From: theidiosyncraticstanwyck <theidiosyncraticstanwyck@yahoo.com>
Date: 25 Jan 2005 16:28:28 -0800
Subject: [all-xf] New: Spectrum (1/10)
Source: atxc



Title: Spectrum
Author: the idiosyncratic stanwyck
Email: theidiosyncraticstanwyck@yahoo.com
Category/Keywords: AU, MSR, A (not too much)
Rating: PG-13; R or NC-17 sections will be marked
Summary: A woman meets a man who opens her eyes to a vast,
unexpected spectrum of beautiful, terrifying possibilities.
Please note: My Mulder is *not* color-blind. This is very
important; otherwise the story doesn't make sense. Beta thanks
to the unflinching Tali and Jen. This is not a WIP; I will post
two sections per week for the next five weeks. More notes will
follow at the end of the whole damn thing.

SPECTRUM
Chapter One: Beige

"The color of the universe is not an intriguing pale 
turquoise, as astronomers recently announced. It's actually 
beige - and a rather ordinary beige at that." - a report 
from Johns Hopkins University, March 2002

**

The District of Columbia had fallen victim to a coquettish 
late-October heat wave that had lasted almost a week, and 
had awoken this morning to the renewed chill of waning 
autumn with a certain half-jaded, impotent fury. An 
unwillingness to leave home and hearth and fuzzy slippers 
filled the air, and ribbons of traffic unfurled sluggishly 
from Arlington and Alexandria and Silver Spring.

He was going to be late. 

John looked down at the almost-imperceptibly ticking hands 
on his knock-off Rolex, and fumbled slightly as he fitted 
the unwieldy brass key into the lock. A telephone stopped 
ringing as the heavy wooden door swung inward with a put-
upon groan. He had reached for the light switch, fine-
boned, well-manicured hands pulling away from immaculately 
pressed cuffs, when his cell phone rang.

"You're late." The teasing voice of his caller brushed 
aside the opportunity for greetings. "It's 8:18. Where are 
you?"

"I just walked in the door. And I might point out that 
you're not here either."

"You might, but you're too much of a gentleman." From her 
end of the conversation he heard squealing tires and 
honking horns, and she hurled a string of softly-spoken 
expletives. "I'm taking Lola to the vet. That ridiculous, 
murderous Siamese the Mastersons call a pet attacked her 
this morning, and this sweet, dumb baby just took it - 
Didn't you, mutt?" she cooed. "Mom will kill me if I don't 
treat this dog like a queen. So I'm going to be a little 
late."

"Sure, no problem. It's a light morning. We've got that 
writer friend of Melvin's at nine, but I can handle him." 
More squealing tires. John cringed. "Be careful," he 
admonished.

She sighed, drawing him a picture of her grim, cool facial 
expression. "I'm always careful. Bye, Johnny."

Now sitting still in hopelessly snarled rush-hour traffic, 
Dana Scully ended the conversation and tucked her small 
black phone into the console. Her compact was trapped 
between a semi and a minivan. Tip-Top Vegetables, the 
Capitol's Freshest! bright yellow paint enthused. She 
couldn't see a damn thing. Lola, her mother's shih tzu, 
whined pitifully from the back seat.

"It's okay, girl," Dana soothed automatically, sipping her 
coffee from a silver travel mug. She thought with a mixture 
of fondness and exasperation of her business partner - he 
ended every conversation by telling her to be careful, to 
take care, while she was certainly one of the most cautious 
people ever to walk upright. Somehow she'd earned a place 
in John's book as a mixed breed: half sophisticated career 
woman, half little girl who couldn't take care of herself. 
The irony didn't escape her.

Traffic pushed forward again, and she followed gratefully. 
Her mind wandered, picturing her apartment - tastefully 
decorated, spartanly neat, everything in its place and a 
place for everything, in a trendy feng shui-esque way. 
Magazines stacked neatly on the coffee table in 
chronological order. Her wardrobe color-coded and itemized, 
leaning heavily toward black and beige-the new black, she 
thought sarcastically. She folded her underwear, for 
Christ's sake. She sighed, feeling vaguely annoyed and a 
little sad, without knowing why.

Traffic. Must be the traffic. It was barely 8 a.m. and she 
was already in desperate need of a cigarette. She glanced 
into the backseat and imagined that Lola was eying her 
reproachfully. 

"I know," Dana sighed. "I'm quitting. But just one, huh?" 
She fumbled in the console, extracting a lighter and one 
slim Marlboro Light from the package she'd tucked beneath a 
stack of tissues. She flicked the lighter and inhaled 
deeply as the end of the cigarette glowed to life, then 
slumped into her seat with relief. "Dog-sitting, hell. The 
next time Mom goes out of town, she can board you."

She jerked to attention just in time to slam on the anti-
lock brakes. The lid of the travel mug came loose and 
coffee sloshed down the front of her beige jacket. Lola 
barked furiously, and Dana swore.

**

She reached the two-story Arlington brownstone that housed 
Over the Moon Image Consulting and Public Relations a 
little over an hour later. Lola's paw was bandaged and she 
was safely ensconced in the vet's kennel, and Dana, feeling 
considerably more cheerful, had stopped to pick up a fresh 
batch of artery-clogging pastries and lattes from the 
corner coffee shop.

"Good morning." Her quiet greeting carried throughout the 
studio. John looked up from his desk and smiled. Langly, 
their resident computer whiz kid, was immersed in something 
- probably another round of Doom - and didn't spare her a 
glance. "I brought food," she added, which really got their 
attention.

"Coffee, Mistress?" Langly asked hopefully.

"Of course, Ringo." He slithered over to claim his cup, 
looking like a rejected surfer boy in his Green Day t-shirt 
and straggly blond hair, rather than an Ivy League grad. 

"Don't call me Ringo," he said, digging for a jelly 
doughnut.

"Don't call me Mistress," she returned calmly. "Here's 
yours, John."

"Flavored?" he asked distastefully, holding the cup with 
two fingers as if it might contaminate him.

She nodded firmly. "Hazelnut."

"I don't like flavored," he pointed out in his patient, 
long-suffering, "I've-said-this-a-hundred-times" voice.

"You'll have to learn. All gay men like flavored coffee," 
she reasoned simply, only the tiny quirk of her lips 
belying her serious expression. "Besides, they messed up my 
order. It's all hazelnut." She set her briefcase down on 
her own desk and shrugged out of her overcoat and stained 
blazer. "How did the meeting with the writer go?"
"He had to reschedule, actually. He's coming in at 11:30. 
I've got that lunch with Jack Porter, but I told Luder 
you'd be here. He shouldn't be any trouble - sounded like a 
nice guy."

"Nice, or nice?" She suggestively arched one copper 
eyebrow.

"Nice, Dana. Personable. Simpatico. Oh, you've spilled on 
your jacket, and I'm all out of Shout wipes. It will 
stain."

She waved his mothering away, looking emotionlessly at the 
forlornly crumpled blazer. "It's all right," she said. "I 
never liked the color anyway."

Langly never left the office for lunch. He put on a pair of 
headphones and brought out the day's disgusting foil-
wrapped concoction, usually something involving strong 
cheese and greasy meat. Liverwurst, Dana thought, sniffing 
the air. Her cast-iron stomach shuddered with repulsion.

It was 11:33. Melvin's friend was late - John, manically 
punctual John, wouldn't approve. Dana was on the phone with 
Senator Ajacks, who was angling for a cabinet appointment 
if the president was re-elected for a second term. 

"Five hundred thousand," she counseled, idly toying with 
the edge of her blazer. The trendy name for the shade of 
the linen fabric not marred by coffee was oatmeal. Dark 
brown liquid the color of tobacco juice spread out 
unevenly, edges jagged like torn flesh. Oatmeal, ivory, 
wheat, she reviewed mentally. They were all the same 
goddamn color, give or take a fraction. You never saw an 
oatmeal or ivory crayon, not even in those huge boxes with 
eighty-four different colors. 

"A million would be too flashy, with all the talk about 
campaign finance reform in the news. You could do 
seven-fifty, but it might be pushing it. Make a Wish 
Foundation. They'll love it, Greg. Think about it - 
no, don't think about it. Just do it. ... That's 
right, I do know best." 

She heard the outer door opening and looked up to see 
a man silhouetted against the pale sunlight. He began 
the routine of taking off coat, scarf, and gloves, and 
Dana forced a laugh at one of the Senator's asinine jokes. 
"All right. Yes, we'll talk soon. Good-bye."

She repressed a sigh of relief as she replaced the 
receiver, and turned her attention to the new arrival. He 
lingered hesitantly in the doorway.

"Come in and have a seat," she invited, rising. "You must 
be Mr. Luder."

He shook her hand, his expression doubtful. "Mulder, 
actually. F.M. Luder is my pen name."

Dana got her first clear look at his face and felt a 
pleasant warmth spreading across her skin. He was 
beautiful, in a unique, intriguing way. "Would you like 
some coffee?"

"I'd love some."

"It's toxic," she warned, but he merely grinned. "Here - 
cut it with this." She handed him a mug and an eclaire.

Instead of resuming her seat behind the desk, Dana took the 
overstuffed armchair next to his matching chair. "Mr. 
Mulder, then. I'm Dana Scully. You spoke with my partner, 
John Byers, this morning." 

"Ms. Scully. You were recommended to me by Melvin Frohike."

She nodded encouragingly. "Is there anything in particular 
that brings you here?"

"Ah, yeah, actually." He paused, studying his hands. Her gaze 
followed his, and noticed that his long fingers terminated 
in neat, carefully clipped nails with perfect white half 
moons. "Have you ever heard my name, Ms. Scully?"

"Please, call me Dana. And yes, I have." When John had 
mentioned Mulder's - or rather, Luder's - name, it had 
taken Dana a moment to place, but she had realized that he 
was a well-known writer of psychological science-fiction 
thrillers whose name appeared not infrequently on the New 
York Times bestseller list. She smiled back, her cool, 
professional, just-a-few-teeth smile. 

"I've been writing sci-fi for nearly fifteen years. I make 
enough money to live comfortably, do what I want to do."

"Don't be modest," she interrupted calmly. "You've been 
quite successful."

He nodded. "My success has inspired a certain amount of 
professional jealousy. Nothing unusual, but I guess I'm a 
good target." He shrugged. "I'm a loner, Dana. I keep to 
myself. I have few friends; I seldom go out; my most 
intimate relationship is with the pizza delivery boy. 
That's the way I like to keep things. But in the last six 
or eight months, all sorts of ridiculous rumors have 
started to circulate. Now everyone seems to think I'm some 
sort of J.D. Salinger-type recluse, or that I don't exist at 
all."

"That's why you're here, then," Dana said, and again he 
nodded. "Mr. Mulder, I must tell you, I've seen these 
situations often work in a person's favor. Sales of your 
books could skyrocket."

"They have, but it isn't worth it."

"What do you mean?"

"Reporters call me. I've had TV crews showing up, harassing 
my neighbors. Some idiot interviewed my third-grade 
teacher. I can't take a piss without somebody sending in a 
camera crew. My landlord is this close to evicting me. Fans 
camp out on my doorstep. I can't go out in public. A 
teenager actually tried to mail herself to me."

"I thought they only did that on I Love Lucy," Dana 
commented wryly.

"Apparently not. I can't handle it. All of this is driving 
me crazy. I just want them all to go away." For a second he 
looked truly miserable, like a hang-dog little boy. "Melvin 
thought you could help."

Dana leaned back in her chair. "Yes, we can help. But you 
might not like it."

His arched eyebrow mirrored the one she had flashed him 
earlier, and his strong features held a combination of 
amusement and trepidation. "That's a hell of a sales 
pitch."

Her face remained impassive, but the skin around her eyes 
crinkled in what would have been laugh lines if she'd 
allowed them to develop. "I don't promise instant 
gratification, Mr. Mulder. I won't say you'll wake up 
tomorrow and find that your life has returned to normal, 
because that would be an outright lie. I'll need time."

He leaned forward. "How much time?"

She considered briefly. "Six months, to do it properly."

"What do I have to do?"

"Go out in public," she said bluntly, knowing that was 
exactly what he didn't want to hear. "Give lectures, 
readings, sign books. Go to a few dinners, charity 
functions. Get your face and your name out there. Once you 
do, the mystique will wear off. It isn't complicated."

He studied her. "If it's so simple, why do I need you?" he 
challenged.

She grinned, looking genuinely delighted. Sky blue eyes 
flashed at him, accentuated by the tiny laugh lines, now 
definitely in evidence. "Because I have the connections, 
and you don't. I'm sure your pizza delivery boy is 
wonderful, but I don't think he can get you an invitation 
to the White House."

He had no choice but to grin back. "Fair enough, I guess."

Dana reached for a sheaf of papers and handed it to him. 
"This is a contract. Take it with you and look over it, 
then let me know what you've decided."

He took the papers and they both stood. He crossed to the 
coat rack and began suiting up to go outside. He gave her a 
small smile and a wave. 

"Have a nice afternoon, Mr. Mulder."

"Just Mulder."

"All right, Mulder."

"Thanks, Dana."

She smiled slightly. "Just Scully," she volleyed. "Feel 
free to call if you have any questions."

**

Chapter Two: Drop Dead Red

"It's red hot, mate. I hate to think of this sort of book 
getting in the wrong hands. As soon as I've finished this, 
I shall recommend they ban it." - Tony Hancock

**

Despite the disheartening regimen of mingling with the 
great unwashed masses prescribed by Dana Scully, Mulder 
found his spirits to be uncharacteristically light as he 
hoofed the six blocks back to his car. When pronounced by 
such luscious lips, even the grimmest sentence must needs 
lose most of its sting. Remembering not only those lips, 
but a pair of captivating blue eyes, rich copper hair and a 
barely-there smile, Mulder couldn't work up the 
appropriately Dickensian sentiments of a man in his 
position. When the cell phone in his coat pocket burred 
softly, he answered with unwonted good cheer.

"Que pasa, compadre?" intoned the gravelly voice of his 
caller. "Did you go over to see Byers and Dana about the PR 
jazz?"

"I just left. I met with Scully - Dana."

Melvin Frohike chuckled. "Yeah, she's a dish, huh? Real 
looker. Smart as a whip, too. Listen, can you stop by for a 
few minutes? I want to go over some of the details in your 
piece about telekinetic assassination."

Mulder acquiesced and pointed his jeep in the direction of 
a dingy converted warehouse in a part of town that had been 
overlooked by the trendy renovations of hip young 
professionals and remained merely unsavory. The building 
housed Melvin's small apartment, which blended seamlessly 
with the headquarters of his brainchild, The Lone Gunman. 
The magazine was a fringe publication popular with soldier 
of fortune types and Gen X hackers still living at home 
with their parents. Its pages were devoted to Melvin's true 
passion: conspiracy theories. For the last six months or 
so, since Mulder had run into Melvin, an acquaintance from 
his post-grad days, at a MUFON conference, Mulder had been 
contributing regular articles under a second nom de plume, 
George Hale.

The Lone Gunman wasn't exactly the generator of high-level 
revenues, and Melvin kept it afloat with the help of his 
silent partner, the unassuming John Byers, whom Mulder 
hadn't yet met, and Richard Langly, who, Mulder knew, also 
worked at Over the Moon. In a past life Frohike had, in his 
parlance, sold his soul to the sludge-sucking crustaceans 
who perpetuated the insidious evil of pop culture brain 
drain. In other words, he'd been a mainstream journalist.

Standing outside while he waited for Melvin to unlock half 
a dozen deadbolts, Mulder didn't realize he was whistling 
until the other man joined in, his voice picked up by the 
intercom system. 

"'I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as 
to-mor-row.' Pat Upton. Cool, man. So you liked Dana, huh?"

"She gave me some helpful advice," Mulder replied as 
noncommittally as possible. "What's up with the article?"

Frohike wasn't fooled. "I knew she'd be your type," he 
declared.

Mulder shoved his hands into his pants pockets and 
glowered.

"You should ask her out. No? Well, if you hang out over 
here enough, she'll eventually drop by." Melvin waggled his 
eyebrows up and down in a disturbingly cartoonish fashion. 
"She is one hot tamale."

Mulder pointedly ignored his friend's remarks and steered 
the conversation back to the business at hand. But that 
evening in his quiet apartment when he pulled out the 
contract Dana had given him and anchored his reading 
glasses on his nose, he heard the smaller man's words 
echoing in his ears.

"One hot tamale," Mulder repeated reluctantly.

Yes, she was, he thought, allowing himself a quick grin. 

Flipping to the back page without bothering with the fine 
print, Mulder boldly scrawled his name in firm, black 
strokes.

**

Scully was hovering in a hypnogogic state between a dream 
involving cocoa butter and a Swedish masseur and thoughts 
of the dry cleaning she needed to drop off when the 
telephone rang. Whimpering at the intrusion, she seized the 
receiver from the nightstand and mumbled, "It's 7 a.m. on 
Saturday. I hope this is good."

"Er, Scully? Dana Scully?"

"Yes." Perplexed, she drew out the syllable, her voice 
sleep heavy and her ess sybilant. The caller's voice was 
vaguely familiar, but she couldn't quite place it.

"This is Fox Mulder. I obviously woke you. I can call back 
later."

Scully sat up and shoved the hair out of her eyes. "I'm 
awake now," she pointed out. "Did you need something, Mr. 
Mulder? And how did you get this number? It's not on my 
card, and it's not listed."

Her tone was vaguely accusatory and Mulder winced, aware 
that he'd incriminated himself and his friend. "I got it 
from Langly. I told him it was an urgent business matter."

She sighed and he wished he could see her expression. 

Amusement? Annoyance? Resignation, perhaps.

"And is it?"

"Urgent? Not terribly. I'm sorry, Ms. Scully. I didn't 
realize it's Saturday. I thought I could catch you before 
you left for the office."

Dana smiled slightly, won over by his apologetic tone and 
her pity for someone whose life didn't differentiate 
between weekends and work days. "You're excused, Mr. 
Mulder. So what is this less than urgent matter?"

"Just Mulder," he reminded. "I signed the contract and 
thought I should call to find out what happens next."

"Step two, hmm?" Dana burrowed back under her warm down 
comforter and pensively licked her lips. "Oh, I've got just 
the thing. There's a gala tomorrow night at the Library of 
Congress - all the requisite literary types will be in 
attendance. I'll make a few calls, get your name added to 
the guest list, and someone will messenger the invitation 
to your place, which is -"
 
Scully grabbed a pen and a scrap of paper and scrawled the 
Address he specified. After reading it back to him she said, 
"Yes, that will be a good start. We'll get you sorted out 
yet, Mis - Mulder."

He chuckled. "Thank-you. Again, I'm sorry to bother you on 
the weekend, Ms. Scully."

"Just Scully," she retorted warmly, and hung up.

