta go to Mass this morning, and then we'll talk tomorrow, okay?" "All right, G-Woman." He tossed one pillow at her, which she grabbed and then tossed back at him. "Well, exciting evening, huh?" he grinned. "Mulder, this was exciting for you? Just another night in Annapolis." She grinned back wickedly. "It looks like you didn't go out that much in your high school senior year..." "Oh, don't remind me about high school..." "Well, if you want excitement, we can always move this to New York next Saturday..." She shook her head and stepped up the stairs. "Good night, Mulder." Mulder, filled with a sudden impulse, found himself saying something completely out of the blue, even if it was a whisper. "Scully, is it all right if I ask you to your prom?" Mulder's words were too low for his partner to hear it properly. "Could you repeat that, Mulder?" "Don't let the bedbugs bite." The sudden impulse had already vanished. "G'night, Scully." Scully scowled, knowing somehow that Mulder hadn't said that before, but settled for it anyway. "All right, Mulder. Just don't let Buddy jump all over you when you sleep..." She strolled back up the stairs, letting the German shepherd remain there on the basement carpet where the dog can keep an eye on this intruder to the tribe. Mulder sighed to himself as he fell back into the bed. Damn damn damn, he snarled to himself, what the hell were you thinking?... ** This scene is a referral to another fanfic story, "Be Still My Heart II-Time Like a Heartbeat" by Paula Graves. Since Mulder and Bill Jr. will actually meet in Redux II and this story pretty much ignores that time stream, I needed a reason for there to be bad blood between Spooky and the OBIE (Older Brother-Incarnate Evil). Paula's story was a good source. Please don't hire Chris Carter's lawyers to sue me, Paula...;-) TO BE CONTINUED PART V- "This Must Be Sunday", will be in before the New Year... Life While They Live It Part V- It Must Be Sunday (REVISED) by. Paul Wartenberg COPYRIGHT: Once again, let me state for the record that I am poor. I am not making money off this. Mulder, Scully, and additional characters are owned by Chris Carter and Co., and I hope they know that it would be very nice if they didn't sue me for this. RATING: Romance, but nothing naughty. There is vulgarity, but it's Scully saying most of it so we're cool about it, right?...oh, and hopefully a good-sized serving of humor (at least it was funny when I wrote it...) ;-) SUMMARY: Post-Gethsemane. What if Mulder DID commit suicide? What if Scully's cancer was incurable? I know, I know, that doesn't jibe with Redux, Redux II and most of season 5. Then what could possibly explain why Scully is back in high school?... CONTINUITY ASSUMPTION: For the purposes of this story, I'm making Mulder Unitarian. It's funnier that way. I'm also assuming certain birth orders for the Uber!Scullys... MANY THANKS: to all the Catholics who e-mailed me a description of Sunday Mass, esp. Beagle, Mary Mastrangelo, and Mimi Niemiller. REVISION NOTICE: A massive OOPS occured, pointed out by * *, that the Sunday before Easter is celebrated by Catholics as Palm Sunday (That's what I get for being Unitarian...all we did were egg rolls), which requires a different service altogether. ARGH! This is the revised version, with more accurate information and hopefully more hugging between Mulder and Scully... It must be Sunday/ Everybody's telling the truth -- "It Must Be Sunday," Phoebe Snow The Scully Residence Apr.4, 1982 9:00 a.m. "Rise and shine, G-Man." Mulder stirred from the floor at the sound of Scully's voice, his mind too foggy to determine how he ended up there. In some respects he had lost the skill of sleeping on a comfy bed: on a sofa or futon there wasn't much room leading to a subconscious effort to stay still, and some form of railing to bump against when you roll. He mumbled to himself, amazed that he was so out of it he didn't wake up when he hit the floor. He glanced to the bed to see his spot there had been taken by the German shepherd. The dog was no fool: if the human wanted to sleep on the floor instead of the bed, so be it. Billy Budd liked comfy beds. "Did you want to wrestle the dog to get the bed back?" Scully's grin lit up the room. "Uh, no." Mulder stood, wrapping the bed comforter that rolled off with him around his body. "You're up early." "Sunday, so it's church day." Scully did a quick, vogue-ish pose, showing off her Sunday best: a flowery Spring dress reaching down to her ankles and out to her wrists. It wasn't see-through but it hugged her body in all the right ways. Her cross still hung from her neck, this time dangling over the buttons of her blouse done up all the way to the collar. "It's a good thing I don't have to wear this with a hat and gloves." "Yeah, that would be overdoing it. So, what, it's Easter, right?" "No, that's next week. This is Palm Sunday, and it's a bit different." She playfully messed with his hair, trying to comb it with her fingers in order to keep it going out in fifty different directions. "I'm surprised. I always thought you were more of a morning person..." "Well, yeah, sleeping on a futon would do that to a guy. I don't remember you going to church that much." "Well, yeah," she shrugged. "I kinda slacked off after college, but now, I'm home and the family pretty much all goes." She fumbled with her cross. "Also, when I got that cancer, I had been...thinking, you know, about why I wear this all the time. Usually it was because it's a gift from my mom, but..." Mulder waited for her to finish her sentence, and when she didn't he reached over and lifted her chin so they could face each other. "I know. You want to keep your faith and your skepticism separate." "What about you, Mulder? Your faith?" She scowled, but just slightly. "You know, I remember that Golem case we had, and that printer jerk thought you were Jewish, but you never really said..." "Well, ah," he grinned. "I guess you'd say I'm lapsed." "Lapsed from what?" "Well, my parentage on my dad's side was Jewish, but he and mom raised me...a Unitarian. I kinda fell out with it a long time ago." Scully arched both eyebrows. "A lapsed Unitarian. One of the most liberal open-minded faiths on the market and you've fallen from favor with it. Jesus, Mulder, that puts you lower than Atheist on the totem pole." He scowled. "Don't you have Sunday school or something?..." She smirked and headed for the stairs. "C'mon, Mulder, mom left a cereal bowl out for you. We let you sleep in so you missed the early bird special..." "What about you? You stayed out all night. Can't you sleep in?..." "Forget it. Mom knows I did the tabasco trick last night, so I gotta go. If you're worried about staying here, Buddy can always keep you company..." The dog growled. "Gee, thanks, Scully. Pop quiz, has 911 been invented yet?..." "Hardy har. Well, Missy's probably gonna sneak in from her late night ventures while we're away, so you can keep her company..." "Can she show me where your dad hides his Playboys?..." "MULDER!" Scully glared at him in shock. "Don't talk about my father that way..." "I take it back, I take it back." He raised both hands in surrender. "I know you and your dad are close, but it was a joke..." Scully moved in close to whisper. "I know you like to joke and crack wise, but this is my home. Respect the people who are here." "I said I was sorry." "And Mulder," she growled as they headed up the stairs, "when I get back here my sister better be alive..." "Oh, c'mon Scully, what could possibly happen?" "Anything. Considering last night, I wouldn't be surprised if Cardinal showed up as a pizza boy..." St. Mary's Duke of Gloucester St. Annapolis 10 a.m. Scully dipped her fingers into the holy water as she entered the chapel, droplets falling onto the edge of her nose as she made the sign of the cross. Ushers and altarboys handed out the woven palm fronds as the family passed through the main doorway, the choir singing the gathering song as the families worked their way between the pews, finding their seats. Having been here the past two years, the Scullys had established their usual seating area, the fifth bench to the right of the altar. Father stood to the aisle, with Mother next to him. Bill, allowed to leave campus to be with his family, stood next with Dana and Charles finishing the set in proper order. Some pews remained empty: there were other Masses earlier and later in the day. Even as Father McLaulan completed the introductory rites with the opening Redemptorist prayer to the Blessed Mother which always led up to the Gloria, Scully glanced about, distracted more than usual. She didn't see Sylvia, whose family usually does the 10 o'clock Mass like hers. Some of the younger children among the other families played with their fronds, using them as mock swords as their parents quietly struggled to keep them focused on the ceremonies. "Glory to God in the highest," started the priest, beginning the Gloria. Scully mouthed along, reciting the prayer the angels sang during the announcement of Christ's birth. But she kept staring about her as the prayers echoed in the high-chambered church. She familiarized herself with surrounding she hadn't seen in years, glancing up toward the high Gothic arches overhead, remembering the ghostly pale columns lining the chapel sides, recognizing the saints adorning the wall behind the altar. Father McLaulan finished the Gloria, and the church fell silent as the Palm Sunday performers rose and moved to the altar. As Palm Sunday recognized the moment of Jesus' arrival to Jerusalem for his final struggle, the priest opened with the Carpenter's entrance to the city: "On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went forth to meet him..." Scully glanced again to the five saints adorning the altar enclave. She always felt the image of Mary of the Immaculate Conception stared back at her every time she had come before in her youth, and the feeling remained. The voices of the choir and the altarboys echoed above the altar as the scene