- - - 7 - - -
We were just finishing our lunch on the following Thursday when he asked, "Scully, what are you doing this weekend?"
I looked up at him without raising my head. "Why?"
"Because we should have dinner one night," he said mildly.
I lifted my head and arched an eyebrow sharply. "What, no second date?" I asked before I could stop myself.
Mulder ignored me. "Let's go on Saturday this time, so you'll be rested. There's a great little Indian place I've been to. You like Indian food, don't you, Scully?"
I picked up my napkin, patted my lips with it, and studied it carefully as I folded it up and put it on my plate. "Sure. I'd -- I'd like that, Mulder." I glanced up guardedly and saw that he was watching me carefully.
"Good." He put his own napkin on his plate and pushed his chair back from the table a little. "You can decide what time you want to pick me up, and tell me tomorrow. Okay?"
"Fine," I nodded, and made a show of gathering up my sweater and my purse and my cane, so I could avoid meeting his eyes. He rose and came around the table and offered me his hand to help me up.
We walked in silence toward the elevator that would take him back down to the basement. When the doors opened, he said, "See you tomorrow, Scully," and stepped inside.
"See you tomorrow," I echoed, turning away.
"Scully?"
I looked over my shoulder. He was holding the door open with his good hand. "It'll be okay," he said quietly, and let the door go. It swept closed; the little light winked on above it.
I blinked rapidly a few times, and turned back down the hall toward my office.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
By Saturday evening I had actually worked up a little enthusiasm for this Indian restaurant Mulder wanted to take me to. "What made you pick this particular place, Mulder?" I asked as he put his coat on.
"The food's great. And, I don't know - it's... cozy. Intimate, Scully. It's... dark."
"Why, Mulder, I thought you were about to say 'romantic'," I teased, and he chuckled.
"Actually, I was thinking it's dark enough so that everyone in the place won't notice if I order something complicated and you have to feed me."
I smiled back at him. "They won't notice, Mulder. They'll just think it's cute. They'll think we're in love." I had said it offhandedly, but the expression that immediately passed across his face made me pause. I looked away quickly and drew my keys out of my coat pocket. "Let's go."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
We found a parking place about halfway down the block from the restaurant.
Mulder got out of the car, and closed the door, and came around to my side, offering me his hand. I reached back and pulled out my cane and held it out to him, but he didn't take it.
"Scully," he said, "why don't you leave that here, if it makes you feel so self-conscious? You can hold onto my arm -- it's only half a block. No one will think twice about that when they see it."
"It doesn't make me -- " I started to say, and just as quickly stopped. It did, of course; I was always sure people were watching me with it, but try as I might I couldn't remember having told Mulder that. I looked up at him and put the hated thing back into the car.
He took my hand and pulled me to my feet. "Thanks," I said, but he only smiled and steadied me on his arm as he reached over to close the car door. I put my arm through his and we walked together up the block toward the restaurant.
"You see?" he said, pausing in front of the plate-glass window of a store along the street. "We just look like a pair of lovers, out for a stroll."
The dark glass reflected our image back to me -- a nice-looking, well-dressed couple, companionably arm-in-arm. We looked good together, it struck me, and I almost said so, but he spoke first.
"I like the way you look on my arm, Dana," he said softly, squeezing my hand. "I like the way you feel there, too." He met my reflection's eyes rather than my own, holding the gaze for a moment and then looking away. "Come on. I don't know about you, but I'm hungry."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Scully," he finally said, over the coffee, "if you want to know about my date last weekend, why don't you just ask me?"
I almost dropped my spoon right back into the bowl of ice cream in surprise. "Who said I want to know?"
He dropped his gaze, but he was smiling. "Come on. It's all you've thought about for days. I'm amazed you held out for a whole week."
I studied him, trying to decide whether it was the profiling thing again, or whether I was just so damned transparent. He looked up and met my eyes.
"You're dying to know. You're just too stubborn to ask."