**

When her phone rang at a quarter of five on Sunday 
afternoon, Dana almost didn't answer. Under normal 
circumstances, she would have ignored the interruption 
until her mother or the representative from the police 
athletic fund gave up and went away. She was hunkered over 
the kitchen sink, up to her elbows in soapsuds as she 
attacked the dishes from the day's pre-mass breakfast, and 
the display on her caller ID was flashing "Unavailable." 

But somehow she had a premonition. She wiped her hands on a 
damp dishtowel and answered.

"Scully, it's Mulder."

"You know, Mulder, most of my clients limit themselves to 
one at-home phone call per weekend. Should I buy a beeper?" 
Her voice danced from low and intimate to light and 
teasing, as if manipulated by the fingers of a classical 
pianist, before hovering around Middle C.

In his apartment, Mulder stood in front of his open closet 
door, staring philosophically into its depths. "It's about 
this gala."

"You got the invitation?"

"Yeah. Tonight, 7 p.m., Mr. Fox Mulder and date."

"Right," Scully agreed, somewhat perplexed. "Is there a 
problem?"

"And date," he repeated.

"Ah." Dana smiled broadly. "No date, Mr. Mulder?"

"Is this one of those events where I'll look pathetic if I 
show up alone?"

"There must be someone you can ask. A friend? A neighbor?"

"How about a gorgeous, witty, charming PR coordinator?"

Scully stared at popping soap bubbles, her lips parted 
slightly in consternation. He wanted her to go with him?

"Come on, Dana. For moral support? You can tell me when I 
need to kiss ass. Think of the time it could save you 
later."

"Mulder," she replied edgily, "I'm not an escort service. 
This isn't part of the deal."

"I know, believe me. But it'll be like going stag to the 
senior prom. That does something to a guy," he wheedled.

A sudden memory of herself in braces and mauve chiffon made 
Dana relent.

**

Mulder was again running late. He'd had the forethought to 
avoid the odyssean quest for a parking spot by taking a 
cab, but he hadn't planned for the traffic jam resulting 
from a six-car pile-up on the Beltway. A steady drizzle was 
falling, and as he unfolded from the yellow cab's backseat, 
his gaze zeroed in on a black-clad figure clutching an 
equally black umbrella, huddled under the eaves of the 
massive library. As he dashed raindrops from his face, her 
voice floated back to him, saying, "Let's go in."

They darted up to the entrance, where they yielded up their 
coats before being greeted by a receiving line of minor 
dignitaries.  As Scully introduced Mulder to a cluster of 
her acquaintances, Mulder got an opportunity to study her 
appearance.  She was in black from head to foot, her smoky 
eye makeup making her deep-set eyes look wider and bluer, 
her lips stained a deep wine red.  Her simply elegant black 
dress hugged her narrow waist and emphasized the generous 
curves of her breasts and hips, and impossibly high heels 
boosted her up a few inches.  Leaning down to speak 
directly into her ear, Mulder whispered, "Scully, you look 
phenomenal.  I know I had no right to ask you to come here 
tonight, but thank-you so much for doing it."

She smiled slightly.  "You don't know yet just how much you 
owe me, Mulder - these things are as boring as purgatory 
and slightly longer. But don't worry - I'm sure you'll find 
some way to make it up to me... There's the vice-president.  
Let's go wish him a good evening."

** 
 
If Melvin had suggested that Mulder was taking his advice 
and hanging around the offices of The Lone Gunmen more in 
order to increase his chances of running into the 
delectable Dana Scully, the younger man would have 
vehemently denied the allegation. Fortunately, Frohike 
spared him the necessity by not being crass enough to 
comment on the astonishing frequency of Mulder's visits
over the week and a half since he'd met the redhead.

As a mere mortal, however, Melvin couldn't suppress the 
triumphant grin he beamed in Mulder's direction when, on 
Thursday afternoon, John Byers sauntered in with his 
partner in tow to have a look at the galleys for the mid-
November issue. Mulder glowered in response and, realizing 
Dana's eyes were on him, offered her a shy smile.

"Do you have an article in this month's issue?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah, actually.  How did you know I write for the 
Gunman?" 

One eyebrow shot upward.  "Oh, Mulder. We have no secrets 
here." Her eyes sparkled.  "Telekinesis, huh?  A moving 
theory."

"Just because something hasn't been proven, doesn't mean 
it's impossible," Mulder returned, glossing over her bad 
pun.

"That's true. Through science, our understanding of the 
world is expanding every day.  A century, fifty years ago, 
the leading thinkers of the time could never have conceived 
the advances we've seen in the interim."

"So you think science can explain the world, Scully?"

"Our world is built on science, Mulder.  Without it, we 
understand nothing."

"What about intuition, imagination, simple gut feelings?"

She was still smiling slightly, but he could tell that she 
was on alert, uncertain if he was merely teasing or subtly 
attacking her.  "All science. Reactions to stimuli we don't 
always understand."

"Is that your hobby - science?"

"I wouldn't call it a hobby, no. It's a way of viewing the 
world. I open my eyes and see a carefully executed series 
of actions and reactions, motivated by complex forces of 
momentum, pressure, gravity. The order of our environment 
is very precise, Mulder."

Generous lips curved into a half-smile and he stroked his 
jaw. "The scientific."

A tiny, cat-like smirk twitched the corners of her mouth. 

"Yes. And you are the artistic."

"And the two don't mix."

Her grin transformed her face. "Conventional wisdom would 
say no, wouldn't it? They don't mix; they balance. For 
every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction - you 
remember that one."

"Is that so? Where does one obtain this fascinating 
information, Ms. Scully? Are you hiding the Physicist's 
Desk Reference and Compendium under your desk? Next to 
Who's Who in America, perhaps?"

"Maybe I listened really, really well in my high school 
physics class." Her chair creaked as she crossed one ankle 
over the opposite knee. "Or maybe - and I wouldn't play 
these odds, Mr. Mulder - I'm a not-so-secret science geek 
with an undergraduate degree in physics to prove it."

The ends of his eyebrows arched fiercely toward his nose. 
"Really?"

"My senior thesis was called 'Rewriting Einstein's Twin
Paradox.'"

His hazel eyes met her blue ones. "Ambitious, Scully. So, 
what happened to Einstein?"

"He died, Mulder, but don't feel too badly. He was old." 
Her chin dipped toward her left shoulder. "I had been 
accepted to med school, actually, when... circumstances 
intervened."

"Meaning?"

The shutters slammed down over her eyes and her expression 
tightened. Mulder belatedly realized his inquisition had 
gone too far. Scully spoke brusquely. "My father died and 
there was no money for more school. I needed a paying job."

"So you chose PR?" His tone implied that he didn't see the 
connection.

She answered while searching through her purse, her fingers 
itching to hold a cigarette. "Eventually. Let's say it was 
a long and winding road." Striking gold, she stood up. "I 
can't smoke in here. I'll be back in a few."

Scully stood on the cracked sidewalk outside the warehouse, 
drawing warm clouds of nicotine into her lungs. So it 
caused cancer; right now it felt like the balm of Gilead. 

The cold, damp air chilled her body and cleared her 
thoughts. She pictured her lungs working, the blood flowing 
through her veins and pumping through her heart, her 
muscles flexing as she strolled down the block and back, 
and felt herself sinking comfortably back into her own 
skin. 

She smoked two cigarettes, grinding the second out with the 
heel of her boot, and returned to the Gunmen's lair. John's 
voice, questioning, drifted into Melvin's living room, and 
Langly laughed. Without a word, Dana flung herself into an 
overstuffed armchair covered in a vicious seventies plaid. 
Standing near the window, Mulder looked up from his perusal 
of a stack of back issues and nodded. 

Melvin's penchant for lighting slightly brighter than a 
waning candle flame in some eighteenth-century parlor cast 
deep shadows and made it difficult for Dana to read 
Mulder's facial expression or obtain any clues from his 
body language. She knew her abrupt change of mood and 
subsequent departure had put him ill at ease. He prowled 
around the perimeter of the room, riffling through 
seemingly random sheaves of paper and trailing his fingers 
through the half inch of dust insulating the furniture. 

"Langly didn't mention that you knew each other," she 
commented.

Mulder paused in his restless movements. "Sure. We've 
gotten to know each other since I ran into Melvin again."

"Do you spend much time over here?"

"Enough." He stepped toward her and Dana recognized the wry 
quirk of his generous lips. "To reveal more would be 
embarrassing."

Her laughter was genuine, arching her neck and crinkling 
her eyes. Mulder approached somewhat reluctantly, folding 
his long limbs into the corner of the sofa nearest the 
armchair she occupied. He surveyed her with the abashed 
admiration of a little boy enthralled with his piano 
teacher.

"Scully," he began, and halted abruptly. Despite herself 
she relished the way his voice flowed over her surname, 
rich and smoky like bourbon, burning as it coated her 
throat with liquid heat. Her impudent nipples crested 
against the weave of her sweater and she leaned forward to 
hide her response.

"Mulder," she volleyed.

"Scully, are you seeing someone?"

She merely regarded him with one eyebrow again arched, 
giving him neither yes nor no. He realized he should get 
out now, shut his mouth and cut his losses, but he forged 
ahead. "I thought there might be something between, you 
know, you and John Byers."

Her expression barely changed, but the barest hint of a 
smile shadowed the corners of her mouth. "There is."

"You two seem really close - There is?" He strained to keep 
his tone neutral. He counseled himself to appear politely 
interested, not disappointed. He thought he might be 
failing.

Her lips twitched, then her expression evened out. "He's my 
best friend."

"That's it?" He was blundering, but he couldn't keep the 
words in his mouth.

"I'd say that's pretty important, wouldn't you? Having 
someone with whom you can share your thoughts, your dreams, 
your fears?"

He nodded, thinking that he really wouldn't know, since he 
didn't have that kind of relationship with anyone. He would 
hardly call Melvin when he wanted to expound on the meaning 
of life. "Yeah, I'd say so."

"Mulder." She leaned forward slightly, resting one hand on 
the coffee table. "Is that all you wanted to ask?"

Mulder's insides seized with nervousness. Shit, he thought. 
I'm so fucking awful at this. His eyes tentatively explored 
Dana's body - sleek black boots adding three inches to her 
height, her slim legs encased in flared gray slacks, the 
red turtleneck sweater that hugged her breasts, the black 
metal rings on her thumb - then moved to her face. She 
looked like a painting, her skin and eyes luminous. She 
looked calm, her mouth almost smiling, her eyes sparkling. 
She was teasing him, he realized abruptly.

Aloud, he chuckled dryly. "Tease," he admonished. 

She really smiled now. "Is there something else?" she 
prompted again.

He leaned forward, his stance matching hers, and slid one 
hand into her hair just behind her ear. The color was so 
bright and hot that on some basic level he was surprised to 
find it cool to the touch. "Do you date clients?"

"I don't date," she replied. He leaned in close enough to 
feel her breath on his face.

"You said I owe you. So go to dinner with me, somewhere 
nice." 

She tilted her head back to look into his eyes. "'Kay," she 
murmured lazily, her lids drifting half-shut. Her lips 
parted, the invitation obvious. 

Mulder might be out of practice, but he wasn't a complete 
idiot. His mouth covered hers, slow and languorous and so, 
so right. Something inside Scully tightened and a 
bittersweet pain flooded through her. He wasn't touching 
her anywhere but with his hand in her hair and his mouth on 
hers, no tongue, no force. He pulled away first.

"I'll pick you up tomorrow night at 6:30," he said.

"I'll meet you at the restaurant," she replied. 

"All right. The Golden Lotus on D Street, 7:00. Is that all 
right?"

"That's good." 

"Tell the guys I had to go, okay?" He rose to go. He wanted 
to kiss her again. He listened for sounds of Melvin and 
John moving around in the other room, but heard none. Dana 
hadn't moved from her sitting position, one leg tucked 
underneath her. Mulder bent to press his lips to hers 
again, but her words stopped him.

"See you tomorrow."

"Right. Good night, Scully."

Dana leaned back when the door closed, breathing in the 
faint clean smell that hung in the air, teasing at her 
senses. Her fingertips tingled and she clinched them into 
fists, squeezing her eyes shut. Something down deep was 
tickling, drawing all her body heat to it and leaving the 
rest of her cold.

No, she thought. No, no, no. I should never have agreed to 
go. 

"Dana? Is Mulder gone?"

She turned to Melvin, smiling automatically. "Yeah. He is. 
Would you like some coffee? I'll make it."

She darted into the kitchen before he finished answering, 
eager to busy herself with the mundane task. It was that or 
smoke half a pack of cigarettes, and John's reaction when 
he smelled the traces of her first two on her clothing 
wasn't something she wanted to consider. Carefully filling 
the little metal scoop with the rich grounds, Dana 
struggled to ignore the fluttering in her abdomen and the 
thought that by agreeing to have dinner with Fox Mulder she 
had made a very, very big blunder.

**
End Section (1/10)


Chapter Three: Under the Pink

"You could be my flamingo - 'cause pink is the new kinda 
lingo - pink like a deco umbrella - it's kink, but you 
don't ever tell her." - Aerosmith

**

Despite the rude gestures and angry curses of the harassed 
workaholic commuters, diners and theatre-goers Dana had to 
compete with while wending her way into the heart of D.C., 
she didn't realize exactly how fast she'd been driving 
until she reached the restaurant fifteen minutes ahead of 
schedule. Hyped up on nerves and the residual effects of 
the five cigarettes she'd smoked in the car, she reclined 
in the butter-soft leather booth and tried to relax. 

Without the cigarettes she knew she would've been clawing 
her way out of her skin by this point; unfortunately, she 
now smelled like an ashtray. Scully sniffed the air 
experimentally. Good. Perhaps Mulder would be perceptive 
enough to understand the strictly platonic message she 
wanted to send and they could avoid a potentially 
embarrassing heart-to-heart.

From her vantage point, Dana watched the smiling hostess 
direct Mulder toward her. She slid to the edge of the booth 
and arranged herself with as much nonchalance as possible, 
notwithstanding the tingling in her fingertips. Christ, in 
camel-colored slacks, a dusky blue sweater that clung to 
his torso like a preteen groupie at an Nsync concert, and a 
chocolate corduroy blazer, he looked good enough to eat. 

He smiled, a dimple appearing in his chin, as he slid in 
beside her - close, but not too close, he hoped. "Am I 
late?" 

"No, I was early." She leaned forward, nervously sipping 
her ice water. 

His elbow brushed her upper arm. "Thank you for coming," he 
said, and belatedly realized he sounded like an aggrieved 
relative at the funeral of a loved one. Scully smiled 
slightly and studied the candle flickering at the center of 
the table.

Mulder searched the elegantly appointed restaurant for some 
sign of a reprieve. His hormones jumped up and down, their 
fourteen-year-old voices cracking as they shrieked, "Girl! 
Girl! Pretty girl!" Even as his higher brain recognized the 
agony of discomfort he and Dana were currently inflicting 
upon one another, he had to agree. She was a vision in a 
long ivory blazer and matching blouse, a chunky gold 
pendant dangling between her breasts. 

At a loss, he reached for a menu. "Have you ever had the 
duck? They have a duck thing with ginger sauce that's 
really, uh, phenomenal. Do you like duck?"

She licked her lips. "I like duck," she allowed, the same 
muscles twitching into a tiny, nervous smile. 

"It's enough for two, if you'd like to share." 

"I like to share," she responded inanely, and blushed a 
furious crimson that delighted Mulder and eased a measure 
of his tension. 

He flagged down the waiter and ordered a bottle of wine, 
telling his dinner companion, "I think we could both use a 
drink, don't you?"

"I think we did fine last weekend at the Library of 
Congress," she argued.

He raised his eyebrows as the waiter poured a California 
pinot into their glasses. "Ah, yes, but champagne was 
consumed, and that was business."

The wine pleasantly coated the roof of Dana's mouth and 
kindled a welcome warmth on its journey to her empty 
stomach, and she leaned back, crossing her legs. "And this 
is not business, is it, Mr. Mulder?" she bantered. 

The cock of his head implied an intimacy that made her 
bounce one foot energetically. "I certainly hope not, Ms. 
Scully," he returned. "You got my name, rank and serial 
number when I signed your contract, but all I know about 
you I've learned from Melvin."

She laughed out loud, a wonderful, deep belly laugh, and 
the sound of it made his toes curl. "Oh, God. Well, we must 
reconcile that, mustn't we? What would you like to know? 
Keeping in mind, of course, that a lady should never reveal 
too much. - But let's order first. I'm starving." As she 
spoke the words, Dana was surprised to find that they were 
true. Her anxiety had nearly evaporated and hunger had 
rapidly rushed in to fill the available space.

They ordered the duck, with a side of pork dumplings in 
plum sauce, and she tried to teach him how properly to use 
the lacquered chopsticks resting beside their plates. His 
large, untutored fingers skittered clumsily along the 
length of the utensils until her precise, cool hand covered 
his. "Like this," she instructed, her genuine mirth warming 
his cold toes.

With her instruction he managed to successfully spear a 
dumpling and transport it to his mouth. "Are you an 
expert?" he asked.

She chuckled. "I'm good with my hands," she offered 
suggestively, then immediately drew back. He sensed the 
veil that had suddenly descended between them, muting their 
camaraderie. 

The dinner stretched out over the mound of crispy duckling 
between them. "So far," he said, "I know that you're some 
kind of PR sorceress, have been known to consort with 
unsavory conspiracy theory types, and are an unabashed 
science nerd masquerading as a beautiful woman." Mulder 
ticked the items in his inventory off on his fingers.

Around a dainty mouthful of rice noodles Scully remarked, 
"You're keeping track."

"A writer has to be observant." He spooned hot mustard onto 
his plate. "So?"

"So what?"

"Tell me more."

"What else is there to know?" Dana questioned evasively.

"How long have you been consulting?"

She was secretly relieved by the relatively impersonal 
nature of his question. "Five years. John and I got the 
idea together and worked to make it happen, and along the 
way we picked up Langly."

"You and John have known each other for a long time, then?"

"Since we were kids, yeah. Like I told you the other day, 
he's been the best friend I could ask for. I was, ah, sick 
for a while a few years ago. It was a dark time, and he was 
right there with me through it all. He's a special man."
The waiter returned to refill their water glasses, 

interrupting them momentarily. When he had gone, Mulder 
leaned forward confidentially. "Dana -" His voice had a 
serious edge to it, and she regarded him warily. "I don't 
think I've made my attraction to you a secret."

She watched the ice cubes settle in her water glass before 
looking back at him. "No, you haven't, and I respect that. 
I don't want to give you the wrong idea. I like you, 
Mulder. I like you very much." She hesitated, and when she 
continued her tone was marked by a striking mingling of the 
plaintive and the resigned. "But I'm not interested in a 
romantic relationship with you or anyone else at this 
point. That's something that I just do not need in my 
life."

His gaze didn't waver, and his immediate response, Dana 
would reflect later, won him a friend. "And I respect 
that."

She nodded and smiled ruefully. "Maybe you'll let me pay my 
half of the check now."