progressed, as they read aloud the scenes of Jesus teaching to the crowds. She turned again to scan the crowd, wondering where Sylvia would be. The parish members were too busy reading from the book and fumbling with their parts to play to notice her. Father McLaulan continued with the scene, as the lines bled into one another, leading up to the setting of the tables and the bringing of the bread of the Last Supper. Bill elbowed her. "Red," he whispered. "Mom says stop fidgeting." She turned and faced forward, reciting the final passage from the Palm Sunday reading, as Jesus directed two of the apostles to find and follow the one who would host the breaking of the bread. For some odd reason, Scully suddenly wondered what Mulder was doing at that moment. Scully residence Same time Mulder sat in extreme pain. Melissa had returned just minutes after the family had left, probably planning it that way. She discovered Buddy sitting and growling at a particular closet, wherein she discovered Mulder and found he had stayed over for the night. Having helped him and herself to cereal for breakfast, she asked if he wouldn't mind joining her for her weekly spiritual yoga. I finally learned some Chinese, Mulder winced to himself as Missy tried to demonstrate another position while he remained stuck in his first one. I learned "yoga" translates as "torture." "You're not keeping up, Mulder," Dana's older sister chided him. "I thought...ah...patience was...mph...the key to this..." "I thought you said you were Unitarian. You ought to have an open mind about this." "My mind's...okay. It's my shoulders...ah...and my knees I'm worried about..." She smirked and resumed a normal sitting position. "Okay, relax." "Help." She reached over and tapped Mulder's right shoulder while gently tugging on his arm. She popped that arm free from its position which in turn relaxed his entire body. "Aaahhhhhhh." "So, Mulder, how come we can't call you Fox?" "I just don't like it. It's not a very good first name." He sighed and crossed his legs. "I don't know where my parents got it and I don't care. I even keeping asking my own parents not to call me by that name." "So no one uses it. Not even Dana?" "Well, I asked her not to, and she honored my request." "Even though you're in a relationship." Mulder stared as Missy arched her shoulders back and locked her arms behind herself. "Excuse me?" "You and Dana." She stared back. "She never mentioned you got married or anything, but..." "We're not married. We're not even dating!" Dana's sister arched an eyebrow at that. "She's my partner." He reached an arm up to begin an intricate argument, but dropped it and settled for a concise one. "That's why we're close. I don't even know how you got that impression." She shrugged. "I mean, after all, since you and Dana seem so close, you're so comfortable around her, like your guard's down. And she's so relaxed around you. I assumed you and she had, well..." He did his best to dismiss it. "I haven't even thought about it." Melissa wrinkled her nose, as if a disagreeable odor drifted her way. She shook her head and oddly enough grinned wickedly. "You're not a very good liar. Truth?" He sighed. "But it's...it's...for one thing it's a bit unethical. In the future there's going to be something called sexual harassment, and interoffice relationships will be deemed oppressive. Even if Dana and I agreed to a relationship, co-workers could be offended and we'd have been disciplined." "Okay." "Not only that, but she's my partner. I rely on her to be there, but to keep me in line. I need her more as a friend than as a lover. If we had a relationship, there would have been a loss of perspective..." "Uh-uh." "I'm not joking. And another thing, if we did...if we had a relationship..." Mulder glanced away. "Considering what HAD happened to her...the people we were up against had hurt her to hurt me, so considering that..." He sighed, in some way grateful he was able to say this, finally to let it out. Why was it still so terrifying?... "The FBI is so dangerous...living with life and death at every moment...to lose her as just a partner would be difficult but to lose her if we ever...did...would have..." "But you're not an FBI agent right now, are you?" She smiled. "Neither is she." Missy stood and lifted one leg behind her for a stretch. "Dana's a young woman again, with her whole life ahead of her. And you, poor old Fox Mulder, have your whole life as well to live over." "You're not the first one to say that." "Well let me be the first to say this." She stretched her other leg. "What I see in you, about you, is that you live in darkness, in some ways I see that you want to live that way." He wiped one hand across his face and stood, glancing aside. He had heard this lecture before. She dropped both arms in protest. "Prove to me you have an open mind. Listen." He twitched one side of his mouth. "All right." "Dana is providing you the only light in your existence and this quest of yours you're so eager to let consume you. Be that it may you argue with her, disagree with her, and she with you, you are a part of her life and she is a part of yours. You are so much a part of her life that Dana is willing to enter that dark world of yours, only with the knowledge that you need her there." She resumed a yoga position. "One of the elements of yoga is balance. Not just balance of the body, but balance of the spirit." "Okay." "To keep your spirit in balance, you must be honest with yourself at all times. Denial, even of the most trivial aspect of your life, can keep you off balance." Mulder shook his head. "I...this is not something keeping me off balance. Scully...Dana and I are all right..." Melissa stood straight, arms crossed not in debate but acceptance. "She balances you. But not in the way you want her to. And that frightens you." "Because it killed her." He finally said it. "But she's not dead now. She's alive and so are you. So am I. Dana told me that I died because of this quest of yours. But I'm not afraid, because I'm alive now and there's so much to do..." Missy scowled. "You're not, well, scared of the sex, are you?" Mulder scowled, giving it some thought. "In a way, yeah. I've studies psychology, relationships, the obsessions that drive people..." He sighed again. "Sex, it changes things in a relationship, changes priorities, assumptions, what we expect from people..." Dana's sister smiled. "I don't think it's about sex anymore. I think it's about consummation..." "Consummation of what?" She kept smiling. Mulder hated that about Scully women... St. Mary's The passages of Jesus' entry to Jerusalem had ended and now had moved to the scenes of Jesus' trial. The rest of the morning had moved swiftly, with Father McLaulan speeding his way through the Last Supper (Scully remembered he preferred saving that for the Good Friday Mass, since it somehow seemed more appropriate in his opinion), but allowing the choir some fun in acting out the confrontations between Jesus, Pilate and the chief priests. It was left to the parish to act out the scenes of the crowd deciding Jesus' fate, and for some reason Scully always hated this part. She never really liked it: being forced to be so, well, wrong about something, the mob mentality of it. She knew they were only acting, to be shown how such people could act in such moments, but this wasn't her. Not in her heart. Not in what she wanted to be, what she became... The scene ended. Father McLaulan concluded with the description of Jesus carrying his cross, "And there followed with him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him..." The Sign of Peace was made, the bread was broken and the wine was poured, and the Scullys waited their turn as the aisles of the parish before them moved forward toward the altar and to the serving of the Communion. Scully did her best not to fidget as she stood in line behind Bill. Something told her, a minor thought nagging her in the back of her mind, that something was terribly wrong... Scully residence "Buddy!" Mulder had made the mistake of going back into the basement to change into new clothes after a strenuous ("Strenuous?" Melissa grinned. "Those were the basics.") yoga workout. After Melissa had earlier called the German shepherd off him, the dog had returned to the basement and to the bed he had claimed from a restless Mulder. The dog assumed he had returned to take the bed back, and unfortunately Buddy, like all dogs, very much enjoyed sleeping and would vigorously defend their right to sleep at all times. The yoga exercises did give Mulder a much needed workout on his joints and limbs, because it thankfully improved his speed and maneuverability as he ran about the entire house. Melissa at first gave chase to Buddy, but opted instead to just stand in the middle of the whole house and do her best to order the dog to heel. Mulder succeeded in confusing Buddy into chasing down the basement steps while he turned and raced upstairs. It was a three-second advantage at best, but it was enough time to make it to Scully's room and closing the door before the German shepherd could shove his way in. As the dog barked and clawed at the door, Mulder took another opportunity to glance about Scully's room. Not much had changed since last he was here, except it seemed cleaner. Even the graffiti-covered CBGB posters appeared glossier and covered with fresh paint instead of the dust and fading ink of two years past. The older Scully habits must have kicked in. The dog remained at the door, knowing full well humans had to leave their rooms to use the bathroom down the hall. Buddy was fully prepared to see who could hold up longer. After a few minutes, a familiar sound echoed past the outside of the house, and the German shepherd recognized it as the family car. It was bringing back humans who would be protective of this spooky person and deter him from his canine responsibilities. With a gruff sigh, Buddy backed away from the door and headed downstairs. Melissa took the dog's place outside