"I'll let you pay the whole damn thing if you insist, but 
that doesn't mean I don't want to be your friend." He 
reached across the table and touched her arm. "I'm kinda 
picky, Scully, and I'm not the most popular guy. I don't 
have a lot of friends. I'd really like to be able to count 
you among them."

"I'd like that too." Her smile, though small, was genuine 
this time. 

"I'd like to be whatever you need me to be, Dana. If it's 
just a friend, I can work with that."

Her smile turned into a grin. "You don't know me very 
well."

"I'd like to."

"Fair enough." She drank some of her water and held the 
glass as she spoke. "You should know that as a rule I don't 
go to dinner with my clients."

"So you've already made an exception for me. That's a good 
thing, right?"

She chuckled. "You're persistent; I have to give you that."

"Well, I'm a friend of a friend, so I'm not a normal client 
anyway. Do you want dessert?"

"I never accused you of being normal, and no, but I'd love 
a coffee. Order one for me if the waiter comes by, if you 
don't mind. I'll be back in a moment." 

He ordered two coffees and waited for her to come back from 
the bathroom. The phone in the pocket of her jacket began 
to ring. Mulder hesitated, but decided to answer, in case 
it was important.

"Dana Scully's phone."

"Uhh... Who is this?" It was a child's voice.

"This is her friend, Mulder. She should be back in a minute 
or two."

"Oh, you're the guy she was going to dinner with. This is 
Chloe. Will you please tell her that Tina and I are 
spending the night at Sophia's? Tina's mom said it was 
okay."

"Sure."

"Okay, thanks. Bye."

"You were on my phone." Scully slid into the booth and 
regarded him inquisitively. 

"It rang. I'm supposed to tell you that Chloe and Tina are 
spending the night at Sophia's, and Tina's mom said it was 
okay."

She smiled slightly. "Thanks."

"May I ask who Chloe is?"

Her smile broadened. "Chloe is my daughter."

"I didn't know you had children."

"You do now."

"You're divorced?"

"Mmhmm. What about you? Ever been married?"

"No, I've managed to steer clear. Are you and your ex-
husband on good terms?"

She smirked. "You could say that."

Mulder felt an unpleasant tingling sensation in his 
fingertips. "You're not still, ah, involved?"

This time she laughed out loud, a hearty belly laugh. 

"Romantically? Oh God, no! No." She took another sip of her 
water. "We met in junior high and were friends for a very 
long time, then separated for college and grad school. When 
we saw each other again, we were both nearly thirty, and 
one thing led to another. I think we both felt like it was 
time to get married. It wasn't a great love affair, but we 
were happy enough, for a while. We were more good friends 
and roommates than anything else. We were married for five 
years, but the spark just wasn't there, and when we both 
realized that there was so much more out there, we ended 
it. It was on good terms; obviously, since we work together 
every day."

Mulder's brow drew together in a frown of confusion. 
"Excuse me?"

Dana arched that eyebrow. "I thought you knew, Mulder; I 
assumed Melvin had mentioned it. John is my ex-husband."

"John Byers?"

She nodded. "None other."

"But -" Mulder stopped, afraid he'd already overstepped his 
bounds. The day before Melvin had casually made a comment 
about the fact that Byers "played for the other team," and 
had unknowingly assuaged all of Mulder's anxieties about 
John's relationship with Scully. Suddenly Mulder wasn't so 
sure; hell, maybe Frohike had meant that Byers was a 
Republican, or a Mets fan.

She chuckled; it was a sound he could get used to. "Go 
ahead and say it, Mulder: John's gay. Yes. He absolutely 
is. It took him years to realize it, and it's hardly 
something I could hold against him. I just want him to be 
happy."

"Um." Mulder studied his napkin for several seconds before 
admitting, "I don't quite know how to follow up after 
that."

"My relationship to John is a bit nontraditional." The tiny 
laugh lines were back, mapping out her mirth. 

"So, Chloe is John's daughter," Mulder assumed. Scully 
opened her mouth as if to speak, but only sipped her 
coffee. The expression on her face suggested that Mulder 
had opened a whole new can of worms.

"Mmm, no. No, she's not." She paused, not out of 
embarrassment, but as if she were weighing her words 
carefully, deciding how much to reveal. "Chloe is not my 
biological child."

When no more information seemed to be forthcoming, Mulder 
interrupted Dana's intense perusal of the middle distance 
with the words, "Scully, if this is too personal - if you 
feel like I'm prying -"

"No, no." She waved his concerns away with a careless 
motion. "I had an older sister, Melissa. Seven years ago, 
she was killed in a car accident. Head-on collision with a 
drunk driver. She left behind a little girl just a few 
weeks shy of her fourth birthday."

"Chloe," Mulder supplied.

"Chloe," Dana echoed. "Her father and Melissa were never 
married, and he'd never exhibited any inclination to be 
involved in her life when Melissa was alive. He certainly 
didn't want to take on the responsibility of raising her as 
a single parent. Both of my brothers have families of their 
own, and my mother was still grieving over my father's 
death." She smiled softly. "That left me."

A wealth of emotion rippled behind Scully's soft 
declaration. Mulder learned all he needed to know from the 
love shining in her eyes when she added, "She's a pretty 
special kid."

"I'm sure she is. She's got a pretty damn special mom."
Scully absent-mindedly fingered her necklace. "You might 
want to reserve judgment until you know me better, Mr. 
Mulder."

"I know enough, Ms. Scully." He grabbed two fortune cookies 
from the basket in the center of the table and dropped one 
into her saucer. "Go on, open it. Reveal your future."

She rolled her eyes but complied. "You first."

"You will meet someone tall, dark and handsome," Mulder 
intoned, comically waggling his eyebrows.

"No, seriously."

"'Your onion may be someone else's water lily.'" He looked
at his dinner companion in consternation and after a beat
they both burst into laughter. "What the hell does that mean?" 
he demanded. "That's not even a real fortune."

She snorted. "There's no such thing as a 'real fortune,'" 
she claimed. "It's a way for someone to make money by 
playing on our ridiculous pop culture superstitions."

"In short, they're hooey," he returned.

"Precisely." Her eyes sparkled. "Hooey. You don't agree?"

Mulder grinned. "Mysterious forces are at work in the 
universe, Scully. I bet you don't read your horoscope 
either, do you?"

"Absolutely not."

"Well, read your fortune, Ms. Skeptic."

She cleared her throat and read, with sufficient drama, 
"'You are about to begin a great artistic endeavor.'" 
Dropping the slip of paper, she made a face. "Well, Chloe 
is about to start a science project. They must mean that 
papier mache volcano she wants to make," Dana joked, and 
popped a section of the cookie into her mouth.

They crunched without speaking for a moment, then Scully 
drained the rest of her coffee. "Well, Mulder," she said, 
"you've heard my whole life story, and I don't know any 
more about you than what I learned on the Internet."

"Sometime I'll tell you all about the life and times of Fox 
Mulder," he vowed.

"Sometime," she agreed, glancing at her watch, "but not 
tonight. It's getting late."

As if on cue, the waiter appeared with the check. Scully 
slapped her credit card down before Mulder could protest. 

After the waiter had whisked the card away, Mulder leaned 
forward. "You know, a man doesn't customarily invite a lady 
out to dinner and then make the lady pay for his meal."

"If I were your shill, I'd tell you I'm no lady," she 
retorted. The waiter reappeared at Scully's elbow, and she 
signed her name with a flourish on the bill. "Besides, this 
just means you owe me another dinner." She stood up. "Come 
on and I'll let you walk me to my car."

**

Chapter 4: Burnt Siena

"In the name of humanity, people, someone save Burnt Siena. 
Crayola is introducing four crayon colors and rubbing out 
four others - one of which, the aforementioned Burnt Siena, 
is, I would submit, the conscience of the legendary box of 
64." - Bob Allen, Crains Detroit

**

Before they said goodnight, Scully had scrawled her cell 
phone number on the back of a business card and tucked it 
into Mulder's jacket pocket.  "Call me," she admonished.

"Even on the weekend?" he retorted.

She grinned as she opened her car door.  "Sure, Mulder. You 
passed the first test."

He pursed his lips.  "Oh? And will there be more tests?"

Her airy laugh reminded him of wind chimes on a spring 
afternoon. "Absolutely. Good night, Mulder."

She was the one who called him, though.  

"It's two p.m.," her rich alto intoned when he answered his 
phone the following Thursday afternoon. "Do you know where 
your PR consultant is?"

"At work?" Mulder suggested, muting the volume on his 
television. He was supposed to be working on his next 
novel, but he'd discovered that one of the best ways to 
work out sticky plot points was to zone out on mindless TV 
shows.

"Got it in one. Any big plans this evening, Mr. 
Bestseller?"

"Other than watching Sarah, Plain and Tall on the Hallmark 
Channel? No."

"I get the Hallmark Channel. Want to come over, watch some 
TV, meet my daughter, maybe go out for some really great 
Mexican?"

"How could I resist an offer like that? What time do you 
want me?"

"I've got my last client meeting at 3:15, which means I 
should be getting out of here around four. Meet me at my 
place, five-ish?"  She gave him the address and he 
scribbled it on the nearest piece of paper, which happened 
to be his electric bill.

Mulder arrived at Scully's apartment in Georgetown shortly 
after she did. She'd just had time to change into khaki 
pants and a soft violet sweater when he knocked. She opened 
to door to find him holding a six-pack of Beck's in one 
hand, and in the other a six-pack of Diet Coke.

"Emily Post says a good guest never arrives empty-handed," 
he announced. Smiling, Scully accepted his offering.

"I got the beer, and then I thought - well, the kid," he 
explained as she stowed the cartons in the fridge. "Where 
is the fabulous Miss Chloe?"

"In her room. She'll come out when the spirit moves her. 
Can I get you anything? A beer, maybe?"

"That would be great, if you'll join me."

Scully brought two beers and two frosted mugs into the 
living room and sat with Mulder on the sofa, tucking one 
leg underneath her. Using the remote, she turned on the 
television and began to flip through the channels.  "There 
was a marathon of old sci-fi movies on last night - you 
know, the ones from the fifties, like THEM and The Blob. 
Made me think of you."

"Ah, so that's what inspired your call today. And I thought 
it was my boyish good looks and charisma."

"Oh, more like your penchant for the bizarre and 
unexplained. Psychic serial killers, alien-human 
hybridization, half-human, prehistoric beast women -"

"Have you been reading my books?"

"Only doing research so far, but I picked up one on my way 
home from work last night - Purity Control."

"Hey, I know a guy who knows the author. He could get you a 
signed copy."

She chuckled.

"I'd like to hear what you think after you finish it."

She eyed him sagely. "Even if I think it's shit?"

He laughed. "Especially if you think it's shit."

Shifting, Scully extended her legs until her bare toes 
rested on the edge of the coffee table. "You know, Mulder," 
she began more seriously, "I was going over your background 
- I do that with all our new clients - and I had to ask 
myself, what makes an apparently well-adjusted Oxford-
educated man develop such a fascination for not only the 
incredible, but for the most vile, putrid recesses of human 
consciousness that he devotes his entire life to writing 
about them?"

"Well, Scully, one of your basic premises is wrong: I was 
never all that well-adjusted." She chuckled, as he'd wanted 
her to, and he wondered if it was because she thought he 
was funny or because she was picking up his signals. "I did 
psych as an undergrad - criminal psych. You learn about the 
worst human monsters there, Scully, and part of me began to 
research the paranormal in an effort to find a worse 
monster somewhere else - a futile effort to redeem our 
species, I suppose. It's fascinating - the world of the 
unexplained offers so much beauty and possibility, and 
people who choose to ignore that because it can't be 
quantified are missing the point entirely."

"People like me."

He met her intense gaze.  "I didn't say that."

"No, you didn't have to. Go on."

Mulder hesitated, stopping to gulp his beer and dropping 
his eyes to the rug. "There is something else, but I don't 
often tell people about it. I think I want to tell you, 
though."

She made a small sound of encouragement.

"Are you ready for the portrait of the artist as a young 
man? -- I grew up on Martha's Vineyard in the Kennedy era - 
and from the outside looking in, we were the perfect 
family. I was obsessed with baseball, played little league, 
you know? My mom came to all my games to cheer me on, and 
my dad gave me pointers out in the yard on Sunday 
afternoons. I had a sister - Samantha. She was four years 
younger than I was, cute as a button and a huge pain in the 
ass. 'Foxy this' and 'Foxy that.' She followed me and my 
friends around all the time, always begging to be allowed 
to play. You know how little sisters are."

She smiled softly. "You're talking to a little sister. I 
drove my older brother and sister crazy at least until I 
went off to college."  Her thumb brushed reassuringly 
against his knuckle.

"One night a few weeks after my twelfth birthday, my 
parents went down the street to play cards and left me in 
charge of Sam. It was Norman Rockwell Americana. We were 
playing a board game and arguing about what to watch on TV. 
Then there was this roaring sound, and a bright light 
through the living room window, and she - Scully, she was 
just gone."

Mulder struggled with the words, and looking out from 
behind his eyes Dana saw the scared little boy he must have 
been on that long-ago night.

"Oh my God, Mulder. She was kidnapped?"

He hunched forward, stroking his chin and staring 
sightlessly at the coffee table. "I was supposed to protect 
her, and I don't even remember what happened."

"Oh, Mulder, no - you were a child too - and the shock -" 
Scully helplessly squeezed his knee.

"My dad worked for the government doing something 'highly 
classified,' so they called in the FBI, but there were no 
leads. After a year or so, they closed the case. For a long 
time every move I made was calculated to bring me closer to 
the truth, to find Sam. I expected to see her around every 
corner. Now - now I don't expect it, but I still look."

Scully looked horrified. "I don't know what to say. I can't 
even imagine that kind of loss, how devastating it must 
have been for your family."

His soul felt her genuine compassion and responded to it, 
allowing her hands to cover his. His throat had tightened, 
as it always did when he talked about his little sister, 
but he cleared it and responded, his voice hoarse. "You 
lost a sister too, Scully. I'm not unique in that respect. 
But the not knowing, the compulsive desire for answers 
pushed me to the edge more than once. I almost went so far 
as to join the FBI, just so I could re-open the 
investigation."

"But you didn't." He inclined his head wordlessly. "Mulder, 
there's something you still aren't telling me."

He sighed. "In the late eighties," he began in a rushed 
monotone, "I made the decision to undergo regressive 
hypnotherapy in an effort to regain my memories of the 
night Samantha disappeared." He paused and looked warily at 
Scully. "This is the part where you run screaming for the 
hills." 
 
She frowned. "Mulder, regression is certainly considered 
controversial at best, but the fact that you underwent it 
doesn't make you crazy. Under the circumstances -"

"Wait, Scully. That's not it. When I was hypnotized, I said 
- I believed - Dana, I came to believe that my sister was 
not kidnapped, but abducted by aliens."

Her eyes widened perceptibly but her expression remained 
carefully neutral. "And now?" she questioned.

He shook his head. "Now I don't know. I can't be certain 
whether those memories were really mine, or just the 
creation of a psyche searching for something, anything to 
believe in. I have a degree in psychology, Scully, and I've 
never wanted to believe that my baby sister is dead. I 
understand how a desperate mind works. But finally, after a 
point, I realized that if I wanted to have any sort of life 
at all, I couldn't spend all my time chasing lights in the 
sky." He smiled ruefully. "So here I am, writing books 
aimed at people who think Klingon is a real language, and 
in return for a thousand words on Bigfoot or the Kennedy 
assassination, and Melvin humors me by accepting one of my 
crazy alien articles once in a while." 
 
Mulder tried to pull away and Scully held fast, resolutely 
seeking eye contact. "Well," she drawled, "that is a bit 
unorthodox, I'll admit. But as long as you're not hiding a 
ray gun and a pair of Spock ears under your jacket, I think 
I'll still be seen in public with you."

He grinned. "Come on, Scully. Vulcans are sexy."
Mulder heard a door open and footsteps trotting into the 
kitchen. After a few seconds of rustling, the footsteps 
began to recede.

"Chloe," Dana called out, "what are you doing?"

A pause. "Not interrupting," a girl's voice returned in a 
sing-song cadence.

Scully grinned and rolled her eyes at Mulder. "Chloe, you 
ridiculous child, come in here and sit with us. We're 
watching television."

"I have homework," she replied pertly, peeking in from the 
kitchen, "but I'll stay for just a minute." A petite little 
girl with a smattering of freckles across her finely 
featured face and long, straight, light-brown hair held 
back with a headband bounded into the living room and 
flopped into the armchair. She held a Christmas tree-shaped 
snack cake on a napkin.

"So, you're the boyfriend." She studied Mulder frankly with 
startlingly familiar blue eyes.

"Mulder's not my boyfriend, Clo."

Chloe looked at Dana and raised one eyebrow. Mulder 
chuckled. "Okay. Is he gonna sleep over?"

"Um - no," Mulder replied, the tops of his ears tinged pink 
with embarrassment.

"Clo!" Dana admonished, grinning.

"Sophia's mom's boyfriend sleeps over all the time," the 
girl replied defensively.

"Well, Mulder is just a friend."

"Well," she imitated, "Tina's mom has a 'friend' and he 
sleeps over even more than Mrs. Katrell's boyfriend. But, 
whatever you say."

Scully just smiled. "I thought you were going to Amy's 
today, babe. You know I don't like your being home by 
yourself."

"I'm old enough! And Amy got sick at school."

"You should've gone to Tina's."

"I already told her I wasn't going today."

"We'll talk about it later. What do you want for dinner? We 
were thinking Mexican."

Chloe brightened. "Pablo's?"

"Yup. Go get your shoes." 

When Chloe was out of earshot, Dana turned to Mulder. "I 
hope you don't mind. You said you wanted to go slumming."

"I like Pablo's. They've got great nachos."

One eyebrow crept toward her hairline. "That's not what I 
meant. I don't lead a glamorous life, Mulder. No one has 
ever tried to mail him or herself to me or interview one of 
my elementary school teachers. I go to PTA meetings and 
watch the Discovery Channel. It's just this, just boring, 
beige me trying to make some money, be a mom, and lose a 
few pounds."

Mulder breathed deeply. She wasn't ready yet to hear how 
much he needed this, how much he cherished the opportunity 
to at least witness a normal life. "I like this. I like 
you, Scully. And I like your daughter. She seems like a 
good kid."

"She is." Chloe came back wearing sneakers and carrying a 
denim jacket, and Dana slipped her arm around the girl's 
shoulders. "Ready?"

Over a mountain of chips and salsa, Mulder was delighted to 
discover Chloe's burgeoning passion for art.

"I'm taking this art class after school on Wednesdays," she 
explained, popping a chip into her mouth and crunching 
exuberantly. "I just started at the beginning of the year, 
so I'm not very good yet, but this week we finally started 
painting. Figure drawing is pretty cool, but it gets kinda 
boring, you know? I thought we might get to draw naked 
people, but Jane - that's my teacher - said that's only for 
the adult classes.