the door, waiting to hear if Mulder was all right. His muffled voice passed through the closed door. "Is he gone?" Melissa tried her best German shepherd impersonation. Mulder cracked the door open enough to peek through. "Not funny, Melissa." "Come on. The family's here. Buddy will be cool now." Mulder followed Dana's sister to the foyer, where Mrs. Scully waited with a smile as the rest of her family straggled in. Charles passed by them, heading straight upstairs, while Dana's father calmly walked in, placing a gentle kiss to his wife's cheek as he headed to the kitchen, preparing lunch. Dana and Bill were still outside, arguing over something. "Melissa." Mulder's whisper sounded oddly flat. "Don't tell her." She turned to stare at him, disappointment in her eyes. "But Mulder..." "I'm not... I'm not ready yet." She closed her eyes and sadly shook her head. "Very well. But promise me you will be ready. Promise me you will tell her." "Tell me what?" Dana walked in, glancing at her partner and sister trying to figure out the conversation that she missed. At that moment Bill Jr. walked in the door, immediately sized up Scully's friend, barked an order to Buddy to attack Mulder, and provided Mulder a rather graceful way to avoid answering Scully's question. Lunch Captain Scully had prepared a grand lunch, since Bill would not remain for dinner. He tried Mexican this time, grilling steak strips and then tossing them into a skillet with onions and peppers and a powerful chili sauce. Pulling out some flour tortillas, he finished up his homemade fajitas with diced tomatoes, lettuce, three cheeses finely grated and sour cream. (AUTHOR'S NOTE: Readers are warned not to drool over their keyboards) He asked Mulder to stand with him while grilling the steak, seeing if the young man had any talent for kitchen work. He then demoted Mulder to dicing the tomatoes. After two tries, Mulder was again demoted, this time to cleaning dishes afterwards. "Starbuck," her father whispered as Mulder stumbled back to the dining table. "I don't think he's measuring up too well." "Ahab," Scully whispered back. "Relax. He knows a few Chinese take-out places, and I'm cool with that. I'm not judging him for his cooking abilities." "Then how are you judging him?" "Daddy!" If she had a towel in her hand she would have thwacked him, even knowing her father did not care for getting hit with towels. "It's not what you think, and besides we're not supposed to judge..." It took some time for the fajitas to be finished, so Mulder was stuck at the table with Bill Jr. and Melissa. Melissa sat uncomfortably with her brother, acknowledging a silent disagreement between the siblings. Sheesh, Mulder pondered, Bill doesn't really get along with anyone, does he?... "So, Fox," the older brother forced a smile. "College man, I hope." "Yes." Polite conversation seemed a must at the moment. "Oxford, really." "Really? So what brings you back to the States?" "Family research. Your sister asked if I could stop by for a visit..." "Ah. And...how exactly did she get to know you?..." "Oh." Mulder nodded to Missy, who nodded back. "Um, that Loch Ness paper she did awhile ago...I helped her on it..." "Really?" Bill took a moment to help his mom, who showed up with the plates and utensils. He passed one to Mulder's side of the table. "I read that paper. Don't think I saw your name on it." "Oh," Melissa chimed in. "He wasn't interviewed or anything, he just helped with the research." "What kind of...research?" For some reason, Bill wasn't buying any of it. Melissa took a moment, knowing how Bill could be intensely stubborn. "Remember all those letters she wrote to the UK schools, and their biology departments? How Oxford was the only one that answered? All those packages that came over with the charts and cryptozoological essays..." Bill finally nodded. "So that was you. Huh." Mulder nodded and made a mental note to find the person back in Oxford who did all that, just so he could pay the guy back on the postage. Plus interest. "So Danny invited you stay." Bill placed the utensils at each sitting space. "Well, at first I had a hotel and your mom kept insis...Danny?" Melissa shot her brother a look. "He means Dana." "Stick with Red." Scully poked her head through the kitchen door to the dining room. "I can live with that nickname, Billy." Bill grinned wickedly, which Mulder considered a bad sign. "Wanna know how she got the name Danny?" "Uh, no. I value my life right now..." "Good answer Mulder. Bill, I swear if you tell him..." "I was Billy, this one's Missy, then there's Danny, and finally Charley. Dana's idea was to form a rock group." Mulder scowled and found himself unable to stop from asking. "Like the Partridge Family?" Dana moved quickly behind Mulder, picking up his knife and waving it at her older brother. "Justifiable homicide, Bill, and I've got the witnesses to prove it." Like most older brothers, he wouldn't stop. "We were going to call ourselves the Y's..." Dana growled, but Mulder leaned up and whispered as quietly as he could into her ear. "Relax, Scully, at least it's a better name than Hootie and the Blowfish..." "Doesn't matter," she growled all the same. "I'm not asking my brother here to embarrass me like he obviously wants to..." "Wanna hear something embarrassing?" Melissa leaned over the table with a wicked grin of her own. "About Bill's first week at basketball camp back in San Diego?" "Oh no you don't!" Bill stood and turned toward the kitchen. "Dad!" "Sit down, son." His father refused to turn away from the skillet. The steak was coming along just nicely. "If you dish it out, you have to take it too. Shut up and let your sisters...Starbuck, I'm not up on the current slang..." Dana grinned, and had placed the knife where it was. "It's calling `ragging on him', Ahab." "All right then. Let them rag on you, Bill." The older brother sat down, grumbling to himself words that sounded like "damn fairness code...thought dads were supposed to side with their sons" or something to that effect. Melissa, meanwhile, regaled Mulder with a beautiful tale about her brother involving truckloads of humiliation... Things calmed down a bit as lunch was served and the family settled in for an average Scully get- together. Mom passed the tortillas while Dad slid the overfilled plate of steak fajita onto the table. Everyone scooped out a spoonful of the meat, except for Melissa who contented herself with a cheese-stuffed tortilla. As soon as the food was all on the table, the bantering and usual hi- jinks began. At some point, Dana glanced at Mulder and worried, more about herself actually. Worried about how he might judge her family as they argued and fumbled and carried on about the table. Even with mom doing her best to referee the table, her father and Bill had already begun arguing over Navy history, Missy arguing with Dad over college concerns, Bill and Charles griping about the latest incursions into each other's privacy, and nobody really listening to each other at all. Mulder sat there, enraptured by what went on around him. For him, it had been a long time since his entire family sat together for a meal, and even before Samantha's abduction a cold silence had enveloped his family, stilling any tongue and crushing any good will between his parents. Meal times, if he could remember them, weren't that much fun. Here, at long last, was a family meal: the siblings ragging on one another as they passed the sour cream and whispered the gossip, the parents doing their best to keep the chaos from overwhelming the table, the dog hiding about under the table waiting for the tasty morsel doomed to fall from someone's plate. And although she spent too much time glancing worriedly in his direction, Dana occasionally reminisced with her mother regarding an event or two back in San Diego. Sometimes, he would be asked a question, a polite one from Mrs. Scully or a brutal one from Bill, and he would be dragged in to one or another debate being prolonged or another story being told. And he soaked it all in with a wide grin across his face. "That was embarrassing," Scully finally confided with Mulder. The food had been finished and the table had been cleaned, with Mulder proving himself at least competent enough to load a dishwasher. The Scully siblings had all wandered off to their own rooms or their own corners of the house, with Bill and Dad continuing their historical debate in the den. Mom, grateful not to do the dishes, had disappeared to the back porch, using her free time to finish some knitting. "You okay, Scully?" Mulder didn't understand. Scully had insisted on meeting him in the hallway after the meal, for what he didn't know. She sighed. "I want to, well, apologize..." "Apologize for what?" He nodded as he finally got the gist of Scully's problem. "There's nothing wrong with your family, Scully..." "I don't think you've been here long enough to give a qualified assessment, Mulder..." "I was having fun. Didn't you see me smile?..." "...I thought you were trying to be polite..." "No, it was...nice, sitting in for the family meal..." Bill walked out of the den long enough to whistle for the dog. "Buddy, attack!" The dog barked from the family room and rushed into the hallway. Finally, Mulder was prepared and had saved a piece of steak dipped in sour cream for just such an emergency. As the German shepherd drew near, Mulder tossed it gently toward the mutt. Buddy reacted instantly. His nose smelled food and his mouth responded, grabbing the steak in midair and giving it three chews before sending it to the stomach. The spooky human knew to give food, the dog reasoned, so maybe he can stay. Buddy came up, sniffed Mulder's hand before licking it, and calmly padded off back to the family room. Bill watched it all and shot Mulder a mean look before going back to finish his arguments with Dad. "Outright bribery," Scully grinned. "Dogs and men," Mulder grinned back. "Both respond with their stomachs." Evening The rest of the day went well. Scully suggested a game of pinball at the local 7-11, which took much of the afternoon as Mulder showed off, racking up high scores and free games. They took the long way through the neighborhoods on the return trip back to the Scully residence, giving her a chance to point out familiar sites to her partner. By the time they made it back, Captain Scully had prepared ham and cheese sandwiches with large salads on the side for the dinner. Bill had already left to make it back to the Academy on time for one of his duties, so the gathering was less frantic and thankfully less embarrassing. After dinner, again much of the family split off to do their own things, and Melissa left Mulder and Scully again in Dana's room, again with the door propped open. There wasn't much to discuss, so the conversation inevitably ended up with Mulder noting, "You know, you don't talk much about your family." "Oh, really." "Yeah." He smiled, pushing his back against the side of Scully's bed. "I mean, after all, my family's like an open book..." "...With all the pages torn out." Scully took a seat next to him. "Not much to know about your family, except your sister's been abducted, you think by aliens but more likely by government black Ops, your father was in cahoots with CancerMan and killed for it, your mom had a stroke because of all the stress on her..." "Sure, the Cliff Notes version of it..." Mulder sighed, knowing it wasn't too funny a quip to cover up the pain. "So you want to know about my family." "Well...we've got some time..." Scully sighed. "Where do you want to start?" "Let's start with the big wedding reception between your parents." "Actually, I can't." She shrugged. "The wedding took place on the rush, with about three friends, my mom's younger sister as the flower girl, and a priest on his way to a jai-lai game in downtown Miami." "Ah." Mulder only arched one eyebrow, a show of concern but not outright shock. "You see, well, my parents are human..." "As opposed to human/alien hy..." "...Don't finish that thought, Mulder..." He clammed up. "They met a long time before they got married, when Dad was finishing Annapolis and Mom was starting school at Wesley in DC...they dated for awhile, dated for a long time, but dad never got around to making the proposal like he should have." "Why? What was wrong?" "Dad saw all the other Middies graduate and marry right away, and saw all the problems they ran into with the money and long separations, and he didn't want to go through that until he could afford it and could get a decent posting. Right out of school, they sent him to all these different officers programs, never stayed too long in one spot..." Mulder nodded silently. "Then, one day, my mother dropped the bomb, so to speak. Told him she was pregnant." "What?" "Birds and the bees and the monkey babies, Mulder. They may be Catholic, but like I said, they're human, and were very much in love, and well..." "So that's why the wedding was on the rush." "Not yet. Dad refused, walked out." Now both of Mulder's eyebrows shot up. "This is your father here." Scully took a minute. "He felt he wasn't ready. It really tore them apart. Their dads almost came to blows over it. And then, speaking of bombs, the Cubans got a few of them." She smiled a bit, and pulled away some of the hair across her face. "Those days were real bleak. Closest humanity ever got to Armageddon. Dad was shipped out to the blockade. Mom went nuts, having terrible dreams..." Mulder stayed silent. "Dad was out there. He was on the boat that almost shot across the bow of that Soviet transport. He saw how close it all got, and he decided there if he ever got out of it, he'd go back and do the honest thing. So he called mom, paid for her ticket down to the Miami port, and met her there and proposed for real." "And that's how they got married." "Mm-hmm." Scully grinned. "Lucky, too, otherwise two months later Bill and Missy would have been born bastards." "Well, not Missy but certainly Bill..." Mulder grinned back. "Wait a sec, Bill and Missy?..." "Are twins, yes. I was born in February 1964, remember? There's not a lot of time to squeeze out two older siblings in that time line..." "Okay." "Let's see, conceived in San Francisco in June 1963, born in Japan in February, didn't stay long enough to learn Japanese though, but Missy can interpret those anime movies real well..." "That's good to know." "So Charlie, born in San Diego by 1968 while one of my uncles took us kids to see `Yellow Submarine'..." "And he's the youngest." Mulder squinted. "It's he the one with kids?" "Don't remind me." Scully reached for a pillow and gently thwacked him with it. "Yeah, same as mom and dad. With one of his three college girlfriends." "Must have been a nice announcement in the papers. `Student Becomes Father, Moving Target on Same Day'..." "Actually, the two ex-girlfriends showed up to make sure he went through with it..." "With shotguns handy, no doubt..." They both laughed uncontrollably until the doorbell rang. "Oh, shit," Scully gasped. "What? What's wrong?" "Cardinal showed up with the pizzas. They're going to kill my family, I just know it..." "Scully, if they're going to kill your family, I don't think they'll announce it by ringing the..." "Hello." The grave steely voice downstairs echoed throughout the house. "I'm here to see my son." "Oh, shit," Mulder gasped. "It's my father. Kill me..." "Well, he's here, I think upstairs with Dana...Starbuck?!" Scully grimaced. "Yeah, Dad?" "Is your friend up there?" "Yah..." "His dad's here." "Okay." Scully whispered to her partner. "Why do I get the feeling you're not up for this?" "I'm not." Mulder stared back, his face losing any sign of levity he had as the day progressed. Downstairs, the elder Scully examined the thin, solemn man standing in the doorway. "We've...met before, haven't we?" Mr. Mulder nodded. "Yes, I believe so. Off the Philippines, I think." "You're...State Department, if I remember..." "It was that incident with the Soviet and French subs. The retrieval operation. I was there to smooth the relations with the Russian observers." The captain nodded. "That week. It was pretty messy." "Is it all right if I smoke?" The elder Mulder tapped out a cigarette and offered one to the captain. "We don't allow that." The captain crossed his arms. "I caught my youngest daughter one time smoking those. I had always meant me and the wife to quit and used that as a good excuse to follow through. Five years now." The elder Mulder nodded and stuck his cigarette back in the package. "Interesting, that my son would be here..." "I admit, it's a damned coincidence..." "Dad?" Mulder decided to step forward at that moment. He had listened to the conversation, and when he discovered the two fathers knew one another it started a terrible thought in the back of his mind. But he would have to save it for later. "Fox." The elder Mulder for some reason didn't smile yet. "You look well." "How'd you find this place, Dad?" Mulder finished his steps down the stairs. "I have my sources, Fox." His father finally tried his best warm smile. "Actually, I checked with your hotel, and they said you asked all messages forwarded here." Mulder nodded, noting the good service Deep Throat provides when he cleans up war zones. "Did you need something, Dad?" "I came because I was worried." He placed a hand on Mulder's shoulder. "Son, you never did give me a good explanation why you would quit your studies overseas..." "Is it all right if we go outside, Dad?" Mulder didn't want this to happen here. "This will just take a second. If it's all right with you." His father nodded to Dana's, who silently nodded in reply and walked down the hall. Scully crawled close to the upper railings, hiding behind them where they met the second floor wall. She knew she was intruding, but she needed to keep an eye on her partner. The elder Mulder's smile faded as he focused on his son. "Is everything okay, Fox? You seem so...defensive right now." "Everything's fine." Mulder wanted to wait a bit, see what happens before confronting his father. "I told you when I called earlier, I just felt I needed to follow up on what happened to Samantha." "I think the authorities can handle that. I've been told you contacted the FBI. Fox, if..." "You told you that?" "...Let me finish." His father sighed, deciding to get to the point. "It isn't your place to run about like some junior detective. The FBI are professionals, and they..." "Dad, her file has been in cold storage for years. Nobody's looked at it since the Seventies until I asked about it..." "Then perhaps," Mr. Mulder sighed, taking a moment to let the thought finish before announcing it. "Then perhaps there is nothing left to be done. Perhaps...perhaps it is best to let it go, to let her go. Fox, I know I may have...left the impression that I held you responsible for taking care of her, but I know...and I see that now, that you...that I shouldn't have burdened you with that." His father nodded back toward the door. "There's really nothing else to be said. Let's get you packed up so I can take you home, and from there you can fly back to England..." "Actually, Dad, there's only one thing to be said between us," Mulder stated, his voice turning flat and unemotional. "A question, really. Why you choose Samantha." "What?" "I know. I know you made the decision." Mulder's father stepped closer. Scully could see from up here where her partner inherited his clenched jaw. "I don't know who told you that..." "Why, Dad? Why her and not me?" The elder Mulder refused to answer, instead turning on his heels and heading for the front door. His son stood there, his anger barely concealed, before he turned toward the stairs. "It wasn't what you think, Fox." His father's voice remained stone cold even in a whisper. Mulder didn't turn back to look at him. "I don't know what to think, except that she's gone and you knew about it all along." The elder Mulder's jaw twitched. He was forcing himself to say something he didn't want said. "She's not your sister, Fox." In