Scully grinned over the rim of her margarita glass and 
Mulder held back a chuckle, instead concentrating on 
coating his chip with exactly the right amount of salsa.

"Have you been to the National Gallery?" he asked.

Chloe nodded, sipping her soda through a straw. "A bunch of 
times, but I want to go see the modern collection. I've 
only seen the Impressionists and stuff, and Mom won't take 
me."

In a fair imitation of Scully, Mulder raised his eyebrows 
and pursed his lips.

"Hey!" Dana chided Chloe, giving her a playful shove. "I 
said we'd go sometime."

Chloe cut her baby blues at Mulder, looking for an ally. 
"Sometime," she muttered.

"I'm just not a modern art enthusiast," Sculy defended 
herself, carefully lapping a few grains of salt from the 
glass to cut the alcoholic sweetness of the frozen tequila 
and lime mix. Mulder tried not to focus too long on her 
tongue. "The paintings are nothing but big splotches of 
color. I can buy a can of paint and a brush and sling a few 
splashes of red and purple on a canvas - I don't have to 
pay to see it hanging on the wall in a museum." She shook 
her head and laughed. "In fact, Chloe, if that's the kind 
of art you're interested in, you don't need lessons - You 
were an expert at it when you were about four. The 
refrigerator used to be covered with your masterpieces."

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Mo-om," she groaned, exasperated, 
"you just don't *get* it."

Their conversation was put on pause while the waiter 
presented Mulder with a steaming plate of fajitas, Chloe 
dug into her soft tacos, and Dana took a careful bite of 
her burrito.

"You know," Mulder said after he had assembled and sampled 
the perfect proportions of steak, peppers, and onions on a 
flour tortilla, "Chloe has a point."

Scully froze with her fork in mid-air.  "What - I don't 
appreciate modern art because I 'don't get it'?"

A slow, lazy smile spread across his face.  "Well, yeah." 
He chewed and swallowed. "With a Sargent or a Renoir, you 
appreciate the technique and the sheer beauty - you see all 
the skill that went into making something remarkable, 
right?" Scully nodded, closing her lips around a forkful of 
shredded beef and guacamole.  "Well, modern art is 
different. It's less about technical excellence than about 
emotion. You have to - you have to feel the colors."

Scully's skeptical grin was dazzling. "Feel the colors, 
Mulder? Don't you mean hear them?"

Demolishing a third fajita in two bites, Mulder came up for 
breath. "Nope, Scully, no acid trip required for this." He 
turned to Chloe. "I can see that I'm not going to convert 
your mom by words alone, Chloe, so I'll have to change my 
plan of battle. What would you think of all three of us 
going to the museum?"

Chloe nodded vigorously. "Yeah, Mom, can we?"

"What do you say, Scully?"

Mulder and Chloe wore identical looks of hopeful 
expectancy. Scully sighed. "I know when I've been beaten," 
she conceded.

Chloe beamed and Mulder bestowed a conspiratorial wink upon 
her. "You just wait," he promised in an exaggerated stage 
whisper. "We'll win her over yet."

**
End Section (2/10)

Chapter 5: Yellow

"Look at the stars, look how they shine for you, and 
everything you do. Yeah, they were all yellow. I came 
along, I wrote a song for you and all the things you do, 
and it was called yellow." - Coldplay

**

October dovetailed almost imperceptibly into November, the 
change in the night sky visible only to the discerning eye 
as fuzzy midnight clouds melted away to leave a canvas of 
pure, sleek black dotted with the tiny, diamond-hard and 
clear studs of bright gas expending their energies millions 
of light-years away.

Mulder melted seamlessly into Dana and Chloe's lives, 
somehow diffusing the idea that he had always been there, 
not taken for granted but accepted as unquestioningly as 
one accepted breathing or aging or opening one's eyes in 
the morning, any natural process of life. He haunted 
Scully's office, allowed her to explore the secrets of his 
apartment, and looked divine ornamenting her living room 
sofa when he wasn't traveling to the four corners of the 
United States on the promotional book tour she and his 
agent had thrust upon him as a fait accompli.

Dana scrawled her signature on the bottom of a six-page 
printout of legal jargon and dropped her pen. Leaning back 
in her desk chair and arching her neck, she sighed. "That's 
the last of those, thank God."

John stood up and began to unroll his sleeves. "I'm 
finishing up too. I thought I'd head out a few minutes 
early, if it's all the same to you."

"Oh, that's right!" Scully exclaimed, sitting up straight. 
"You've got a date with that lawyer tonight - Bill?"

"Blake." John shrugged into his suit jacket and carefully 
smoothed out a wrinkle perceptible only to his fastidious 
eye. "We're going out for Thai food - I had coconut oil and 
egg noodles in my shopping cart when we met, so I guess the 
counselor made an inference."

"Well, let's hope he's as skilled in the bedroom as he is 
in the courtroom and supermarket, hmm?" she teased.

"You know, Danes, you should shop more - you never know 
when you might find true love in the produce section." She 
only laughed and shook her head, and John gathered a stack 
of papers into his briefcase. "Oh, by the way - the Little 
Theatre is doing The Wizard of Oz. Do you and Chloe want to 
go to the Sunday matinee?"

Searching the recesses of her purse for a piece of 
Nicorette, Scully shook her head without looking up. 
"Thanks, but we can't. We're going to see the modern 
collection at the National Gallery with Mulder."

"With Mulder? Didn't you have dinner with him Monday, and 
go to a movie last night?"

"Yeah. He wanted to see that action thing that Clo has been 
talking about for weeks. So?"

"So, is he coming over tonight?"

"We're going bowling," Scully replied with as much dignity 
as she could muster.

John guffawed. "Bowling?"

"We're taking some of Chloe's friends. So?" she repeated, 
her tone growing sharper.

"So, I retract my earlier statement. If Mulder has already 
managed to get you into bowling shoes, you may not need the 
supermarket."

John had always thought Dana would be a hell of a lot more 
fun to play with if only she'd rise to his bait once in a 
while. True to form, she swallowed her exasperation and 
presented him with a tight-lipped smile. "Get out of here 
and have fun tonight, huh? Call me tomorrow."

Relenting, he swooped down to kiss the top of her head as 
he beat a path toward the door. "I'll be prepared for a no-
holds-barred tell-all that would make Liz Smith proud," he 
promised, and winked, helpless to resist one last jibe. 
"Say hi to Mulder for me. And Dana - he looks like the kind 
of man who'd enjoy a big pancake breakfast on a Saturday 
morning to renew the energy he expended during a long 
Friday night of lovin'."

**

After throwing her third gutter ball in a row, Scully 
turned away from the lanes to face Mulder, her hands on her 
hips and a rueful smile gracing her lips. "That's it - I'm 
too old for this."

Mulder patted the plastic seat beside him and she collapsed 
gracelessly onto it with a relieved groan. Without a second 
thought, he draped his arm around her shoulders and tugged 
her into his chest. 

"You look exhausted," he pointed out, his gaze tracing the 
faint purple shadows beneath her eyes. "Do you feel all 
right?"

"Yeah." Sitting up, Scully forced a smile, then glanced 
away as she explained, "It's nothing - I've just been 
having trouble sleeping.  You know, weird dreams."  She 
stood up. "I'm going to get a soda. Do you want anything? 
Iced tea with sugar?"

Mulder shot her a strange look. "How do you know how I take 
my tea?"

She paused, frowning. "Oh, I'm sure you told me. I'll be 
back in a minute."

As she walked away, Mulder's gaze remained fixed on her 
back, his expression unreadable.

After she had missed three frames, Mulder slipped away from 
the girls to go in search of Scully. Spotting no familiar 
blur of bright hair near the snack bar, he slipped out the 
side door to the parking lot. It had rained earlier, and 
swirls of oil shone magenta and silver blue where they 
sparkled against the blackness of the asphalt. The damp air 
hovered just this side of frigid; it would've been good 
football weather.

She was sitting on the curb, her body tucked close over her 
knees for warmth. The ember of her cigarette glowed 
brightly in the darkness. His shoes crunched on loose 
gravel as he walked over to join her.

"It's freezing out here."

Huddled in her denim jacket, Scully arched an eyebrow. 
"Really? I hadn't noticed."

"I thought you were quitting."

Scully blew out a curl of smoke and speculatively eyed the 
cigarette between her fingers. "Yeah. I still am."

"Tomorrow?"

She grinned ruefully. "Yeah, sure. Tomorrow." She ground 
the butt into the pavement. "You ever smoke, Mulder?"

"Only weed."

Her laugh was a surprise. An SUV glided by on the access 
road, water whooshing beneath its tires. 

"I started after John and I had been married a few months. 
I'd already started to feel cagey, and I had to do... 
something." She laughed again. "It never occurred to me to 
have an affair. That's why I'm Catholic. I felt guilty 
enough about smoking cigarettes. But I guess everybody 
needs a little pollution, you know?" 

She stared thoughtfully out over the parking lot for a few 
minutes, then lit another cigarette. "I quit. Didn't smoke 
for nearly ten years. And then seven years ago, I started 
again."

"What happened seven years ago?"

"I got sick."

He waited, but she remained silent. "Sick?" Mulder's voice 
was hushed. He dreaded hearing the answer almost as much as 
she dreaded giving it.

Scully took a long drag and didn't look at him. "I had 
ovarian cancer. It was pretty bad."

Pretty bad. Diagnosed only five months after Melissa's 
death. Dragging herself home from chemo and radiation, 
feeling as if her skin would shatter, sitting for hours 
with her cheek propped against the cool porcelain rim of 
the toilet seat. Vomiting until her body, raw inside and 
out, rebelled. Her mother's gentle hands soothing, feeling 
Maggie try not to falter or flinch when her careful 
ministrations pulled out another handful of hair. Trying as 
hard as she could and falling hopelessly short of being 
able to take care of a frightened, difficult four-year-old. 
John vacuuming her living room, scrubbing the bathtub, 
trying to make her smile and not act like he felt sorry for 
her. Maggie tucking Chloe into bed with her and making both 
of them oatmeal because Dana might, on one of her better 
days, be able to eat almost the whole bowl.

Seven years out, and Scully still couldn't look at a bowl 
of oatmeal without feeling nauseated.

She felt Mulder's eyes on her and knew he was aware that 
her thoughts were a thousand miles away, in the past. She 
silently thanked him for not asking for details.

"But you got well," he offered finally.

Scully sighed. "I got well," she agreed, and smiled the 
tiniest smile, really just a flicker at the corner of her 
mouth. She dropped her half-finished cigarette to the 
ground and crushed it adamantly beneath the heel of her 
shoe. "And I just quit smoking. Again."


**

The ancient brass faucet in Scully's bathtub had finally 
grown fatally weary, and in the last few hours it had 
developed a death rattle. Lying in bed, Scully idly 
attempted to measure time by the sporadic dripping. It 
conformed to no pattern, no rhyme, no reason. Around it she 
composed an imaginary symphony, each drop that slammed into 
the porcelain tub serving as a symbol crash. At some point 
during the third movement, she paused to reassure her 
impossibly annoying inner voice that the reason she was 
lying awake authoring the most miserable example of musical 
nonsense since "Disco Duck" was because of ambient sound or 
as an effect of the espresso she drank after dinner.

Under no circumstances could her wakefulness be due to the 
anxiety that surrounded the possibility of having another 
dream. Every time she closed her eyes, there was that 
horrible, blinding white light superimposed on her eyelids, 
slicing into her brain and filling her with an unnatural 
fear.

She'd told Mulder a partial truth when she'd admitted to 
not sleeping well, but the weight of fatigue visible in her 
face was the product of not one but several nearly 
sleepless nights. The dreams had begun over a week ago, and 
at first they had merely perplexed her. 

She'd walked down a short, poorly illuminated corridor to 
knock on a door.

"Nobody here but the FBI's most unwanted..."

The brief exchange between her younger, poorly dressed, 
well-rounded self and a sardonic, lean, equally youthful 
Mulder segued into a jumble of visions of the two of them, 
of flashes of dialog and incredibly bizarre, almost, she 
thought, unimaginable sights. The ludicrousness of a half-
human, half-fluke worm hybrid had made her laugh when she'd 
recalled it the next morning; a man who ate the livers of 
the unsuspecting for between meal snacks was less amusing.

Dana told herself that her dreaming mind must have gathered 
scraps of truth from her own life and what Mulder had told 
her of his and manufactured some sort of fantastical alter 
egos for them. At night she felt the cool steel of a 
scalpel in her latex-gloved hand; the sensation of the thin 
membrane of human skin giving way under the firm pressure 
of her steady, knowing hand stayed with her, along with the 
instinctive feeling that if asked to perform an autopsy, 
she would know exactly what to do. She could see it all - 
her diploma from the University of Maryland's medical 
school, Mulder's "I Want to Believe" poster, her eager, 
trusting face filled with desire to prove herself and her 
science in the face of his outlandish ideas.

"Actually, I'm looking forward to working with you."

"If there's an iced tea in that bag, it could be love."

Her own whimpers woke her up the night her dreams were 
invaded by the white light, cold rooms and freezing metal 
gurneys. She saw a man named Duane Barry and the outlines 
of faceless forms hovering over her as she lay terrified 
and shackled. She couldn't shake the paralyzing fear that 
left her trembling or the sense of unspeakable violation 
that haunted her. She had hoped this would be the last of 
her night terrors, but it had only been the first. 

She dreamed of a man who wanted to cut off her fingers 
before he killed her, of a man who constantly smoked 
cigarettes and exuded an evil as foul as his breath, of a 
chip in her neck that had the power to control her thoughts 
and her movements. She watched her peaches and cream 
freshness become a sleek, black-clad sharpness as she and 
Mulder together ran both from and toward danger and death. 
Who could wonder that she'd rather suffer sleep-deprivation 
than close her eyes and risk the return of what seemed to 
be an endless nightmare?

Scully's eyes didn't close until the sun's rays began to 
pinken the horizon.

**
Scully's feet ached, pain seeming to travel up from the 
tiny stems supporting her heels to blossom in her arches. 
She refused to allow herself to acknowledge her own 
stupidity in wearing new shoes to an art museum, so she 
focused on her surroundings and listened to Mulder and her 
daughter with half an ear.

"You can tell he's borrowed heavily from the Caribbean 
school," Mulder intoned, sounding exactly like Dana's high 
school art teacher. "What amazing usage of color, huh?"

Chloe gazed from Mulder to the painting in question with 
the open adulation of the very young. 

Scully glanced dismissively at the blurs of color and 
massive, deformed chunks of wood and scrap metal that 
adorned the walls and littered the floor, and her face took 
on the slack, unfocused look of deep longing. Somewhere in 
this building a Renoir was calling her name.

"They say he's revolutionary, don't they?" Chloe asked.

"Yeah - the way he blends the light with such deep, 
penetrating pain. Do you see that?"

When the discussion penetrated her fog, Scully planted her 
hands on her hips and stared in dismay. Observing her 
stance, Mulder smiled, a flash of even white teeth between 
his lips.

"What do you see, Scully?"

Unable to contain her incredulity any longer, Scully 
exclaimed, "It's a dot! It's a giant - purple - *dot*."

Chloe rolled her eyes and turned away in disgust, but 
Mulder's head shake and pursed lips only emphasized his 
good humor. "Well, that's undeniably true. Very scientific, 
Ms. Scully." Moving behind her, he planted his hands on her 
shoulders. "Unfortunately, in my art class, that response 
will never do. You've earned an F on the first quiz."

She laughed. "But Mr. Mulder, I have to keep my grades up 
or my parents won't let me try out for the cheerleading 
squad."

Mulder chuckled. "Well, we can't have that. You'd look so 
cute in those little pleated skirts. So here's what we'll 
do. Close your eyes - Are they closed?"

She nodded.

"No peeking." His arm snaked over her shoulder and his 
fingers gently blanketed her eyes. "Take a deep breath. 
Relax."

"Mulder -"

"Do it." His breath ruffled the hair on the crown of her 
head.

Scully inhaled deeply through her nose, feeling the oxygen 
rush into her lungs, and exhaled slowly, relaxing her 
shoulders and allowing her spine to curve and sway. 
Mulder's solid bulk, close but not actually touching, 
warmed her back.

"Mmkay," she acknowledged.

"You know what art is, don't you, Scully? A sensory 
experience." Mulder paused triumphantly to let his words 
sink in. "It should be like listening to a symphony or 
feeling a ripe raspberry explode in your mouth. Sometimes 
it's making love, sweaty skin on skin contact and feeling 
it build and build, and then the incredible euphoria of the 
release you just can't stop." 

Robbed of her sight, the sensation of Mulder's warm breath 
as he spoke directly into her naked ear, the low rumble of 
his rich, dark chocolate voice vibrating through her bones, 
was uncomfortably erotic. Scully shifted her weight from 
foot to foot. Mulder paused, then resumed in a 
conversational tone, "Or sometimes it's like a slap in the 
face. Do you know what the difference is?"

"The feeling behind the piece?" Scully replied, her voice 
rising on the last syllable as if she were posing a 
question.

"But how does the artist convey that emotion?" The hand 
resting on her shoulder squeezed. "Through her use of 
color. It's all about color, Scully. Passion, joy, hunger, 
desperation - it's all there, every nuance in every shade. 
In this case, seeing is believing. The scientist in you 
ought to appreciate that."

She smiled in acknowledgment.

"Okay. Now I think we're ready to try again." His hand 
still clamped over her eyes, Mulder turned Scully and 
guided her a dozen steps. "Here. Open your eyes."
His hand fell away and she blinked a few times before her 
eyes focused.

"What do you see now?"

Scully tamped down her instinctive response and 
contemplated the painting before her. The canvas was easily 
twelve by sixteen feet, streaked with every shade of yellow 
imaginable, from over-ripe lemon to a tone so pale that it 
reminded her of eggshells. The paint was so thickly layered 
that it was raised, standing out from the canvas like the 
topography of a miniature yellow universe. Her eyes 
followed the hills and troughs to a place where a rocky 
arrollo seemed to empty into a placid sea.

"I see sunshine," she began slowly. "I see, um, lemonade, 
and light, like on a summer afternoon. And laughter and 
something a little outrageous, a little giddy." Her eyes 
narrowing, she studied the painting carefully. Her brow 
furrowed with the effort of her scrutiny. "It's so bright 
that it takes you aback at first, but when you settle into 
it, it feels comfortable and soft. Familiar. And it has a 
lot of layers, so you know it's not all there on the 
surface."

A tiny patch of one very specific yellow glimmered at the 
edge of Scully's peripheral vision, and she stepped closer 
to examine it. As she stood with her nose about an inch 
from the built-up paint, Mulder hoped she wouldn't set off 
the security alarm.

Still caught up in her sudden fancy, Scully whirled and 
began to scrutinize Mulder as closely as she had the 
painting. Her suspicions confirmed, she raised her 
eyebrows. "I see you, Mulder."