a different reality, he might have learned that on his own and perhaps would have handled it better with some understanding and perspective. Hearing it from his own father, however, shattered his composure. "How the hell can you say that?" "It's the truth. That's how I can say it, and that's all you need to know." Mulder stepped forward, then thought about it and stepped away. "But you knew about it. You still let it happen..." "It's not what you think..." "No, it's never what I think, is it?" He turned away. The elder Mulder wanted so much to growl out his commands, to allow some vestige of parental authority shake his son from his unwarranted anger. "I will explain this, Fox, when you have the proper perspective. You don't have that yet, and you won't if you ignore your responsibilities to yourself and your future. Go back to England, Fox. Go back and finish your education. Forget about Samantha, forget about asking any questions that shouldn't be asked. If you stay here, if you pursue this any further..." "Goodbye, Dad." Mulder didn't turn to look at him. The tone of his voice noted the finality of that statement. His father turned away, doing his best to keep his anger in check. How dare his only son talk to him that way?... If only he could... Something else, a memory from another time, another moment of anger, answered him and shattered his thoughts. He glanced back, seeing his son's back to him. With nothing else to say, the elder Mulder opened the door and stormed out. Dana took each step down the stairs slowly, keeping her eye on Mulder as he stood at the bottom of the stairs. Unwilling to make eye contact with her, he instead stared toward the wall, to an empty space between the paintings hanging there. She watched as he did his best to keep his emotions inside, to force himself to remain composed even though he had every right to vent what he felt before it ripped him apart. She pursed her lips, doing her best to stay silent as she reached the bottom of the stairs and stood an inch away from him. "No, Scully," he whispered, trying to turn away. "I'm okay." Scully wrapped one arm around his waist and turned him toward her. Her silent gaze at him told him she knew full well he wasn't. She wrapped the other arm around him and gave him a gentle, comforting hug. He dropped one arm over her shoulder, and timidly, almost fearfully, wrapped the other around her waist. They stood there, wordlessly, even as the minutes passed and as Dana's father stood quietly in the distance. "Hon?" Mrs. Scully whispered to her husband as she walked in through the kitchen, hoping not to disturb her daughter and her friend Fox. "Is anything wrong?" Captain Scully glanced to his wife and quickly back to his daughter. "Perhaps," he whispered back, letting Margaret lead him away from the hall. "But Dana will be all right." TO BE CONTINUED Part VI- "Nuns," will be in before the New Year...of 1999... Life While They Live It Part VI- Nuns by. Paul Wartenberg COPYRIGHT: Once again, let me state for the record that I am poor. I am not making money off this. Mulder, Scully, and additional characters are owned by Chris Carter and Co., and I hope they know that it would be very nice if they didn't sue me for this. RATING: Romance, but nothing naughty. There is vulgarity, but it's Scully saying most of it so we're cool about it, right?...oh, and hopefully a good-sized serving of humor (at least it was funny when I wrote it...) ;-) SUMMARY: Post-Gethsemane. What if Mulder DID commit suicide? What if Scully's cancer was incurable? I know, I know, that doesn't jibe with Redux, Redux II and most of season 5. Then what could possibly explain why Scully is back in high school?... Boys, you gotta learn not to talk to nuns that way... --Curtis (Cab Calloway), "Blues Brothers" St. Baptista of the Tennis Elbow Apr.8, 1982 Thursday afternoon Scully sighed as she finished shelving the last of the car repair books. She glanced down the aisle, noting the flock of nuns had moved from the check-out desk to one of the library's back offices, leaving the large alcove of tables and bookshelves practically deserted. Still working off her penance due to her thrashing of the Choir Boys, she had spent each afternoon after classes at the St. Jerome Reading Office (fancy word for library) as she promised. Each afternoon staff librarian Sister Eliza, a tall, reed-thin woman with a stern stare and a sterner chin bone, would assign her either to reshelving the books left on the reading tables or typing out the spine labels of all the new books. Neither assignment felt at all fulfilling, but she offered her own deal and had to see it through. The week of school quickly reminded her how monotonous the whole thing had been in her youth, the constant repetition of patterns and routines. She had routines when she achieved her professional status, but school had its requirements and challenges that didn't interest her. At least in the FBI basement, she worked at the challenges she enjoyed. Any enjoyments she got in school were the old friends she missed in her later years: Julie, who was last heard at Scully's reunion heading for the Pacific isles as a cultural anthropologist; Kerwin, the sensitive artist with three girlfriends (two of whom actively agreed to share and did so right through college) and thusly the target of many a death threat from envious football players; Helena, the moody would-be poet destined to find her inspiration in Anne Rice novels and run off to join some vampire cult in New Mexico. And, of course, Sylvia. Sylvia spent most of the week pestering her about Mulder, about where she met him, if she thought he was cute, and how to make sure he took her to the prom. Even at lunch earlier today, her friend needled her on every possible tidbit she could get about Dana's spooky-but-cute friend. Scully finally gave her estimated opinion on Mulder, hoping it would shut up her friend. "Mulder? He's a jerk...well, usually he's a jerk. He's obsessed...with his work..." "Really?" Sylvia's interest grew. "What does he do?" Scully squinted her eyes, thinking up the most plausible job description. "He's a trouble- maker." "Hmm." Her friend settled back into her seat. "Well, if he's so much of a jerk, why do you like him so much?" "Sylvia! It's not what you think..." "No, it's what I saw. Even for those few minutes I saw you two together, you were so relaxed around that guy." "Just because I'm relaxed around him..." "It means you know him. And you know him enough to know he's not really a jerk." Scully's stare was one of the slow burn variety. "Eat your fries, Sylvia." Her other friends only knew the gossip they had heard regarding Marcus, who had thankfully avoided Dana most of the week. Kerwin did his best not to bring up the topic, knowing his own complicity in such amorous predicaments. Julie thought it best to point out some of Marcus's other faults, although the worst she could think of was his inability to parallel park. Helena offered to find some magical curses for Dana to use; considering how serious Helena sounded, she tactfully declined. Sylvia thankfully kept Mulder a secret for now, deciding to wait until her plans would succeed. Scully sighed to herself, wondering how she could ever convince her friend that Mulder just...well, just wouldn't go along with it... "Are you finished?" Scully turned to see Sister Eliza standing on the other side of the aisle, arms crossed and repeatedly tapping her index finger against her elbow. "Oh. Um. Kinda, yes." Regardless of age or experience, no Catholic can stare into the dark continence of a nun and remain calm. "I guess I got these shelves done." "I noticed." Sister Eliza didn't even nod. "But what have you forgotten to do?" I forgot something? Scully scowled to herself. Oh, no, if I forgot a duty to perform it'll get worse, but what else was I supposed to do?... The nun noticed the concern in the young girl's eyes, and finally attempted a smile, albeit a thin-lipped one. "You forgot to leave, Dana. Detention ended about twenty minutes ago." Scully residence Scully rushed through the front door, glancing about for her parents. "Mom? Ahab? Home..." "Dana, dear." Mom strode from the kitchen, gloves with brownish streaks covering her hands. She was cleaning the silverware for the coming Easter and arrival of relatives for the Sunday dinner. "Tough day in the library again?" Dana shrugged her shoulders and gave her mom a hug. "Any messages?" Mrs. Scully sadly shook her head. "Aw, nuts." Dana sighed and stumbled up the stairs, doing her best to avoid Buddy as he raced up past her and into Charlie's room. She pushed her way into her own room, tossing her books onto the desk and falling onto her bed. She tried to close her eyes but she couldn't, standing back up and reaching for the note Mulder left behind. He had packed and vanished early Monday morning, even before she and Charlie woke to head to school. Apparently Mulder's confrontation with his father, just as he was finally relaxing and enjoying some positive moments, sent him back into his obsessive mode. He had straightened out the bed as best he could and had packed every item he had brought with him. All he left were two notes, one sealed for her. A knock at her door distracted Scully from the letter. Missy stood there, nodding at the note in her sister's hand. "No word?" Dana shook her head. "Does he do that all the time? This ditching you?" Dana nodded vigorously. "You should shoot him." "I did." Missy arched an eyebrow, but no smile came to her face as she turned away. Of the family members, Melissa was the most upset at Mulder's disappearance. Dad didn't seem to give it much thought after the initial concern that Monday. Mom seemed a little miffed that Mulder left without a proper farewell, somehow violating some code of conduct when visiting someone's home, although his first letter thanking her for letting him stay the weekend soothed her disappointment some. Charlie didn't care one way or another, and Bill, being Bill, actually expressed