He was perplexed. "Me?"

Smiling loftily, Scully folder her arms over her chest. "In 
addition to a few aforementioned qualities which rather 
remarkably mirror facets of your own personality, Mr. 
Mulder, this patch of yellow -" She indicated it with a 
tapping motion, her fingernail stopping a hairsbreadth from 
making contact - "is exactly the same color as your eyes. 
They have these little tiny flecks of yellow - just this 
shade."

Mulder grinned easily. "Well, Ms. Scully, it's not often I 
see such drastic improvement in my students' performance so 
quickly. A plus."

Chloe returned to them clutching a museum map. "Mulder, 
have you seen the sculpture in the next room? It's amazing. 
- What are you doing?"

"I've been giving your mom a lesson in modern art. She 
passed with flying colors. We'd better look out, Chloe - 
she's on her way to knowing more than both of us combined."

Scully tunneled her fingers through Chloe's fine, smooth 
hair and grinned. "I already do, just maybe not about 
modern art," she teased archly. "Anyone for ice cream?"

**

Chapter 6: Hunter's Orange

"Life... is like a grapefruit. It's orange and squishy, 
and has a few pits in it, and some people have half a 
one for breakfast." - Douglas Adams

**

The spring is adored and touted for its youthful 
enthusiasm, it's unstoppably energetic greens and pinks and 
blues. But for hues with the maturity and sophistication of 
a fine wine, for colors to be held in the hand and coveted 
like rubies, one must kneel on the altar of the autumn. 

Scully's tousled hair mirrored the burnished copper of 
swirling leaves, and her cheeks glowed radiantly from the 
cold. Mulder walked beside her, leaves and twigs crunching 
underfoot. Thanks to the September heat, the fall of the 
year had been late to don her richly colored cloak; so on 
the last day of October, with the nip of frost in the air, 
the trees and unraked lawn of the small park a few blocks 
from Dana's apartment still displayed the brilliance of an 
artist's pallet. Lazy clouds drifted across an improbably 
blue sky, and Scully tipped her head back, allowing herself 
to believe that the entire spectacle was for her benefit. 
Slowly she widened her focus to include her daughter and 
the friend at her side.

Chloe had insisted that she was too old to trick-or-treat, 
so instead of costumes and grease paint, she, Dana, and 
Mulder had put on winter coats and tramped to the otherwise 
deserted park. Now she was indulging in one of her 
increasingly rare bursts of childish freedom and swinging 
on the swingset. Scully watched her for a moment then 
transferred her fond smile to Mulder, whose eyes crinkled 
in response, the famous gold flecks twinkling at her. 

In the course of only a few short weeks, Scully had ceased 
to care when Mulder had become a fixture in their lives, or 
how; and she had stopped measuring the length of their 
relationship according to the number of days that had 
passed since he had walked into her office and had begun to 
feel, vaguely, that they had simply known each other for a 
very long time. His number had magically appeared on speed 
dial, between her younger brother and the pizza place, and 
she no longer considered it odd to receive calls from a man 
who greeted her by saying, "Hey, Scully, it's me."

She thought of all this as she walked, her footsteps 
falling in unison with his; and when she heard his 
exhalation perfectly timed with hers she imagined that she 
could see inside his chest to his beating heart, its rhythm 
identical to her own. A slight smile curved her lips at her 
foolishness.

"What?" Mulder prodded.
Scully only shook her head. "I love the fall," she said 
simply; but she could not shake the unsinkable sense of 
well-being that suffused the afternoon and made her feel 
uncharacteristically at peace with the world and her place 
in it.

But long experience had taught Dana that when things seemed 
to be going too well, something had to give. On this 
particular occasion, the giving way had taken place at 1:27 
p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon. As Scully munched on a corned 
beef sandwich and leafed through the new Land's End 
catalog, 3,000 miles away Martin Ajacks was pulled over for 
going 103 miles per hour on a scenic stretch of Highway 1. 
With the Pacific Ocean roaring 1000 feet below in all its 
breathtaking glory, Officer Daniel Mann of the California 
State Highway Patrol, nephew of the outspoken Republican 
senator Robert Mathison, recognized not only Senator Ajacks 
and his need for speed, but also the senator's companion - 
a notorious San Francisco madam - and the six ounces of 
loose marijuana in a plastic bag on the passenger side 
floorboard.

"Ajacks called his lawyer, and she called me." Static 
crackled over the line, filling in the pauses between 
Dana's words. She sounded strained, anticipating the days 
of fatigue and stress stretching before her. "They want me 
out there, and this is such a disaster that I really have 
to go. What are the odds that the arresting officer would 
be a relative of one of the senator's chief rivals on the 
Hill? Christ, what a nightmare."

She shifted her weight from one sleekly booted foot to the 
other as she rested one arm atop the bank of pay phones.  
They loomed in the departures lounge like dinosaur 
skeletons left standing by the inhabitants of the hazy past 
before a wireless phone had become as essential to the 
business traveler as frequent flyer miles and an expense 
account.

"I forgot my cell phone," she explained, "but Chloe and 
John have the number of the hotel. As Chloe would say, this 
part of my job really sucks."

Mulder murmured sympathetically.

"I wanted to let you know I'll be incommunicado for a 
while. A few days, at least - probably closer to a week. So 
if you have any questions or need anything, call John."

The unforgiving glare of the hunter's orange plastic chairs 
grouped haphazardly around the gate made spots dance before 
Dana's eyes, and she squinted. They reminded her of road 
cones and hard hats. Caution! She imagined them shouting. A 
knot of tension coiled in the vicinity of her large 
intestine.

"Listen, I've got to go. My flight's boarding, and I've got 
to get some antacids or something." She sighed. "Be a good 
boy, Mulder. My career can't afford two clients 
simultaneously embroiled in media debacles on two coasts."

"Don't worry, Scully. I'll come out to California for my 
fix of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll; here at Casa Mulder 
it's all work and no play."

"How considerate," she responded dryly. "Just remember what 
they say."

"All work and no play makes Fox a dull boy?"

"No. When the cat's away, the mouse will play. Keep in 
touch."

**

12 days later
Thursday, November 27th - 1:05 p.m.

When the secure line rang, Mulder tore his eyes away from 
the computer screen, which was displaying a collage of 
lurid photos above the words "Beauties in Uniform" in bold 
characters, and answered automatically.

"State your business."

"Mulder? I've been calling around to find you - your 
phone's not on."

He grinned at the welcome sound of a voice he hadn't heard 
in almost two weeks. "Hey, Scully. Where are you?"

"I'm in the air about half an our out of D.C."

"Homeward bound at last."

"At last," she agreed. "Unless disaster strikes, I should 
be home a little after two."

"I was afraid you'd fallen into the Pacific and drowned."

She chuckled. "No, although the urge to drown the good 
senator has been almost overwhelming at times. I've just 
been insanely busy."

"I've been keeping up with the scandal - not that it's that 
difficult to do with the story splashed all over the 
headlines and the evening news. Things seem to be looking 
up for Ajacks."

"Well, they should be, if I'm doing my job right." Scully's 
sigh drifted over the air. "Hire a hooker, get busted for 
crack, kill your wife, embezzle a few million - hell, do 
all four at once, and if you've got enough cash and 
connections, you can wipe the slate clean. Get Dana Scully 
and you'll come out smelling like a rose."

She sounded disgusted. Mulder pursed his lips, his 
attention refocusing on a buxom blonde with a very 
intriguing firing stance. "Go be a doctor," he challenged.

<Go be a doctor while you still can.>

As the plane began to descend, a ray of sunlight glinted 
off the wing and bounced straight into Scully's eyes. Her 
spine tingled as she was momentarily blinded.

"I haven't slept more than four hours a night since I've 
been gone," she offered. "This is the caffeine talking."

"You live for situations like this, opportunities to test 
your skill."

She was quiet for a moment. "Mulder, why are you at the 
Gunman on Thanksgiving Day? Is Frohike there?"

"He's at his sister's. I'm, ah -" He guiltily minimized the 
Web browser and the blonde disappeared from view - "doing 
some research."

"I'll bet you are. Have you eaten?"

"Uh... yeah," he lied.

"Meet me at my place at three. I'll see what I can 
scrounge," she instructed.

After a fruitless search of the city for an open 
supermarket, Dana pulled into the parking lot of a 7-11. 
Inside the store was still decorated with month-old 
Halloween paraphernalia, huge spider webs and snaggle-
toothed witches and pumpkins of the improbably vivid orange 
that burned into Dana's brain and sent her a message she 
couldn't decode. 

A haze of orange tinted her vision as she drove home, 
coloring the clouds and the buildings and the leafless 
trees as if with a crayon, a trick of the eye that made 
Georgetown look like a painted representation of hell.

"I'm too tired for this shit," she mumbled as she kicked 
open her apartment door. The air was close, musty.

After knocking and receiving no answer, Mulder let himself 
in.  A window was partially open, the blinds tapping 
rhythmically against the panes. Shadows of the flames from 
four taper candles in tall iron sconces danced in 
concentric circles on the walls.

A brisk stream of autumn air gusted into the room, the 
force closing a door down the hall.

"Smell that?" Scully appeared from the kitchen with a large 
enamel platter. "It's winter." She placed the platter on an 
Indian blanket spread out in the center of the living room 
floor. The rich hues of the Navajo weave came alive in the 
low light.

"I had a frozen turkey breast, and I found some cranberry 
sauce and rolls, and I made a salad." She reached into her 
pocket and offered him an object that gleamed silver. When 
she opened her palm he saw that it was a corkscrew. "Do you 
want to open the wine? The glasses are on the counter."
 
Mulder's eyes flickered around the apartment as he opened 
and poured the pinot grigio. The only light came from the 
candles, and Dana had piled throw pillows on the floor. She 
knelt on the blanket, arranging the food and folding 
napkins.

He handed her a glass and she smiled. "Happy Thanksgiving, 
Mulder."

He sat down gingerly and eyed the meal. "Where's Chloe?"

Dana sipped the wine and nodded approval. "With Mom at my 
brother's house in Norfolk. I'd hoped to drive up when I 
got home, but I've already missed lunch and I'm too tired 
to drive up tonight." She scooped salad onto his plate. 
"Here, tell me if you like the dressing."

"She won't be back tonight?"

She smiled slightly. "I'll go up tomorrow. Mulder, what's 
going on? You've barely said two words and you haven't 
touched your food. You're acting *bizarre*."

He shifted uneasily. "It's just - this." He gestured around 
him.

"The food? If you're not hungry, you don't have to -"

"The atmosphere," he interrupted. "Isn't this a little..." He 
trailed off, suddenly shy.

Her gaze followed his and her expression slowly evolved 
into one of consternation, as if her features were melting. 
"Oh - I thought - you know, a picnic. Elegant but casual. 
Fun," she finished as she examined her knife and fork. 
Romantic, she didn't say. "Guess I was off the mark, huh? 
And you thought I intended to - with Chloe away -" She 
shook her head, lifting one hand to cover her face.

"No, no - Dana." He touched her knee. "It's okay. It's 
great. The food looks delicious."

She stood up. "Let me turn the lights on and put this stuff 
away. We can watch TV while we eat. Is there a football 
game you want to watch, or something?"

He grabbed her hand and tugged. "Sit down, Scully. Eat."

She sat and ate with slow, careful bites, vaguely uneasy 
that she had unconsciously created such a romantic 
afternoon for herself and Mulder. What did that say about 
her motivations, her desires?

A clear, brilliant sunset bathed the taupe walls in a pale, 
peachy orange glow that made the nape of Scully's neck 
prickle with discomfort. The ethereal glow sharply 
delineated the shadows from the light, drawing criss-
crossing bars across the living room floor. Dana eyed the 
pattern and worried that she, too, had unwittingly crossed 
a line. She relaxed only when the glowing orb sank beneath 
the horizon, shadows gradually creeping out from the 
corners to absorb Mulder and her where they sat.

**

End (3/10)

Chapter 7: Purple

"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color
purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it." -
Alice Walker

** 

November bled into December, snowfall leeching away even 
the murky browns of the last full month of autumn and 
creating a vacuum of whiteness. Correspondingly Scully 
slipped out of Mulder's daily life; he saw less and less of 
her as the holidays approached and she tried to juggle her 
career - she was still occupied with the good Senator, 
among other, less noteworthy clients - Christmas and 
Hanukkah shopping, decorating, and the usual round of 
holiday festivities. 

She had found the time to call him on a fresh wave of good 
cheer and invite him to the Scully family Christmas 
celebration. His trepidation was evident, but she insisted. 
"You can sit in the corner and be antisocial, but the 
food's to die for. Besides, my mother is extremely curious about 
you - she's convinced you're my secret lover."

This assertion did nothing to assuage Mulder's qualms, but 
it was interesting to think about. 

Mulder had resolved to stay home on Christmas Eve, to do 
his own thing and allow Dana and Chloe to have some mother-
daughter time together and do whatever it was that normal 
Catholic families did on December 24th. Unfortunately, 
currently "his own thing" amounted to sorting through his 
mail and making the grocery list, and was neither very 
time-consuming nor very entertaining. Heaving a sigh, he 
flipped on the TV. He should do laundry, but that was a 
hell of a way to spend Christmas Eve. If he just lurked in 
his apartment, he could at least maintain the illusion that 
he had somewhere to be and someone to be with rather than 
exposing his solitary status to the building's other 
tenants.

His cell phone rang, forcibly reminding him that Chloe had 
reprogrammed it to play "Jingle Bells." He grimaced.

"Mulder."

"Hey, Mulder, it's me." He could hear the smile in Scully's 
voice and he smiled in return. "Listen, if you're not too 
busy, Chloe and I are going to ride out into the Virginia 
countryside and look at all the Christmas lights. Don't you 
want to come?"

Her phrasing got him off the hook - he didn't have to 
scramble for a set of imaginary plans that he could allow 
her to talk him out of so he could accept her invitation 
while still looking marginally cool. Of course everyone 
would want to look at decorations on Christmas Eve; it was 
simply what one did. Mulder grinned. 

"Sure. What time?"

"I thought maybe around seven. We could have dinner first. 
Do you have any food?"

He was forced to admit that what he did have was probably 
no longer fit for human consumption.

"That's what I thought. We'll bring the food, then. See you 
later."

When Scully and Chloe arrived, Chloe immediately shucked 
off her parka, scarf, and gloves and sauntered over to the 
fish tank. "Do your fish have names?" 

While she and Mulder discussed the inhabitants of his 
aquarium, Scully unpacked the contents of a large plastic 
bag, spreading everything out on the kitchen counter. "We 
got stuff for sandwiches," she announced. "There's whole 
wheat bread and chicken and roast beef, and I got a few 
different kinds of cheese, and lettuce and tomato -" She 
gestured vaguely. "I got some veggies, too. I didn't think 
you'd have much since you've been out of town."

The three of them fixed sandwiches and sat in the living 
room, Mulder and Scully on the couch and Chloe slouched in 
an armchair. "I like your apartment," the girl proclaimed. 
"It's really cool. Kinda dark."

"Uh, thanks. It's not exactly a showplace."

Dana smirked. "We rented It's a Wonderful Life on the way 
over. It's Clo's favorite Christmas movie. We're going to 
watch it later."

"You should come over," Chloe piped up. "It's not Christmas 
if you don't see it."

Mulder smiled very slightly, suddenly hit by a strong wave 
of nostalgia for his own childhood. Singing carols and 
stealing pinches of gingerbread and telling Sam that he was 
going to write Santa a letter telling him all the bad 
things she'd done all year, and she'd get nothing but coal 
in her stocking.

The clock ticked loudly in the quiet room. The fish tank 
gurgled. "Mulder," Scully called softly, and his attention 
snapped to her. How could anyone be so beautiful in blue 
jeans and a simple sweater? Maybe it was the concern 
shining in her eyes, the backlight of gentle affection. 
Maybe it was the burnished copper of her hair in the low 
light. "Where'd you go?"

In the car, Scully turned the heat way up high and Chloe 
and Mulder made fun of her driving. They laughed and 
listened to cheesy Christmas music and bumped down rutted 
Virginia back roads.  For the first time in a very long 
time, Mulder remembered the joy of looking for lights that 
weren't in the sky. Scully seemed softer, younger, more 
vulnerable; he wondered if she had caught Chloe's childish 
glee or vice versa.

They dropped Mulder off to pick up his car and made a quick 
stop at a convenience store to buy popcorn on the way back 
to Georgetown. "With butter," Dana insisted, and Mulder 
marveled at the power of the Christmas spirit.

Their apartment was warm and smelled of cinnamon.  Scully 
hummed as the popcorn popped and she got two beers and a 
Pepsi out of the fridge.  Her voice, if off-key, was not 
entirely unpleasant. Mulder wanted to put his arms around 
her and press his nose into that tender spot where her neck 
met her shoulder. 

She settled herself in the center of the sofa, hot popcorn 
in her lap, and propped one socked foot on the coffee 
table. "Come on, Clo," Scully called. "We have to start the 
movie now if we're going to finish it before Santa comes."

"Yeah, Mom, you need your beauty sleep. Takes a lot out of 
you to toss a few gifts under the tree, doesn't it?" Chloe 
rolled her eyes as she flopped down beside Dana, causing a 
handful of kernels to bounce out of the popcorn bowl and 
into Scully's lap. "Gee, next year maybe we can string 
popcorn and go caroling. Wouldn't that be down home and 
traditional of us?"

Dana snorted and ate a handful of popcorn. "You know you 
love it, and you love this movie. Get up and press play, 
young one."

"Make Mulder do it," Chloe suggested pertly, but did as her 
mother had asked. Mulder switched off the lamp as the music 
swelled.

"Mom, you're eating all the popcorn," Chloe complained a 
few minutes later. Scully stopped chewing and guiltily cut 
her eyes at Mulder.

"She's right," she said, lifting her hands. "I've gained 
eight pounds in less than two months."

Mulder grinned. "You're beautiful, Scully," he assured, 
sotto voce, "and we can make more popcorn."

Scully sighed and leaned forward, lifting her Sam Adams 
from the coffee table. "Maybe I should have bought light 
beer," she joked rather hopelessly, and took a long pull 
from the bottle.

Mulder shrugged philosophically. "It's the holidays - I 
think you're required to gain weight."

Chloe shushed them. "This is my favorite part," she 
explained, her eyes riveted to Jimmy Stewart and Donna 
Reed.

Scully's smile was discreet. "They're all her favorite 
parts," she whispered.

Two hours later the popcorn was gone, the credits were 
rolling, and Dana was dozing. As Mulder covered her with a 
blanket, he became aware of two slits of cerulean blue 
trained on him.

"You going?" she mumbled.

"Yeah." He smoothed her hair away from her forehead. "Can I 
get you anything first? More popcorn?"

"Hah." She stretched out fully on her side. "You're still 
coming with us to my mom's tomorrow, right?"

"I'll be there."

"Okay. Clo and I have to be there for presents at 6:30, but 
I'll come pick you up at noon for lunch."

He kissed her cheek. "Good night, Scully. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, Mulder."

Dana heard the door click shut behind Mulder, and she 
drifted away on a haze of wrapping paper, evergreen boughs, 
and Christmases past.

<"Dana, she needs your help.">

<"According to this, Melissa is not Emily's mother. I am.">

A miracle that wasn't meant to be, Mulder had said. Scully 
felt her world dissolving into sand, her essence melting 
away.

The ringing phone and the feel of the sofa cradling her 
body blended eerily with her dream. 

"Hello?" Her scratchy morning voice was cautious, almost 
wary.

"Good morning, sweetheart."

"Mom?"

Maggie chuckled. "Who else? I just called to make sure you 
didn't oversleep. We can still expect you for breakfast, 
can't we?"

"Oh, of course." Scully sat up, blinking rapidly. "We'll be 
there right on time."

As Scully mashed the 'end' button, Chloe's sleepy voice 
reached her from the doorway. "Mom?"

"Hi, baby." Dana's eyes drank in her daughter's beloved 
form, perfectly, blessedly whole and alive. A miracle who 
*was* meant to be. She held out her arms. "Merry Christmas. 
We have to get ready to go to Grandma's, but first come 
here."

Scully hugged Chloe so fiercely that her arms ached, 
breathing in her sweet, warm little girl scent and 
relishing the feel of her strong, solid body. She didn't 
let go until the girl whimpered in protest.

**

Scully was alone in her car when it rolled to a stop as 
close to Mulder's building as she could get. She was 
reaching for her cell phone to call him when he bounded up 
to the passenger side and slid in, smelling improbably like 
spearmint. He leaned across the console to press a quick, 
cold-lipped kiss to her cheek.

"How am I for dress code?" he asked anxiously.

She eyed the dark brown pants and tan sweater peeking out 
from the folds of his coat. "Spectacular," she affirmed. 
"I'm glad you're coming. Lunch is at one, then presents."

"I thought you already did presents," Mulder protested.

"Oh, those were intra-family; these are inter-family." She 
grinned.

Mulder was preoccupied. He leaned toward her again and 
sniffed pointedly. Without taking her eyes from the road, 
she raised her eyebrows and shot him a slightly modified 
version of the death glare. "Mulder, just what the hell are 
you doing?"

He sat back in his seat and crossed his arms. "*Smoke*," he 
accused haughtily.

"A mere precautionary measure to ward off a second helping 
of dessert," she responded. He continued to eye her. "It's 
been kind of a stressful morning."

His ears pricked. "Family tension?"

"No, nothing like that... If you're too antsy, you can be out 
the door by two."

"And if I stay?"

She smiled slightly. "And if you stay, you may get to see 
me get annoyed at the inherent stubbornness of either of my 
two brothers - rivaled, I might add, only by my own - try 
to drown said annoyance in too much of my brother's 
homemade Christmas wine, get slightly tipsy, and make a 
fool of myself. And then Mom will send leftovers home with 
you for dinner."

"Drunk Scully." He regarded her appraisingly, his tone 
delighted. 

"I didn't say drunk."

"Well, whatever. Sounds like a good show to me."

She turned down a quiet, tree-lined street and pulled to a 
stop across the street from a blue-shuddered brick house 
with cars spilling out of the driveway and onto the lawn. 
"This is it," she announced.

Mulder followed Scully up the drive the front porch; before 
she could ring the bell, the door swung open. A mid-sized 
golden dog with floppy ears and decidedly out-sized paws 
bounded between Chloe's feet. "Lola!" the girl exclaimed, 
exasperated. "Hey, Mom. Hi, Mulder, I'm really glad you 
came. Lunch will be ready soon. Grandma's stuffing is the 
best. Let me take your coat."

Cyclone Chloe, Mulder judged, was seriously hyped up on 
Christmas candy. She tugged at his sleeve, pulling him into 
the entryway and divesting him of his trenchcoat. Scully 
followed more slowly, bemused, slowly floating to a stop at 
his elbow. Chloe beamed, flashing a beatific smile 
overhead. 

"Oh, look," she cooed, feigning shock as she sidled away. 
"Mistletoe. And you're standing right under it."

Scully looked to Chloe, over their heads, at Mulder, and 
back at Chloe in what could've been a pretty good imitation 
of any standard comedy routine. To her visible relief, a 
tall, gangly man with bright red hair appeared from what 
Mulder presumed was the living room, a welcoming smile on 
his lips. "Hey," he greeted. "You must be Mulder. I'm 
Dana's little brother, Charlie."

Mulder and Scully made the rounds, introducing him to all 
the members of her extended family. Finally she led him 
into the kitchen to meet her mother, Maggie, who smiled a 
remarkably familiar smile and murmured that she had "heard 
so much" about him. For no specific reason, Mulder felt the 
tips of his ears getting hot and knew they were flaming. 
Maggie continued to smile. 

"Why don't you two go have a seat in the living room," she 
suggested.

Chloe saw them coming and set about dragging a pair of 
toddlers away from the loveseat in the corner. "Mulder, you 
two come sit here," she called. "There's just enough space 
for *two*."

Scully chuckled lightly as she settled beside him on the 
petite loveseat. Lola, intent on making new friends, padded 
over and planted herself, tail wagging with adoration, at 
Mulder's feet. 

The fit on the sofa was, indeed, a bit tight, pushing their 
hips into glancing contact. "Don't look now, but someone's 
match-making," Scully murmured, her lips close to his ear. 
The arm around her shoulders squeezed firmly.

"She'll meet with no opposition from me."

Scully eyed him reproachfully and pointedly switched 
subjects. "What do you usually do for Christmas?" 

"The same thing I do for Thanksgiving."

Her gaze was curious. "You came to my house for 
Thanksgiving," she pointed out.

He grinned easily. "You're ruining all my traditions, 
Scully."

Her eyes twinkled. "And what would you have done 
otherwise?"

"Oh, you know. I hang out on the couch, order a pizza, 
drink a few beers. I usually have a date with A Christmas 
Story."

"The one where the little boy gets his tongue stuck to the 
flagpole?" Tenderness and pity mingled in the soft lines of 
her open face, but to his relief, she didn't comment on the 
solitary state in which he usually passed his holidays.

Mulder chuckled. "That's the one. I love the part where his 
dad gets that God-awful leg-shaped lamp."

"My favorite part is when he gets his mouth washed out with 
soap." She smiled broadly. "That happened to me a few 
times. I've always had a foul mouth - I think I inherited 
it from my father - and Billy used to be a hell of a 
tattletale. He probably still is, actually."

Absently stroking her delicate collarbone with his thumb, 
Mulder pictured a young Scully with a mouthful of Coast and 
grinned delightedly. "My sister was a tattler too, but I 
was big enough to threaten her with bodily harm if she 
didn't keep her mouth shut."

She sensed his need to maintain physical contact with her 
and she responded by leaning into his caress. Dana watched 
as the haze of nostalgia crept into his expressive eyes. 
"Are the holidays hard for you, Mulder? Do they make you 
think of her?"

His voice had lost the humor it held minutes before. "I 
always think of her, Scully."

Seconds ticked by. Dana placed her left hand palm up on his 
knee and wiggled her fingers. His free hand covered hers 
and she linked their fingers. 

"The holidays aren't that much different than any other 
time of year. We never had a lot of family Christmas 
traditions. My parents used to throw a big party, but Sam 
and I were relegated to our bedrooms during that. My 
grandmother would roast a goose on Christmas Eve and we'd 
go over there for a few hours. Pretty standard stuff." He 
craned his neck to meet her eyes and stated perceptively, 
"Christmas is pretty tough for you, huh?"

She sighed, the twinge of a smile at one corner of her 
mouth signaling him that he'd scored a point. "Well, no. 
Not - not in the way that you mean. The holidays aren't a 
sad time for me, but I do find myself thinking of Melissa 
more. I miss her more this time of year. She loved 
Christmas more than anyone else I've ever known. When we 
were kids she'd be the first one downstairs in the morning. 
She'd get my parents up at five o'clock, you know?" Scully 
grinned fondly. "I can see her sitting on the living room 
rug with the contents of her stocking spread out all around 
her like the spoils of war. She did that until she was in 
college. Even when we were adults, she acted like a kid at 
Christmas. I try to channel that enthusiasm for Chloe's 
sake."

Mulder nudged her. "Looks to me like you've got enough of 
your own."

"Not like Melissa, though. When the first decorations start 
to go up, I always wonder how Melissa would've celebrated 
the holidays with her daughter. I think they would've baked 
cookies and gone caroling and decorated the tree together, 
and I try to do those things the way Melissa would've 
wanted. Then I think of how differently Melissa would have 
done so many things, and I wonder just how much different 
Chloe's life would have been if Melissa had lived." Dana 
shrugged, the gesture and her expression self-effacing. 
"How much better." 

"Obviously different." Mulder squeezed the soft hand he 
cradled in his. "But you know how impossible it is to judge 
yourself by that standard. In your mind you'll always come 
up short. And you're a wonderful mother to Chloe."

"I know." Her cheeks flushed rose with embarrassment and 
gratitude, but no words came. Instead they watched her 
nieces and nephews play on the floor with their Christmas 
bounty.

In the doorway Maggie Scully clapped her hands 
authoritatively. "All right, everything's on the table." 
She raised her voice. "Bill, will you come say grace?"

Scully smiled and turned her upper body to face her 
companion. "Come on, Mulder," she said softly, leaning 
toward him. "Feast's on. After all, you came for the food, 
didn't you?"

Mulder was seated across the table from Dana, smack in the 
middle of a row of wholesome, rosy-cheeked Scullys. With 
her bright hair and luminescent skin, Scully both fit in 
and stood out from her relatives, like a morning glory 
among lilacs. Sensing his scrutiny, she turned toward him 
and smiled. "Pass the gravy?" she asked.

She hadn't misled him as to the quality or quantity of the 
food, Mulder reflected. Ham, creamed corn, peas and green 
beans, squash casserole - a line of dishes marched up and 
down the table with military precision, passed from hand to 
hand. He looked down to find his plate heaped with Mrs. 
Scully's homemade fare and rubbed his hands together in 
anticipation. 

After everyone was stuffed, Scully and Charlie's wife, 
Alicia, whisked the half-empty serving dishes into the 
kitchen and returned with a myriad of desserts. There were 
two apple pies, brownies, a coconut cake, a tray of peanut 
brittle and a huge tub of vanilla ice cream. As Mulder 
debated the merits of brownie versus apple pie, Scully 
appeared at his elbow.

"Coffee?" she offered brightly. 

"Scully, this is killing me," he lamented.

Realizing his dilemma, Dana offered the wisdom of a 
lifetime in the Scully household. "Take both," she advised, 
and helped him to a piece of coconut cake. 

Twenty minutes later Mulder lingered with the other adults 
at the table, allowing the desultory conversation to ebb 
and flow around him. He stared in stunned rapture at his 
now-empty dessert plate. Tara got up for a second cup of 
coffee and six-year-old Matthew clambered into a standing 
position on her vacated chair. Clapping his hands in a fair 
imitation of his grandmother, he imperiously announced, 
"Presents!"

All the elder Scully relatives laughed. Charlie pulled 
Matthew from the chair into an affectionate bear hug. 
"What, you don't think any of those presents under 
Grandma's tree are for *you*, do you? Didn't you get coal 
in your stocking this year, brat?"

"No, I was good, Uncle Charlie!" the boy exclaimed, his 
chubby, pink face a picture of indignation. "'Sides, I seen 
my name!"

"You saw it," his mother corrected, and fretted, "Oh, the 
dishes."

"Can wait," Maggie supplied, smiling but firm. "The 
children have been patient long enough, and so have I. Come 
on, Matthew, and show me the packages with your name."

Mulder followed the family procession into the living room 
to gather as closely as thirteen people can gather around a 
Christmas tree. He squeezed onto the sofa beside Dana, who 
held her youngest niece on her lap. While the older kids 
clamored for gifts, the baby cooed, wide-eyed, at the 
blinking angel atop the eight-foot Virginia pine.

"I'll be the elf," Chloe volunteered, assuming a position 
beside Bill's customary Santa Claus. She caught Mulder's 
eye and grinned. At 11 she felt too mature to be as 
unabashedly enthusiastic as her cousins, but her assumption 
of authority allowed her to participate while maintaining 
her cocoon of adolescent loftiness.

"Me first!" four-year-old Julia shrieked gleefully. She 
made a dive for the mound of brightly-wrapped boxes, but 
Alicia held her back.

"Hang on, sweetie. Mulder doesn't know the rules."

"Rules?" Mulder repeated, and thought he saw Scully wince. 

She turned to him half-apologetically. "It's a tradition," 
she explained. "Before you open a gift, you have to kiss 
someone. On the cheek for siblings and parents, lips for 
spouses and, ah, anyone else."

"Here's one for Peter," Chloe chirped. The eldest of 
Charlie's brood collected his present, deposited a kiss on 
his mother's cheek, and tore into the wrapping while the 
rest of the family looked on with ceremonial attentiveness.

The process was repeated several times, Bill showing off 
and laying a passionate liplock on his wife for the 
family's benefit, before he offered Chloe a rectangular 
blue package. "Here, Squirt, this one's for your mom."

Scully's fingers closed on the box and she hesitated. She 
fingered the bow indecisively. She could take the easy way 
out - a kiss for the nearest brother or nephew. But there 
was Mulder sitting right next to her, utterly defenseless. 
She wouldn't want him to feel left out of the festivities, 
would she? After all, he was her guest.

Chloe made the decision for her. "Go on," she urged 
impatiently, looking pointedly at Mulder.

Scully flashed a blinding smile at him, hoping it masked 
her embarrassment, and leaned up to make contact with his 
mouth. In the instant before her lips grazed his, she felt 
her entire being throb with the memory of the one sweet 
kiss they'd exchanged in Melvin's living room. Then there 
was a glancing contact, his breath whispering across her 
cheek, and Scully found her fingers unknotting the gauzy 
gold bow her mother had tied around the gift.

Dana's bloodless fingers trembled as she thanked Maggie for 
the colorful plaid scarf that she unrolled to display for 
her family. Mulder leaned close to murmur, "That purple 
will look great on you, Scully. It'll bring out your hair." 
He reached up to finger a strand of brilliant copper; 
Dana's awareness of Bill's eyes on them made her realize 
how unconsciously intimate the gesture was.

"This one's for, ah, Mulder." Bill's puzzled tone revealed 
his confusion. Mulder turned to Scully, who raised her 
eyebrows and shook her head.

"It's from me," Chloe burst out, beaming. "I wanted Mulder 
to have something to open with everyone else."

The dimple in her chin lent Chloe's smile a mischievous 
exuberance, and Dana was forcefully reminded of her 
daughter's efforts in the last weeks to leave her and 
Mulder alone together. Hadn't she tried to push them under 
the mistletoe just hours ago? Pinning Chloe with her gaze, 
Scully narrowed her eyes and lifted her brows. Chloe 
ignored her, glowing with triumph.

"It's not much." Her eyes twinkled.

"Well," Mulder muttered, his face alight with laughing 
embarrassment. He met Scully's eyes and suddenly her 
trepidation at the thought of having to kiss him again in 
front of an audience was wiped away by the fear that he 
wouldn't kiss her. She tilted her head and leaned forward, 
as she had done on that October afternoon, inviting his 
attention. He dipped his head and she lifted her hand, 
fingertips skimming up from his jaw to his clean-shaven 
cheek, holding his head and directing his mouth to hers.

"Oh, God," she thought, feeling as if she'd received an 
electric shock - a painful tingling jolted her before being 
replaced by a warm glow of pleasure and well-being. Her 
teeth dragged lightly over the succulent flesh of his lower 
lip, lingering as he pulled away. Her hands dropped into 
her lap, dead weight. Avoiding his eyes, she urged, "Open 
your present, Mulder."

He precisely slit the tape and neatly unfolded the creased 
wrapping paper, revealing a small box. Opening the box 
disclosed an inexpensive watch.

Chloe shrugged. "It's not much. You told us your watch 
stopped working, remember?"

Mulder smiled and thanked her. "Now I won't have an excuse 
to be late," he teased.

He lasted the afternoon at the Scully family gathering, 
watching Dana's cheeks flush as she drank the sweet, fruity 
wine her younger brother dispensed from a plastic jug, and 
indulging in a bit of the brew himself. When the shadows 
deepened and the cold air crept into the corners of the 
living room, it seemed the most natural thing in the world 
to wrap Scully in his embrace and feel her nestled against 
his side, her stocking-clad toes pressed into his thigh, an 
intimate tableau for the eyes of her whole family. Her head 
rested on his shoulder and he wondered what she'd do if he 
leaned down and kissed her again. 

It was already dark when he stepped onto the porch with 
Dana and the promised bag of leftovers ("Come on, Fox - 
just a bit of turkey. And ham. And, oh, some sweet 
potatoes, and cake, and did you like the casserole?"), and 
a cold wind blew in from the north and whistled around 
them.

"Brr!" she exclaimed, darting toward the driver's side of 
her car. "Get in, Mulder. I'm freezing."

He slid into the passenger seat and pointedly ignored his 
chattering teeth. "Buck up, Scully. Compared to winters on 
the Vineyard, this is nothing."

She cranked the engine and prayed for it to heat up 
quickly. "I grew up in California, remember?" she pointed 
out as she executed a three-point turn and headed toward 
the Interstate.

They were mostly silent on the drive back to his apartment. 
Comfortable. Easy. "Do you want to come up?" he invited 
when she pulled to the curb.

She shook her head regretfully. "I need to get home and 
pack. Our flight's at seven in the morning."

"That'll be a long day," he murmured, his voice almost 
getting lost beneath the roar of the heater. Mulder reached 
out to cover her hand with his and she felt his touch 
through the leather of her gloves. "I don't guess I'll talk 
to you until you get back. Have fun. Wear sunscreen."

"I will," she promised. "I'll send a postcard from the 
Bahamas."

This was an annual pilgrimage for Dana and Chloe, five days 
of mother-daughter bonding and sun and sand and fresh 
seafood. Mulder certainly didn't envy them the time, but he 
could already feel the cold chill of bad TV movies and 
greasy pizza alone in his apartment seeping in under the 
door. 

"Wish I could go," he offered.

"I do too," she replied, and the husky tenor of her voice 
and the shadows in her eyes hinted at a vague sadness, a 
something left unsaid between them. He leaned forward and 
kissed her check, and wanted to believe that her cool 
fingers held a beat too long on the back of his neck.

He climbed out of the car with his bag of treats, the door 
slamming behind him in the biting wind. He had taken only a 
few steps when she called his name and he looked back. She 
had rolled down the window to shout at him.

"New Year's Eve - do you have plans?"

His eyes crinkled slightly. "I do now." His voice carried 
across the silent, barren landscape of snow-packed cars and 
slushy ice-grey gutters. Scully's smile was the barest 
quirk at the left corner of her mouth, but he caught it. He 
watched her taillights until they disappeared around the 
corner.