his relief. Melissa, however, was downright mad about Mulder running off like that. She acted as if it was some kind of betrayal on his part. Dana, curious, pulled her to one side as soon as it was convenient and asked, "What is wrong?" Her older sister showed extreme concern. "Did you two talk last night?" "Yeah." "Did he tell you anything?" Dana scowled. "I don't think so. About what?" Missy rolled her eyes. "He would avoid telling you, wouldn't he? Typical bloody male..." "What? What was he supposed to tell me?" "I can't tell you. I promised. And I think it would be better if you heard it from him." After that, Missy didn't say another word about Mulder. Dana wondered what may have passed between Mulder and Melissa. She didn't think it was anything serious, but it involved her in a big way. If only Mulder... She glanced at the letter he had left for her and read again its short, simple message. "Scully, I have to go. You know why. Please stay safe. You're the only one I trust." "Dammit, Mulder," she sighed under her breath. "Where the hell did you get to?..." St. Baptista Friday The history class had erupted again into anarchy. Sister Ruth always had this problem with her classes, but always unavoidable. Doing her best to keep students interested in a dry topic, she established debating teams to argue over the importance of historical events. However, no matter how she tried to keep the subject focused on the major socio-political impact, the students always focused on the tawdrier details. Today was no exception: the debate on the Berlin Wall crisis had collapsed into whether or not Kennedy had sex with Marilyn Monroe while the tanks rolled across East Germany. Scully kept to herself: being from the future, she already knew the answer and had actually seen some of Hoover's files on it. It did get her thinking about calling Paula Jones with a helpful warning, but she decided against it: some mistakes always have a way of repeating themselves. Her disinterest proved coincidentally helpful, because it gave her the opportunity to stare out the window and watch Mulder walk right by. Stunned, Dana took a moment to realize that her partner would try to sneak onto campus. She pondered that thought to its logical conclusion just before she jumped from her chair and raced to the doorway. "Excuse me, Dana?" Sister Ruth's voice did little to quiet the din. Actually, most of the students stopped their debate when they saw a fellow student bolting for the doorway out. "You need a hallway pass if you need to go somewhere." "Not if it's an emergency," she puffed, swinging the door wide open and racing into the hall. She had to hurry before Mulder could get in. She turned for the nearest exit, speeding past a group of Advanced Philosophy students coming back from the reading room, and slammed the doors open, taking a few steps onto the courtyard as she glanced about. No sign of Mulder. Only a handful of perplexed nuns stood in the distance. But he was here, she screamed within her own mind. I know I saw him... She turned and hurried back down the halls. Mulder must have hurried himself when he saw those nuns. She went down the short end of the hall into the main hallway, which stretched the entire length of the west school wing. Here stood many of the statues and their alcoves, good hiding places for those who could fit into the shadowy corners. She checked each alcove, moving quickly as she feared attracting any attention from the nuns who walk these halls. If any of them saw her, or worse if they saw Mulder... "Scully. Wow. There really IS something about a girl's Catholic school outfit..." The voice came from behind St. Thomas More. A familiar face and familiar grin appeared through the shadows. She did her best to keep her snarling to a whisper. "Mulder! What the hell are you doing here?..." He waited until she was within the alcove, close enough to continue a private conversation. "Oh, well, you don't have a cel phone in this era so I couldn't call you for a report. I went out and did some hunting for..." "Mulder, I don't care about that right now. You've got to get off campus." He kept grinning, unaware of the consequences. "Why?" Scully sighed. "You went to public school, right?" He nodded. "Well, I don't know what kind of security they have at public schools, but this is a private school. Private property. Church property. You just can't sneak in and out." His smile faded just slightly. "I don't think anyone noticed..." "It's not a question of them noticing, it's a question of them finding you. Mulder, this is private property. They can have you arrested for trespassing. Not only that, they'll rough you up before they hand you over to the cops and the authorities wouldn't even blink." Mulder's grin turned into a jaw-dropped scowl. "What do you mean `rough up'? The nuns? I know they can be a tad disciplinarian, but..." Scully glanced down each end of the hallway, gratefully noting no sign of black robes. "Mulder, if ever there were a group of warrior nuns, this school would be the training ground. These nuns know how to kick ass. They have to, dealing with the Choir Boys on a regular basis..." She grabbed him by the hand and dragged Mulder behind her, heading for the best exitway off campus. They both glanced in every direction, hoping not to get caught, as she led him down the hall into the intersection with the north wing. "Excuse me." A deep matronly voice echoed behind them, far in the distance. "Just who is that young man in the black trench coat?" "RUN!" Scully let go of Mulder's hand as they both turned the corner and ran down the hall for dear life. Down this hallway, a few more alcoves waited behind another row of stone saints, and she shoved her partner into the shadows behind St. Teresa. "Wait here. This alcove will do." "Let's just head for the doors," he hissed, keeping an eye out for the nun pursuing them. "Too late. She'll have nuns at the doors. Don't ask how, trust me. I'll send someone to help." Mulder slid into the shadows as Scully turned and ran down the north hall. The nuns were bound to chase her and find her. She'll need someone else to aid Mulder, and she prayed he was where he should be during this day... Mulder kept quiet in the alcove, waiting and watching. An army of rather large and rather vicious nuns passed his way on many occasions, their movements unnervingly quiet and exacting. Scully was right: they are well-organized and seemingly capable of kicking ass. Finally, as it quieted down for a few minutes, two faces glanced into the alcove and quickly pulled away, cautiously scanning every direction. Convinced the coast was clear, two young men slipped behind the statue. "Charles," Mulder whispered, nodding to Dana's younger brother. "Thanks for stopping by. Who's your friend?" "Dana's friend. Fox, this is Kerwin. Kerwin, this here's Dana's new boyfriend." "Boyfriend?" Kerwin squinted at the spooky-looking guy, who simply shrugged off the statement. "Dana hasn't mentioned you." "That's not important right now." The youngest Scully pointed a finger at Mulder. "Sis says to get you outta here. But the nuns have the doors blocked so we've got to take the Metro." "Charlie," Dana's friend shook his head. "The Metro's a myth, a tale the seniors tell freshmen so they'd get lost in the basement. Like snipe hunting." "It's real." Charles grinned. "And snipes are real, too. It's just that snipes don't live deep in the forests. You have to know where to look, and who to trust. And I've done both. Follow me." They stepped quietly down the north wing, Charlie in front, Kerwin to the rear. Mulder kept close to Charlie, taking a moment to ask a question or two. "Who's Kerwin?" "Friend of Dana's. Art student. She went to him to find me. Art students have an open class, which they use to...find `inspiration' elsewhere on campus, which means heading for the bathrooms and lighting up smokes." "Where's Scully?" Charlie's glance showed no emotion. "Dana? You can call her Dana, you know. After getting Kerwin into this, she went off somewhere to get caught." "Damn." "Better her than you. They can rip trespassers to shreds, but not students." Charlie stopped, nodding toward a door marked `Auditorium'. "Keep an eye out for black robes. I don't want the nuns sniffing here." They glanced in all directions. No sign of habits. "Go." Charlie ran, swinging the door open and poking his head through, making sure the theater was completely empty. Mulder and Kerwin slipped past him, speeding their way down the sloping paths toward the stage as he closed the door swiftly behind them. "The Metro's here?" Kerwin panted, stopping at the side steps leading to the platform. "But there's no other way out, except the fire exits..." "The bomb shelters," Charlie whispered, heading up the stairs. Kerwin scowled at Mulder then at Charlie. "The bomb shelters are the other way, near the basement..." "That way was blocked off when they revamped the tunnels." Charlie tapped the floor far in the back along the masonry wall, kicking away a large carpet covering the wooden panels. It was Mulder's turn to scowl. "Tunnels?" "I'll tell you later. We've got to move." He succeeded in pulling away the carpet to reveal a trap door. Charlie lifted one panel, shoving his finger into a small crevice which tripped a switch. The rest of the door lifted up, and Charlie waved them toward the opening. Kerwin went first. Mulder followed, finding a narrow set of steps heading down into the darkness. He turned and watched Charlie grab a string as he stepped into the stairwell, closing the trap door over his head. He yanked on the string. "That'll pull the carpet back. Should leave no trace. Move." Mulder stumbled down the dark stairwell, keeping his hands out as he felt the walls to maintain his balance. Slowly, a dim light could be seen, and Mulder felt the steps give way to a solid wide floor. The three gathered in a small room, one wall carved straight from rock and the other side walled up with masonry. What light there was came