**

Chapter 8: Raspberry

"If you want inside her, well, boy you better make her 
raspberry swirl." - Tori Amos

**

At first he had been taken aback, a bit incredulous. The 
tiny lines around his eyes told her this was not how he had 
expected to spend the evening with her, and that knowledge 
caused a quaver in the pit of her stomach. 

"You invited me to a slumber party?" Mulder's voice was a 
shade louder, a shade more brash than usual. He wasn't 
angry; just dismayed. Scully lifted his heavy coat from his 
broad shoulders and drew him further into the apartment, 
into the sound of the blaring TV and chattering little-girl 
voices and the rich smell of pepperoni pizza. She didn't 
say a word, only nodded.

His grin melted a chunk of ice in her intestines. "Well, 
damn. I forgot my sleeping bag."

Mulder quietly shelved his aspirations to cold, crisp 
champagne and slow dancing and, if he played his cards 
right, an Auld-Lang-Syne kiss. He had spent most of his 
adult life alone, and had never fathomed that five days 
away from someone could feel like such an eternity. He'd 
take whatever he could get.

He was content to settle back and watch Dana interact with 
Chloe and her friends. She laughed with them, teased them, 
gave them their space. Mulder imagined Scully at eleven or 
twelve with a group of girlfriends and a bottle of nail 
polish, talking about boys or movies or pop music. What had 
she been like? An image formed in his mind of a quiet 
little redhead in the corner with a book and a dreamy 
smile, and it felt right. 

When she went into the kitchen area, he followed her. 
"You're the cool mom," he posited, speaking low enough that 
the girls couldn't hear him, and she grinned as she turned 
away from the icebox and looked at him.

"I like to think so," she agreed, plunking two tubs of ice-
cream on the counter. 

He moved closer, close enough to smell her perfume, and 
looked over her shoulder. "Mm, chocolate."

She scooped a spoon into the chocolate and offered him the 
resulting bite. For an instant his tongue stuck to the cold 
metal of the spoon. "Raspberry's my favorite," she 
stated. 

Mulder deftly plucked the spoon from her grasp and, 
reaching over her shoulder, gathered a heaping mouthful of 
the richly colored treat. Scully didn't look at him as she 
opened her mouth to accept the bite. He gave her a moment to 
clean the spoon, then slowly withdrew it from the warmth of her 
mouth. His free hand skimmed down her upper arm. One of 
them was breathing too quickly. Maybe both of them. 
"Good?" 

The combination of cold ice cream and the husky heat of his 
voice sent chills racing up her spine. She nodded 
convulsively and busied herself with dipping out the ice-
cream. Mulder backed up and leaned against the opposite 
counter, watching her. 

She was wearing a deep pink sweater, a dark, vivid color.
He'd never seen her in pink. It looked soft, feminine as it 
hugged her curves. Cashmere, maybe. Mulder wanted to touch it. 
Even more, Mulder wanted to touch what was beneath it.  Scully 
had gotten some sun - her freckles stood out more clearly than 
usual under her light makeup. He wanted to lick the powder 
away and taste each sweet spot of color. 

He had to stop thinking this way, especially with a group 
of pre-teen girls in the next room - in *this* room, if one 
wanted to get technical. If they caught sight of the way he 
was looking at Scully, they'd certainly mature a few years 
faster than was strictly necessary.

She went back into the living room, defusing the tension 
between them. After a few minutes he decided it was safe 
and drifted back out to join the party.

Scully and Mulder were included in a game of Twister - the 
girls were dumbfounded to meet two adults willing to 
contort their feeble, ancient bodies into the required 
poses - which Mulder lost spectacularly on right hand, red, 
taking out Scully and two of Chloe's friends with him. 

Scully tactfully retreated to the kitchen when someone 
mentioned Truth or Dare, and Mulder made his way to the 
bathroom. He just couldn't hold as much Mountain Dew as 
he'd been able to in his younger years.

When he emerged, the boisterous cadence of Dick Clark's 
eternally youthful voice drifted in from the living room, 
announcing the official beginning of the countdown to the 
new year. Four genuinely youthful voices stopped giggling 
long enough to join in.

"Ten... nine..."

Thanks to Chloe and her three girlfriends, Scully's entire 
apartment was festooned with pink streamers in honor of the 
occasion. The living room floor was strewn with sleeping 
bags, candy wrappers, chip bags, and one empty pizza box.

Scully was popping popcorn. He noted that nothing was 
sacred: not even the kitchen was safe from the redecorating 
efforts of a crowd of twelve-year-olds on a sugar high. 
Everywhere he looked, he saw pink. As if she'd planned the 
effect, Dana's sweater precisely matched the streamers.

Mulder gestured with his bottle. "You match."

She grinned and popped a hot kernel into her mouth.

"Seven... six..."
Their eyes met. "You're about to miss the big moment, 
Scully."

Holding the popcorn bowl to her chest, Scully leaned back 
against the refrigerator, her hair fanning out around her 
head in a bright nebula. The ghost of a smile touched her 
lips. "I hear that."

And then as Dick Clark hit zero and the ball dropped in 
Times Square, Mulder and Scully weren't in Dana's cheerful 
kitchen; they were transported to a hospital waiting room 
no different than countless other waiting rooms, and Mulder 
forgot the painful twinge in his bandaged arm because 
Scully was so close that he could feel her breath. As he 
turned to her she tipped her head back, and the reality of 
it was much more amazing and frightening than a whole 
squadron of zombies. When their lips met in a chaste, soft 
kiss, there was no harm, no foul, because it was New Year's 
Eve, now New Year's Day, and they could blame it all on 
tradition and the spirit of the moment.

He invaded her space and Scully pressed against the cool, 
smooth surface of the refrigerator at her back. She sighed, 
her cool, popcorn-flavored breath fanning against his chin. 
Her eyes were closed, lashes pale against the tender, 
translucent skin below. He studied her carefully, 
breathless; a tiny, petulant frown creased her forehead and 
she surged up on tiptoe, reuniting their mouths. For a 
second they simply rested against one another, getting 
reacquainted, then Mulder tentatively opened his lips, 
nudging her with the fuller bottom one. He felt tightly 
strung, concentrating fiercely on his technique and the 
exactly right timing.

A soft, low humming sound emanated from deep in her chest 
as she received his kiss and gave one back in return. The 
exchange stretched out as a chorus of indistinct voices 
muddled through "Auld Lang Syne" on television. Taken 
separately, each kiss was like a tiny, clear drop of 
rainwater, but they merged seamlessly to form a stream. The 
contact of mouth to mouth remained light, only a step from 
hesitant, like the chase and retreat of two children on an 
elementary school playground. Needing to touch her, he 
placed his palms gently on her shoulders, rubbing the soft 
fabric slowly against the bones beneath. 

Her numbed arms spontaneously released and the plastic bowl 
crashed to the floor, an avalanche of unpopped kernels 
rattling across the tiles. Scully's eyes popped open in 
surprise, and she blinked again when she found Mulder's 
pupils wide open and fixed determinedly on hers. She 
chuffed out a sheepish laugh and against hers his lips 
curved into a smile. His arm settled low around her waist, 
fingers fanning over her hip, and they held their pose, lip 
to lip and eye to eye, until a chorus of giggles close at 
hand broke the moment.

Even after he registered Chloe and her friends watching 
from the living room, the spectacle in the kitchen more 
interesting than the aftermath on TV, Mulder was able to 
move only sluggishly, reluctantly relinquishing Scully and 
stepping back a respectable distance. Chloe's face was 
flaming with embarrassment, but Mulder couldn't help 
observing her sly, triumphant grin.

As she knelt to scoop up the ruined popcorn, Scully's 
cheeks were flushed an identical pink. She'd turned to hide 
behind the curtain formed by her hair, but as Mulder joined 
her on the floor their eyes met and she smiled. As Mulder 
returned her gaze, he felt certain that, if only for that 
one unique moment in time, they shared an understanding as 
complete and unobstructed as the clear blue of her eyes.

**
End (4/10)


Chapter 9: Crimson

"Beauty's ensign yet is crimson in thy lips and in they 
cheeks, and death's pale flag is not advanced." - Shakespeare

** 

Scully's sleep-fogged brain sluggishly worked to process 
the ear-piercing, inhuman screech that had yanked her from 
slumber. For a moment she thought it was the warning cry of 
the smoke alarm, but the apartment was silent, peaceful.

As her hammering heart slowed and sweat cooled on her body, 
leaving her skin irritated and scratchy, she realized the 
sound had come from within the cave of her own tortured 
nightmares, a wail of jagged, choking despair. Panicked, 
she groped for the bedside lamp. A pale yellow glow 
suffused the room and she sat up, the cool, smooth 
headboard wonderfully solid at her back. 

If her dream had ever been coherent, now it was slipping 
from her grasp, details fading as surely as shadows faded 
in the light. She was left with a picture of herself 
studying her own x-rays, her eyes riveted on the pale, 
solid mass rooted at the center of her forehead, with the 
sensation of cold hospital tile beneath her shuffling bare 
feet, with blinding pain and Mulder's anguished eyes and 
her life slipping away with each drop of rich crimson blood 
trickling down her upper lip. One hand rose to her throat, 
as if her fingers could touch the origin of her silent 
scream. Her other hand drifted to her forehead, drawing 
rings around the source of her phantom pain.

Scully folded her knees to her chest and drew the covers 
over them. She couldn't stop shaking, trembling so 
violently that she felt as if her entire body were 
vibrating.

Remission was both the most beautiful and the most 
treacherous word in the English lexicon. Six years ago Dana 
had realized the fragility not only of human life but of 
*her* life in the most brutal, personal manner possible. 
Death had encroached too deeply upon Scully's life for her 
ever to forget its indelible imprint; as if in retaliation, 
she had lived the last several years as if she were 
immortal. When you cheated fate once, it became easy to 
imagine that you were stronger, smarter, more *permanent* 
than death's reach.

This dream brought reality crashing down upon Dana. Death 
was inevitable. In her mind Scully saw her blood spatter 
across the pristine whiteness of a blank page and felt her 
horizon shrink. Confronted with the immediacy of her own 
mortality, Scully felt the sickeningly familiar internal 
rot of a slow death.

Instinctively she cradled her lower abdomen, her muscles 
quivering as they protected the place where her disease had 
lived, had perhaps been reborn.

"It's not real," she whimpered, hoping frantically that the 
sound of her voice would ground her in reality. Praying 
that health and life *were* reality.

She forced herself to lie down but couldn't turn off the 
light. The thought of darkness was unbearable. When she 
closed her eyes she saw the flow of her blood widening from 
a trickle to a crimson cascade, filling her lungs and 
choking her.

Gasping for breath, she jerked upright and grabbed the 
cordless phone. Her stiff fingers had pounded out the first 
half of Mulder's number before she realized that he was in 
San Francisco. 

"Shit," she swore, dropping the receiver onto the 
comforter. Her eyes roamed the room. He always stayed at
the same hotel on Nob Hill; if she called information and 
got the number, she could be talking to him in minutes - 
seconds, even. He might question her late-night phone call, 
but he would not force her to explain. His sleepy monotone 
would sooth her, wash over her like a healing balm.

In fact, the thought of Mulder had calmed Dana almost 
enough to allow her to breathe normally. Replacing the 
phone, she stood and smoothed the covers. There was no need 
to call Mulder and worry him - and if she behaved in a 
fashion so out of character, he would certainly worry. She 
ambled into the kitchen for a glass of water, then looked 
in on Chloe.

It was ridiculous to be so shaken. She'd had no symptoms to 
suggest that her illness had returned, and her bout with 
ovarian cancer in no way predisposed Scully to some sort of 
bizarre brain tumor. This nightmare, she assured herself, 
was merely a product of her imagination, just as all her 
other dreams were.

Bathed in the light of day, figments from the dim reaches 
of nightmares were supposed to vanish as suddenly as they 
descended. Instead, as Dana sat at her desk at 9 a.m., 
surrounded by a cheerful pool of sunlight, she still felt 
invaded, haunted. Scared.

With a sigh, she dropped her pencil and pressed her palm to 
her forehead. Her movements endowed with a force that was 
almost vicious, she flipped through her rolodex to the card 
she was looking for. Dialing the number, she felt unsteady, 
a little crazy.

The woman's voice was cheerful and businesslike when she 
answered. "Good morning, you've reached the Women's Medical 
Center of Georgetown. How may I direct your call?"

"I need to make an appointment with Dr. Maglione, please."

"One moment, ma'am. Let me transfer you."

The second voice was even more relentlessly peppy; perhaps, 
Scully considered, she cloaked her voice in such positivism 
because her job surrounded her with such a degree of 
suffering and death.

"Oncology, this is Mary."

"Mary, my name is Dana Scully. I'd like to make an 
appointment with Dr. Maglione."

Scully listened to the reassuring clicking of computer 
keys. "Ms. Scully, I'm showing that you're scheduled for a 
continuing care visit with Dr. Maglione in June."

Scully kept her voice low so that John couldn't overhear. 
"Yes, but I'd like to come sooner, please, as soon as 
possible."

"Have you developed any symptoms the doctor should know 
about?"

"Ah, no. No. This is just for my own peace of mind." 

Scully closed her eyes tightly, and when she opened them 
the world danced and wavered. Wherever she looked, crimson 
starbursts exploded in the center of her field of vision, 
each explosion endowed with the destroying, life-taking 
power of a drop of human blood.

**

Chapter 10: A Patch of Blue

"Send a long letter way back home, says, 'All that I know, 
all that I know is the blue sky' - The farther I come, the 
farther I fall - Whatever I knew is nothing at all..." 
- Patty Griffin

**

Hypnotized by hours of staring at the busy gold and red 
print of the airplane's upholstery, Mulder let the drab 
beiges and browns of the hallway connecting the plane to 
the terminal wash over him in soothing waves. His shoulders 
and back were stiff, and his legs ached from being cramped 
into a too-small space. He let his muscles stretch, eyes 
roving over a sea of average, unfamiliar faces and forms 
clad in black and brown overcoats without really seeing 
anything.

A patch of blue entered his peripheral vision, relieving 
the monotony of his journey and bringing a smile to his face.

She stood back from the throng, hands linked in front of 
her, buttoned up from chin to well-shod foot in a powder 
blue wool coat, a matching toboggan perched on her head. 
Copper curls peeked out above and below the wool, their 
brilliance matching the brilliance of her smile. He paused, 
taking in the vision of her, then moved steadily forward.

It felt natural to sweep her into his arms, to feel the 
weight of her smaller body against his chest as her arms 
banded around his back.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, breathing in the spicy 
scent of her hair.

She tilted her head back enough to see him, still smiling 
as freely as he'd ever seen her smile. "I missed you," she 
admitted with aplomb, and peacefully tucked her head under 
his chin. Her hair tickled his skin.

He laughed from the sheer exhilaration of seeing her, 
hearing her voice, holding her. "I missed you," Mulder 
responded, playfully rocking them from side to side. "Don't 
ever make me do a book tour again. I'm exhausted, 
irritated, and may never recover."

She chuckled. "I won't make you do another tour of the West 
Coast until you write another book," she promised. "But you 
already know you're going to Canada in April." He groaned 
theatrically, and her arms tightened.

"It feels so good to touch you and know you're whole and 
safe," she murmured, her tone becoming deadly serious, 
almost sad. A world of shadows and half-formed thoughts 
lurked behind her words. He couldn't know about hospital 
gowns and sharp metal instruments and stiff, institutional 
blankets scratching chemo-worn skin. He couldn't know that 
just days ago she'd sat, every muscle in her body pulled 
tight, auto-defenses prepared for the worst, and watched as 
her blood steadily filled two perfect plastic vials.

Dr. Maglione's chocolate brown eyes had been gentle and 
sympathetic as he soothed her fears. "You're *fine*, Dana. 
It never hurts to be cautious, but the tests show that 
everything's fine. You're in perfect health."

The relief was so sharp that it felt like a slap, but it 
couldn't right her equilibrium and put everything back into 
perfect balance.

Mulder sensed that Scully was approaching whatever had 
really spurred her surprise appearance at the airport, but 
she didn't seem comfortable addressing the issue. "I'm not 
safe," he replied lightly, feigning affront as he lazily 
sifted through her hair. "I'm the dangerous bad boy your 
mother warned you about but secretly yearned for to break 
the monotony of her own dull suburban life. I'm a rebel, 
Scully. An artiste."

Dana's expression metamorphosed again, laughter rekindling 
in her eyes. Their bottomless blue curled around him, 
warming his weary limbs and soothing his tattered psyche. 
She was gazing at him as if that heartbreaking smile could 
be entirely attributed to his presence, and the last two 
times he'd seen her, she'd let him kiss her. The two 
thoughts chased one another around his mind, and if she 
kept looking at him like that, he'd want to dive into those 
twin blue pools and let himself drown.

He wasn't sure who moved first; he felt the puff of her 
breath, the upward momentum of her compact body, and then a 
sea of blue filled his vision, a cool, bracing wave rolled 
over him, and moist, open lips brushed against his.

Mulder blinked, hoping his carefully blank expression was 
still in place. Scully blinked back equally 
expressionlessly.

"I assume you checked a bag." Stepping back, she re-
shouldered her purse.

Mulder rubbed his jaw, stubble scratching his palm. Scully 
had kissed him, hadn't she? Or had he imagined it courtesy 
of a travel-induced stupor?

She seemed to glide away from him toward the baggage claim, 
moving with the grace and unflappable ease of an iceberg, 
and he followed in her wake, his hazy, dazzled brain 
registering her presence as a blur of vivid blue.

**

Scully had been sleeping until some slight sound woke her, 
creaking pipes or a snapping branch or a barking dog. Pale 
late afternoon sunlight glinted off the snow and filtered 
through her bedroom window. After dropping Chloe off at 
Tina's and spending the morning deep cleaning the house, 
she had dropped onto her bed, exhausted, for a catnap.

Her legs shifted restlessly under the thin Indian blanket 
she'd thrown over her, the seam of her jeans pressing 
firmly between her legs. She released an exasperated breath 
that lifted a damp strand of hair from her forehead. Her 
body, damp with perspiration, was flushed and hyper-
sensitive. When she closed her eyes she could see the 
shifting planes of her dream lover's long, golden body, 
could feel his mouth on her breast, his hand parting her 
damp folds, gently reaching inside her -

She whimpered and bit her lip, pressing her open palm 
against the damp denim and grinding sinuously against it. 
God, she needed to come. It had been too long. And there 
was no one here, no one to hear or see or interrupt. 

Clumsy fingers fumbled to undo the buttons on her jeans and 
she plunged her hand inside between hot skin and damp 
satin. The tip of her index finger lightly brushed her clit 
and she flinched. This wouldn't take long; her skin already 
felt ripe and tight, almost ready to burst. She let her 
eyes drift shut and she was there again, in her dream.