through high metal grills, ventilation shafts for the room opposite the stone wall. At either end, two dark passages faded away into the shadows, a cool draft streaming through the area. Kerwin pointed toward the incoming breeze. "Where do these tunnels go?" Charlie nodded in one direction. "These tunnels were built during the Revolution by the rebellion as a safe haven and underground passage. Some of the patriotic Catholic families were persecuted by the British and the Tories, so they designed it so the tunnels ran between the churches and homes. They were maintained during the Railroad days by the abolitionists, but after that they fell into disuse until the Cold War and the school decided to use some of the tunnels as bomb shelters, putting up these brick walls for better protection." He pushed hard against a stone outcropping, apparently hitting a switch that opened a secret doorway. "The nuns know about these tunnels here, designed to be air shafts. Most of the passageways were walled off to create a wind tunnel effect back up to ground level. But some students found secret passages. They called it the Metro, and not many know about it, or else everyone would come down here to neck and stuff, and then the nuns would go ballistic." Kerwin tapped Charlie's shoulder. "How did you find out?" "Best way. I got sneaky." The young Scully grinned. "Knew a marching band member who had five girlfriends and a huge hormonal drive. Every day he would be gone half the practice and would always show up really out of it. I knew there had to be a hiding place nearby so I quizzed him on it." "And he just told you?" "Just like I'm telling you." Charles reached into his bookbag and pulled out a Bible. "The code is, once confronted by another student, you have to tell. And it's the only time you can tell. You have to swear on it." He handed the book to Kerwin. "Find Ephesians, and read chapter six, line 12..." Kerwin stared at the page. "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against spiritual wickedness in high places, against the rulers of the darkness of this world." Charles nodded to him. "Do you understand these words?" "I guess so. Not really." "I'll explain later." He reached into the secret passageway and pulled out large wooden sticks, each of them with white rags wrapped at one end. "Hold these." Kerwin and Mulder held one each as Charlie pulled out a Bic lighter and sparked each rag. Flames quickly jumped onto the rags but didn't consume them entirely, slowly burning and adding light to the small area. The youngest Scully reached down for the third torch, and used the lit ones to start his own. Mulder scowled at the torch in his hands. "I don't get it. Why don't we use flashlights?" "Because torches are traditional. Besides, you need them to burn off the rats." Charles nodded to Kerwin. "You'll get a tour later. But for now, you're the decoy." "Decoy?" "Just in case the nuns know to look here. Head down one end and then go back the other way to see if you attract any of them. If you don't, wait here for my return. This tunnel's pretty much just back and forth, so you won't get lost." Kerwin arched both eyebrows. "And if I run into any nuns?" He shrugged. "Just recite the Ephesians quote." "And pray they don't have blasters," Mulder smirked. "That isn't very reassuring," Kerwin growled as he turned and headed down the air shaft. Charlie waved into the secret tunnel. "This way." Mulder headed into the narrow passage as the younger Scully closed the stone door behind them. They stepped slowly into a downward sloping corridor, the torch flames licking at the wet rocky ceiling barely above Mulder's head. "Does this tunnel open up any?" Mulder's voice echoed through the deep hole. "No." "I mean, does it get any higher?" "You claustrophobic?" "No...no, not really." "No. Tunnel is what it is." "Are there really rats?" "Yes." "You're jok...have you seen them?" "Yes." "Really, really rats?" "Are you afraid of rats?" "No...no, not really." "Then relax." The passage stopped sloping, but had reached a point where the moisture hadn't drained out. A mildewy smell overwhelmed Mulder as he felt his feet splashing into a long puddle of water. "Ever thought of redecorating the place?" he quipped. "No. Keep moving." They reached an intersection in two directions, one staying the same level and the other sloping upward. Mulder waved his torch toward the upward passage. "That way?" "That way leads to the outdoor grotto. Too close to the school." Charlie pointed the other way. "This way goes to the main Metro tunnel." "Is that where the rats are?" "Yes." "I'd love to see the grotto." "There are nuns in the grotto. Choose the rats or choose the nuns." Mulder scowled at the younger Scully. "You really need to clean up this place, you know." "We know. Keep moving." The corridor slowly sloped upwards until it reached a large, almost cathedral-sized tunnel stretching into the darkness in all directions. They stood on one side, a wide ledge that gave way to a lower floor. A thin stream of water trickled along the deeper part of the floor. "In case of flooding, considering we're right underneath a creek that feeds into the harbor," Charlie pointed to the wide tunnel, "the patriots carved out a deeper part with drainage drilled off into a few underground aqueducts. It took months to even find the proper drilling points. Still, some water seeps through from the sewage system. Bit of a health hazzard, but not much garbage gets down here." He headed off to the right along the ledge. "Keep to the upper floor. The rats tend to stay on the lower floor." "Why do they stay down there?" "They tend to. Not always. Depends on if the stream's brought anything in way of food." A set of squeaks bounced across the tunnel. "And if there's no food?" Charles turned and grimaced. "You better have a steak to toss them." They walked along the ledge as the corridor reached straight into the distance. As the squeaking sounds came closer, Mulder leaned over to see below, and watched as a steady march of dark, furry things moving in the other direction. None of the rats stopped, keeping in step with the flow, with only a few of them moving closer to the thin current of water before getting back in line. "I don't get it," Mulder whispered. "This isn't exactly the best place to hang out. Why even come here at all?" "The thrill, I suppose." Charles kept moving, not even looking at the rats. "Dark secrets, dark hiding places...somewhere to go, I guess, when you want to hide from the world." A distant echo of pattering came from the far end of the tunnel. The squeaking of the rats stopped, and the splashing of water replaced the earlier sounds. "It's the nuns. They know we're here." Charlie seized Mulder by the coat sleeve. "Change of plans. This way." "I thought you said the nuns didn't know this part of the underground," Mulder gasped as they ran down the main passageway. "Must be three answers," the younger Scully kept pace with Mulder. "One of the nuns must have been an earlier keeper of the secrets. Or one of the students snitched." "What's the third one?" Charlie glanced upward. "The problem with nuns...they've got an understanding with the Almighty..." He stopped and reached down, leaning over to leap into the lower pathway. "We have to cross here. The corridor's on the other side." "Where are you going?" Mulder stood along the ledge, not wanting to step down. Charles leapt across the waterway to the other side of the tunnel. "I was going to take you to an exit near home, but now that's out of the question. Next best place is the church." Mulder started to lean over to scale down to the bottom of the tunnel, but a sudden burst of squeaking stopped him. A line of rats began running by. "Dammit, Fox, hurry!" Charlie waved his torch. "Jump over them!" He pushed off from the ledge, judging his distance to avoid the wave of rodents. His feet splashed into the water, but as he stumbled he lost his grip on the torch. It fell back into the line of rats, bouncing off the backs of an entire set of them, igniting their fur. Some of the squeaking turned into squealing as the burning rats raced everywhere, blind panic consuming any instinct they once had. The torch also cut the line of running rodents in half, keeping a growing number of them to one side of the flames as the ones in front raced ahead into the darkness. "Move!" Charles hissed, and Mulder hurried after him. They both climbed over the other side of the ledge, the younger Scully keeping a firm grip on the last remaining light source they had. As they reached the upper deck, Mulder looked down to see some of the burning rats splashing into the water, cooling off the flames and falling silent as they sat still in their shock. The rest of the rats, piling up on one side of the fallen torch, began spilling across the water as well. "This way." Charles waved to a narrow passageway leading up. Mulder followed close behind, as Dana's brother moved quickly up the path. Even though the ground was slippery, he used both hands to grip the sides of the tunnel for leverage. Also, the sound of rats stayed too close for comfort. "Congrats," Charles growled as he used his free hand to keep his balance, "it sounds like you've riled up the rodents something awful." "That's bad, I know." "Maybe. With luck, it'll slow up the nuns, too." A solid wall appeared at the upper end of the corridor. "Almost there." They reached the wall, and Charles felt about its surface. "Need to unlock here...no, here...there it is!" He pressed an indentation, creating a clicking sound as the wall shuddered. Part of the wall slid back, and he reached to its side to pull the door open. "Ladies and ratburners first." Mulder stepped into the room and immediately tripped over a broomstick. He regained his balance and glanced about, noting a wide variety of brooms, sweepers, and mops. "Gee, I was hoping to get the closet with all the skeletons in it." Charlie entered the room and pulled back the hidden doorway, securing it tightly. "Sorry, Fox. That