Knowing masculine fingers played over her clit, scratching 
lightly beneath the hood before drawing tiny, leisurely 
circles on the side, his touch feather light, barely there. 
She imitated his movements, teasing her, making her squirm. 

Behind closed eyelids her fantasy came into focus, the cool 
leather at her back, the hum of the aquarium, Mulder's 
face, intense and passionate as he loomed above her. For a 
moment she tried to erase his distinct features and replace 
them with the anonymous lover of a thousand generic, 
interchangeable fantasies, but he remained Mulder, 
determined and driven.

"Fuck," she muttered, and gave herself permission for one 
frenzied moment to want him in the worst and best ways. Her 
fingers ground into her clit and she was soaring, her body 
being incinerated and reconstituted as meteors exploded 
before her eyes in a shower of joyous, agonizing gold.

In the aftermath she shivered, tossed away the blanket and 
crawled under her thick comforter. Sweat was drying on her 
body. It would be better not to think about what she had 
just done. It would really be better to go over the grocery 
list or take an inventory of her winter suits or balance 
her checkbook. 

With a groan of defeat, she flopped onto her stomach. She 
missed Mulder. She hadn't really spent any time with him 
since the day she picked him up at the airport *and kissed 
him, again* and they went out to lunch. They'd both been 
working; he was looking for a new agent, and her schedule 
was always an acid trip in January, jam-packed with sinners 
and grinners who had resolved to turn over a new leaf. Then 
he'd received word that his mother was in the hospital with 
pneumonia, and he'd gone up to Connecticut. They'd talked a 
few times, and he'd called this morning to say that his mom 
was home, and he, too, would be home in the next couple of 
days, "when she gets well enough to drive me crazy."

Talking on the phone wasn't the same, of course, as seeing 
the gentle laughter in his eyes when he dropped bad one-
liners, or the way his lips pursed just slightly when he 
was watching her and didn't think she'd noticed.

Her strange mood carried her through the rest of the 
weekend, and she knew she was less than desirable company 
at work Monday morning. Uncharacteristically, John not only 
picked up on her foul humor but commented on it.

"You seem off today, Dana." He neatly mopped up the coffee 
she had sloshed out of her mug and tossed the napkins into 
the trash. "Is it Mulder?"

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "What do you mean?"

"Did you have a fight?"

She frowned. "Mulder's at his mother's, John."

"I know. You told me. Three times."

Scully focused resolutely on her day planner.

"I just wondered... a lover's quarrel..."

"Lover's *quarrel*?" Her voice shot up along with her 
eyebrows on the last word.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of. They happen in the best 
of relationships."

Her mouth tightened. "News flash, John," she said firmly. 
"Mulder and I are *not* lovers."

John eyed her for a moment, and she knew he was gauging the 
truthfulness of her statement. She crossed her arms over 
her breasts and stared back at him.

"Okay," he finally conceded. "I believe you. You could do 
worse, you know. I just thought - body language - the way 
you talk about him - I've never seen you light up for 
anyone that way. I just assumed - "

"Well, don't," she snapped, ending the conversation.

When her cell phone rang at 10:30, she knew it would be 
him. Glancing at the display, she beamed.

"Hi, Mulder."

"Hey, Scully. I just got on the road. I'm gonna take it 
slow, check out the back roads, stop for a long lunch."

"How's your mom?"

"Ready for me to get the hell out of here."

Mulder didn't like to talk about his parents. Wisely, 
Scully glossed over the remark, but she felt a squeeze of 
unfocused anger in the muscles of her arms. "Will you be 
back in time for dinner?"

"No promises for dinner, but I'll see you after?"

She smiled softly. He didn't have to ask. "Of course," she 
agreed. 

Scully spent the remainder of the workday trying to 
convince herself that the nervous flutter in the pit of her 
stomach was completely unrelated to Mulder's return. She 
compensated by changing clothes and scrubbing the bathroom.

After dinner Chloe stretched out on her stomach on the 
carpet, ostensibly doing homework but mostly whining that 
she wanted a dog and trying to watch the NBC lineup when 
she thought Dana wasn't paying attention. Lifting the 
remote, Dana tapped in the number of the Discovery Channel 
and watched Chloe make a tiny face before subtly turning 
back to her math homework. 

A few minutes passed in silence, 
save the rubbing of Chloe's eraser on her homework paper 
and the sound of pages turning as Dana read a medical 
mystery. 

"Is Mulder coming over tonight? He was coming back today, 
right?"

Scully stretched her legs out and pulled a light blanket 
from the back of the sofa to toss over them. She glanced at 
the clock. "He called me at work this morning to tell me he 
was getting on the road, so he should be back in the city 
soon. He said he'd stop by for a few minutes on his way 
home, so if you want to see him, you'd better get started 
on that homework."

Chloe groaned. "I will as soon as this finishes," she 
promised, having apparently decided that details of the war 
rituals of headhunting tribes in Papua New Guinea were more 
entertaining than word problems. 

"All right." Dana turned back to her book, which was just 
getting good and gruesome.

A few minutes later a commercial blared onto the TV screen 
and Scully picked up the remote control as Chloe turned to 
face her.

"When is Mulder going to move in?"

Dana froze, her finger hovering over the volume button. She 
turned shocked eyes on her daughter. "Ex - excuse me? When 
is Mulder going to *move in*? What on earth - why would you 
think he'd move in with us, Chloe?"

Chloe's expression remained complacent. "So he wouldn't 
have to go home at night. I mean, he comes over nearly 
every day, and we watch TV and go out and stuff - so why 
doesn't he just stay?"

Despite the simple lines she was drawing, Dana knew Chloe 
was mature enough to have some idea of the complexities of 
a committed romantic relationship: she was willfully 
glossing over the obvious problems such an arrangement 
between Scully and Mulder would produce.

Muting the television, Scully leaned forward, her smile 
rueful. "Clo, you're missing the obvious, hon." Her tone 
was gentle. "Mulder and I aren't a romantic item. We're not 
involved that way."

Chloe crossed her feet on the ottoman and regarded her 
shoelaces. "Don't you love him?" Her voice had grown 
smaller.

Dana hesitated, aware that her phrasing was critical. 
"Yes," she said slowly. "But in the same way that I love 
Uncle Johnny - as a friend. As a platonic friend."

Chloe drew a long, sulky breath and burst out, "But you 
kissed him at Grandma's house and again on New Year's in 
front of *all* my friends and he tells you you're beautiful 
and you look at him when he's not looking!"

Breathing deeply, Scully pinched the bridge of her nose. 
"Chloe, Mulder and I are close friends. I'm glad he's part 
of our life. But the status of our relationship isn't going 
to change. I'm very sorry if I've said or done things that 
gave you that idea. Okay?"

Silence filled the living room for a full minute. "Okay." 
Chloe's voice trembled slightly. "I have to go finish my 
homework."

Dana's stomach felt heavy and an uneasy prickle ascended 
her spine. First John, now Chloe. Perhaps she could've 
disregarded her daughter's question as the naievete of a 
child who was looking for a father figure, but coupled with 
John's insinuations, the combination was disturbing. 
In her mind she'd never wavered from the thought that she 
and Mulder were friends. They had coffee, watched movies, 
went to dinner - things all friends did.

Right. How many of her friends did she kiss on her mother's 
sofa? How many made her tingle and blush when they looked 
at her a certain way? How many's asses did she check out in 
jeans?

She flushed hotly as she remembered her fevered dream from 
earlier in the week. How many of her friends had starring 
roles in the fantasies that played behind her eyelids while 
she touched herself?

Scully bowed her head, confused. Had she been indulging 
herself where Mulder was concerned, grouping all her 
actions under the inadequate banner of friendship? She'd 
told him she was unwilling, unable, to give more, but she 
looked at Mulder and her nice, clear, black and white lines 
fuzzed into a shimmering sea of gray.

Another thought struck her. If she was this confused, how 
must Mulder feel? Was she leading him on? She'd let him 
kiss her. She'd kissed him back. She'd seen the way he 
looked at her, and she'd never even thought of telling him 
to stop. Despite what she'd said about being a man of the 
twenty-first century, did he think this was a logical 
progression of steps that would lead to a romantic, sexual 
relationship?

Oh, God. Did he want that? More importantly, did he expect 
that? She shivered, feeling cold and hot and scared and 
intrigued.

His knock broke in upon her crisis, and she opened the door 
in full retreat mode.

"Come in," she said simply, and stepped aside.

"Hey, Scully." His eyes swept her and he looked puzzled. 
"Am I early?"

She glanced down at her outfit and froze. Oh, shit. She was 
still wearing the skimpy gray athletic shorts and white 
tank top that she'd put on to clean in, and she didn't have 
on a bra. Feeling herself flush, Dana cursed her pale skin 
and tried to appear nonchalant.

"No, not at all. I was cleaning and didn't want to get my 
clothes dirty." 

Mulder had taken off his coat and deposited his keys on the 
kitchen counter; Scully's gaze fell upon the thin, gaily 
wrapped parcel he'd placed next to them. "What's that?" she 
asked, and her voice had a hard edge she didn't like.

"It's a calendar. I know Chloe really likes Cezanne, and I 
saw this, so I picked it up for her."

Scully spoke sharply. "I don't want you to give her gifts."

His smile and the hand he laid on her bare shoulder were 
placating. "It's just a calendar, Scully."

"It doesn't matter." She moved away to straighten the items 
on the end table. "I don't want her to come to rely on you, 
Mulder. Having you here so much, going places with you - it 
confuses her. Chloe is a bright, perceptive child, but 
she's only eleven - she *is* still a child."

He trailed her across the room, careful not to get too 
close. He'd picked up on her mood and it put him on edge. 
"All right, I won't give her the present. It's a stupid 
calendar. What's going on here, Scully?" 

The instant the words left his mouth, he wanted to retract 
them. He had the sense that the two of them were standing 
at a precipice, teetering.

She crossed her arms over her chest, rubbing at the chill 
bumps on her upper arms, and turned to face him. Taking a 
breath to summon her courage, she said, "I'm not - I don't 
think you should come here any more."

He didn't speak at first, then simply asked why, his voice 
neutral.

"I told you - it confuses Chloe." Her eyes searched his for 
understanding. Odd, since she didn't understand herself. "She 
sees things and makes the assumptions that any little girl 
would make, Mulder. She's had too much heartache and 
instability in her life for me to add to it. I have to 
protect her."

He stepped into her personal space and curved his hands 
around her upper arms. Her eyes flared in surprise but she 
didn't back away. "Are you worried about your daughter, 
Scully, or yourself?" he demanded quietly. "Because I think 
you're concerned that I'll destabilize *your* orderly 
little world."

"And why would I think that?" she volleyed hoarsely. Could 
he tell that her pulse was pounding just beneath her skin? 
Was her face as red as it felt?

"Because I think I make you feel things that you're afraid 
of feeling." His thumbs caressed her skin and she was 
conscious of twin sensations of heat and cold racing 
through her nervous system.

"What things?" she challenged.

He was close enough that she could feel his breath fanning 
across her face. "Want." A muscle in his jaw twitched. 
"Desire. Need."

She swallowed harshly, her pupils dilating with panic. "I 
think that's pretty goddamn arrogant," she volleyed.

"Scully." Her name was almost a moan. He released her arms 
to wrap one arm around her waist, anchoring her to him. 
"Scully, look at you." His eyes inventoried her feverishly. 
His free hand went to her hip, his fingers fanning over her 
abdomen. "You're stunning."

"Mulder," she protested, her voice wavering oh-so-slightly.
One finger traced the curve of her gently rounded stomach, 
lingering over the way the t-shirt fabric hugged her skin. 
Mulder watched the movement of his hand, then met her gaze 
with his soul in his eyes.  

"I'm a man, Scully."

She blinked twice, her alarm defusing. "Yes, I'm aware of 
that," she said, the barest hint of a smile touching her 
lips.

"Are you?" He stepped back to survey her from head to foot. 
"I promised I'd be your friend, Scully, and I always will 
be, but I can't help the things you make me feel, the way 
my body reacts to yours, especially when I see you like 
this -" His eyes pleaded with her as his fingertips skimmed 
the delicate hills and valleys of her shoulder. "I mean, I'm
not some sex-crazed caveman, but I'm not a eunuch, either."

"I'll go change clothes," she whispered, but moved closer, 
drawn by the rich, intoxicating scent of his cologne, until 
her breasts brushed his chest. "Unless you don't want me 
to."

His chin rested on the top of her head. "Are you listening 
to what I'm saying?"

"I'm listening, Mulder. You said I'm a good listener, 
remember?" Her hands stroked his back. "I turn you on. I 
arouse you." She tipped her head back, and he barely 
recognized the smoky, seductive blue of her eyes. "Do you 
want me to change my clothes?"

What did *she* want? She felt herself move, heard the words
Flowing from her lips as if she were merely a bystander.

"Don't." He pressed a tentative kiss to her temple. "Don't 
move."

She swayed into his embrace and pressed herself against 
Mulder's solid bulk as he caressed her from shoulder to 
hip. "Since the first time I saw you," he continued, 
"you're - you've been -" He stopped, shook his head. "I 
just want to hold you, wrap myself in you. And, yes, 
Scully, I want to make love to you. I've never denied that. 
But you're my best friend..."

He trailed off, thoughtful, anxious. But while Mulder 
wanted to pause and reflect, she needed to act. After only 
a moment Dana surged to her tiptoes, urgently demanding, 
"Kiss me."

The first touch of his mouth to hers was tentative, but she 
pushed back demandingly, pressing her tongue against his 
closed lips. Her message received, his hold on her 
tightened. Open mouths, teeth clashing awkwardly, tongues 
sliding - they kissed wetly, hotly, as if a switch had been 
flipped and current had begun to flow through both of them. 

Seduced and seductress, she felt strong, sexy, and 
surprisingly unafraid. Suddenly she was in sync with
her body for the first time in much too long. Scully 
staggered backward toward the sofa, turning to push Mulder 
down first and dropping onto his lap. 

"Scully," he gasped. 

"No," she dictated, responding to his doubts, his 
questions. Her weight settled over his thighs and he gasped 
again, his quick inhalation conveying his pleasure as she 
trapped his cock between them. He rocked against her and 
she whimpered, clutching at his shoulder. The soft fabric 
of his t-shirt slipped against his skin as she grabbed a 
handful, her eyes wide as she looked into his. She 
whimpered again, a small, helpless sound, and circled her 
hips. No one had ever turned her on this fast, left her 
feeling fuzzy and drugged with only a few kisses and light 
touches.

"You're so beautiful," he gritted out, sounding drugged 
himself and awe-struck, gathering a handful of her hair at 
the nape of her neck. His other hand rose from her hip, the 
sliding caress causing her stomach muscles to quiver, 
leaving flame in his wake. Two fingers grazed the fabric 
over her nipple and they both watched the small bud harden, 
Scully as aroused by the thought of the caress as by the 
barely-there reality. Encouraged, Mulder molded his whole 
hand to her flesh, the weight resting in his palm.

"Yeah," she hissed, arching her neck. "Mulder, hmmm." Her 
fingers opened and closed on his knee, denim rough against 
her skin.

He pulled her head down for another kiss, sucking her lower 
lip into his mouth. His hips surged up against her, the 
head of his cock stabbing at her clit, and she released an 
animalistic grunt as her internal muscles clenched under 
the sudden assault of feeling. Mulder repeated the motion 
and she thrust back, pushing her breast against his hand. 
His thumb flicked roughly against the nipple and she tossed 
her head back. The pounding in her clit was growing almost 
painful, pressure swelling as her thigh muscles tightened. 

They were moving constantly, their pace increasing, his 
heat searing her through the thin fabric of her shorts and 
panties. She felt sweat trickling between her breasts as 
she tore her mouth away from his and cried out in 
desperation. Her fingers dug into Mulder's shoulder. God, 
just a little more - she was getting close -

Mulder's palm clamped over her mouth. "Dana, shh," he 
cautioned gruffly. "Chloe will hear."

Scully froze, her eyes growing impossibly wide. Her 11-
year-old daughter was less than twenty feet away, doing her 
homework. "Oh my God," Scully whispered, leaping out of 
Mulder's lap as if she'd been burned. She walked a few 
paces away and stood with her back to him, lifting one hand 
to her brow. "Oh my God."

Behind her she heard Mulder shifting. Wisely he remained 
silent.

Dana's shoulders slumped. As the adrenaline was absorbed 
into her system and her respiration and heart rate slowed, 
she felt icy reality creeping into her limbs, weighing her 
down. She pivoted slowly, her face a picture of dismay. On 
the sofa Mulder looked rumpled and uncomfortable, and in 
the midst of her horror Scully felt a pang of sympathy for 
him.

"Jesus, Mulder." Panicked eyes searched his. "What the hell 
just happened? What did we do?"

"Nothing." Rising, he came toward her and gently grasped 
her shoulders, his thumbs stroking over the delicate bones. 
His tone and the set of his features were again placating, 
almost pleading. "Nothing, Dana."

She gestured vehemently toward the sofa. "That was *not* 
nothing, Mulder!"

His grip tightened. "No, it wasn't. I'm sorry, Scully." The 
look in his eyes turned tortured. "This never should have 
happened, not like this. I never meant - I'm so sorry -"

Surprising herself, she lifted her hand to cover his mouth, 
stopping his apologies. The movement of his warm lips 
against her palm was like a kiss, and she shivered. "Don't 
be sorry. I initiated this. I just -" She shook her head, 
her hand dropping to pick at the fabric of her shorts. She 
sat down heavily on the couch, elbows on her knees, and 
cradled her head in her hands. "I'm sorry, Mulder. I don't 
know what the hell is wrong with me. I can't explain..."

The touch at the crown of her head was tentative. When she 
didn't pull away, he lightly sifted through her hair. "I'm 
going to go," he said, his voice subdued. "I think we both 
need some time to think."

Dana looked up and nodded, her eyes bottomless and 
impossibly blue. "That's probably best," she murmured. Her 
attention shifted to his hand, its long fingers and hair-
spattered knuckles such an appealing, heart-breaking 
combination of skill and vulnerability that she wanted to 
reach out to him, to press a kiss to his curved thumb. She 
dropped her hands into her lap, fingers linking tightly 
together, needing the time to gather her strength and her 
defenses, figure out the next step. "Will I talk to you 
soon?"

Picking up the wrapped package he had brought for Chloe, he 
shoved it into his jacket pocket, acceding to her earlier 
wishes. "If you think you want to," he replied uncertainly.

His trepidation tore at her heart and she swallowed with 
difficulty, feeling her eyes mist over. He was so sweet and 
so insecure. "I will," she promised, and blinked away 
tears. "I told you once that you'd passed the first test of 
friendship, but there would be others, didn't I?"

He nodded, tilting his head in curiosity.

"Well, this is just a test, Mulder."

Blue met yellow-brown and the tiniest of smiles traced his 
lips.

**

End 5/10