one's on the other side of town." A small squeak suddenly bounced around the room. The younger Scully glared at Mulder. "Turn around." He moved slowly, lifting both arms parallel to his shoulders. Mulder felt his coat being tugged on by some weight. "Is there something there?" Charles took a long time to answer. "No." "Is it a rat?" "No." The youngest of the Scully siblings had yet to learn the proper techniques of lying. "Can you knock it off for me?" Another long silence. "Sure." Mulder felt a large, heavy object brush against his back. The rat squealed loudly as it fell to the floor. Both of them jumped away from the rodent as it scurried into the dark corners of the broom closet. Mulder gulped, hoping nothing serious would come of this. "Can we go now?" "Yes." St. Mary's Duke of Gloucester St. The basement underneath the church proper appeared completely deserted, but Charles still moved cautiously. "There's a few ascetic dorm rooms down here, for when some of the priests or patrons want quiet meditation." He checked each room, smiling when he finished the last one. Propping the door open, he waved Mulder inside. "Stay here. I'll go check upstairs." The room itself had little in way of furniture: a small desk and chair at one end and a thin cot along the other. A large crucifix hung over the desk, Jesus's eyes glancing balefully for his fate. Mulder found a Bible in the desk drawer, and having nothing else to do began reading it. He chose the Psalms, as that made for quick reading without all the "saith thous" and "begatting" you find in the other texts. Charles returned about five minutes later, two dark parcels under each arm. "Trouble. The nuns knew to come here, so they've got the main doors blocked. They're well organized today, I can tell you that." Mulder closed the book. "So how do we get outta here?" "We don't." Charles tossed one dark parcel onto the cot and began unfolding the second parcel. "But you're in luck. Today's was somebody's wash day." He finished unraveling the dark cloak, holding up a tall nun's habit. "So. Whadda you think, Fox?" Mulder winced and pointed to the second parcel on the cot. "I think you ougtta call me Mulder, and if this other pile of clothes is what I think they are, they would be a better choice for outfit..." Fifteen minutes later, a rather spooky-but-cute-looking priest climbed up the basement stairwell and into the side rooms aligned outside the cathedral. The teenager with him pointed the way into the chapel and walked toward the wooden set of confessional booths. "Okay, hide here." Charles opened one of the doors. "With luck, the nuns will see the uniform first and move on." "And if they don't?" "Start praying. You're in the best place for it." Mulder nodded to the younger Scully. "What about you?" "I know other ways out of here, and a few hiding places to cower in until the coast is clear." He slung his bookbag over one shoulder. "When I get out, I'll find Dana and she'll drag you outta here." "What if someone comes in for a confessional?" Charlie arched an eyebrow. "Give them a certain number of Hail Marys or Our Fathers, and don't crack wise about anything kinky. They're here for repentance, not sarcasm." "Even if it involves farm animals?" "Especially if it involves farm animals." The teen slammed the door shut and hurried alongside the pews, heading a side door to the bell tower. He waited two hours going slowly insane. It would have been some comfort for someone, anyone, to come in with a troubled soul, but no one showed. He heard the nuns flock outside the confessionals, but they didn't seem to consider checking the booths. After awhile, silence reigned inside this small place. Finally, a door opened to the booth connected to the left side. "All right, Mulder, before I give you my confessional, I want to make sure you're qualified to work here." Mulder quickly slid the confessional window to one side. Scully glared back at him through the small opening. "You know, Mulder, I dunno if I should tell you anything, really." "Trust me, Scully, I've been told to handle this job in a professional manner, especially if it involves farm animals." She leaned toward the window, resting her chin against the bottom edge. "Why don't you try confessing your sins while we're here?" "Well, as you know, I do have that video collection to worry about..." "Not that." A flash of anger showed in her eyes. "I'm talking about all the times you keep ditching me, especially this past Monday. Dammit, Mulder, where the hell did you go?" "Well, Scully, I have some searching to do." He paused, recognizing the hurt he saw across her face. "Me and Frohike did some work, and found a few clues here and there..." "I'm not interested in that. You could have returned here after your daily forays. You could have kept company with my family. You could have relaxed a little..." She slumped back into her seat. "You could have called. You could have realized someone was worried about you." Mulder twitched one side of his mouth. "You're right, I should have." "And another thing." She leaned up back to the window. "What the hell happened between you and Missy?" "Uh, what did she tell you?" "Nothing. She told me to hear it from you. So I'm listening." "Ah..." "Tell me, Mulder." Scully's face turned stone cold. "If you don't, it's over. I'm not going to help you anymore." He glanced away, then turned back to return her stare. "I told her about how I felt...about being...responsible for what happened to you." "I'm not a pet, Mulder..." "No, you were my partner, and I should have watched out for you better." He turned away. It wasn't the whole truth but it was close enough. "I should have taken better care of you." She sat there, silent for a full minute, then pulled away. "That's not it." Scully flew open her confessional door. "Good-bye, Mulder. You don't have to worry about taking care of me anymore." "Wait!" Mulder shoved his door open and ran to Scully's side of the booth. He blocked her way with one arm across the open doorway. "Scully, I..." "The truth, Mulder." She glared at him from the shadow of the confessional. "You keep asking it of me, I'm asking it of you." Mulder pursed his lips, taking a moment to figure out how to say it best. "Okay, Scully. I...I told Melissa that...I told her about how..." He closed his eyes. "About how I felt for you." Scully did her best to remain composed. She had actually assumed the worst had happened between Mulder and Melissa, but this wasn't unexpected either. She had wondered if he was ever getting around to admitting it, after all these years of flirting and close calls like that conversation in the car. She leaned forward, letting her face reach out into the light. "What did Missy say?" "Ah, well..." Mulder had expected a few things to happen if he had ever said what he just said. He either expected Scully to hit him or laugh at him. They had flirted before, but it never really seemed serious, or at least she never seemed to pursue that route. But now... "She, um, said to pretty much, ah, take a chance." "You know, Mulder, having you say that while wearing a priest's outfit..." Scully finally smiled. "Let's just say I wasn't expecting to hear that in this sort of situation." "Oh." Mulder stepped back, letting his partner exit the confessional. "So you're not upset?" "Oh, I'm still a bit upset. From now on, Mulder, if you go off somewhere, I go with you. No matter what, no matter where. If I have to finish a commitment here first, wait for me to finish and then we'll go." She lifted Charlie's bookbag and nodded to it. "Brought your clothes. Better change here before we leave." "Okay." Mulder took the bag and stepped into the confessional. "Actually, I was talking about what I said about how...ah, how I felt about you..." She leaned against the closed door. "How do you really feel, Mulder? About me?" "Um..." "Mulder..." He stayed silent as he struggled with his pants in the small cubicle. Finally zipping up his blue jeans, he pulled at the black shirt. "Scully...the thing is...well, it's..." He opened the door and stuck his head out, showing off his bare chest. "Scully, I think you're beautiful." She arched both eyebrows. "Thank you, Mulder, and it's a good thing I've seen you in your Speedos so I can say the same thing..." "But..." His face drooped, his patented wounded-puppy look returning. "I got you killed." He closed the door before continuing. "Remember? You told me yourself. You got your cancer because of me, to make me believe, to hurt me by hurting you. Despite what you say, I am responsible..." "Mulder..." "How can I let you get close to me if doing so will get you killed in the end?" He finished with his shirt and slid on his trench coat. Tying his shoelaces, he wrapped up the priestly clothes and exited the booth. "Scully, I trust you. You're pretty much the only who's ever listened to me, or gave me some comfort. But...I can't...we can't..." "Can't what?" "Looked what happened last weekend," he whispered. "I almost got you killed again, or worse. What if?..." "But I'm okay now." She raised a hand to his cheek. "You're okay now. Let's just...start over from there." Mulder reached up with his hand, placing it over hers, gently lowering them down. "We are starting over. But I'm making the same decisions..." "Do you have to do this? Finding Samantha?" "You know I have no choice. I have to know." "Then we'll both tread carefully." Holding his hand as she took the bookbag around her other arm, she turned and led him from the cathedral. "And we'll do it together." "Okay. Um, for my confessions, do I have to...do anything? Like say a prayer or something?" "Oh, you've got to pay your dues, Mulder." "How do I do that?" She grinned as they calmly walked by a group of nuns, who took no notice of them. "I think your penance should be an all-expense paid road trip to New York tomorrow..." TO BE CONTINUED Part VII- "Rapture," will be as soon as I can organize my thoughts...or Clinton swears off other women, whichever comes first...