I took another sip of coffee to stall, aware of the way he was watching me. Glancing up, I saw that his eyes were serious. There was no hint of mockery.
"Well..." I allowed, "I did wonder, of course..."
One corner of his mouth turned up. "I can imagine you did."
"But I..."
He reached out and laid his hand over mine, and I fell silent. His fingers traced lazy circles on the back of my hand. His eyes focused there rather than on my face.
"It was fine," he said slowly. "It's been so long since I went on a date that I thought I'd forgotten how. But... We had dinner. We saw a movie. We talked." He shrugged and looked up at me. "She was nice. It was pleasant, I guess."
"You guess?"
He sighed and looked down at our hands again. "It just seemed like so much work. Most of the funny stories I thought of had something to do with our old cases, and by the time I explained them they weren't funny anymore. I mean, all I have to do is say 'flukeman' to you, and you crack up. Even if I could explain that, nobody else would think it was funny."
I smiled. "It wasn't funny to us at the time, either."
"No, but now -- You know what I mean, don't you?" He looked up just long enough to see that I did, and dropped his eyes again. He seemed to hesitate. I waited.
"Scully, I felt... I know it's ridiculous. I felt like I was -- cheating on you."
I swallowed hard. I wrapped my fingers around his and squeezed his hand, but he didn't look up. "Mulder..." I said softly.
We sat silently like that, our hands clasped across the table, for a few minutes. At length he stirred and met my eyes.
"Do you want to go?" he asked me.
I realized I had lost my appetite for the little bit of ice cream still left in the bowl. "Yeah. Let's go home," I answered.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
We got out of the elevator and walked slowly, in silence, down the hall. Even though his arm was draped too-casually across my shoulders, I involuntarily shivered as we passed through the place where -- From the corner of my eye I saw him glance quizzically at me; his hand gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
At the door, he took back his hand; he drew his keys from his pocket. He was still a little slow, opening the lock with his left hand, but I stood back and let him do it for himself. When the door swung open he stood aside to let me in.
I crossed the threshold, and he followed me; I put out my hand toward the light switch. I felt his hand on my arm. "Wait." The door swung shut behind us.
He turned me toward him in the near-dark. I couldn't really see his eyes in the half-light from the little lamp on the desk in the living room. And before I could even think to ask what he wanted, his arm was around me again, drawing me close to him, and when I looked up at him he bent his head down and simply kissed me.
It seemed that my lips parted before I could even will them to, seeking him of their own accord. I found myself reaching up, around his neck, twining my fingers through his hair, holding his mouth against mine as the kiss deepened. His good arm tightened around me, pulling my body even closer to his. When I felt him growing hard against me, the thrill that shuddered through me was a heady mixture of exultation and sheer terror.
He pressed his hips against me, and the panic triumphed. I drew back, somehow pulled my mouth away from his. "I can't," I gasped. "Mulder, I can't -- "
He froze for only the briefest instant. Then he eased his hold on me, and softly drew my head down against his chest. I closed my eyes in relief as he gently stroked my hair.
"It's okay, Dana," he murmured. "It's okay." He took a deep, sharp breath, exhaling on a sigh. His hand trembled faintly against the back of my neck. I could sense something of what it cost him to hold back, but hold back he did.
"I'm sorry," I whispered against his chest. I could feel his heart still racing under my cheek. "Mulder, I'm sorry..."
He shook his head; his lips grazed my hair. "It doesn't matter," he said soothingly. "It's up to you, Dana. It's always up to you. I'd never ask you to..."
His voice trailed off. He sighed again. The rhythm of his heart was slow and steady once more beneath me. "Come here," he said, turning. He led me to the sofa and we sat down. He arranged me in his arms, against his side, still carefully avoiding his lap.
How many years had it been since anyone had held me? Since I had let anyone hold me? I was surprised at how much I wanted to let him. I craved it. I didn't know how to ask him, so I just tucked myself closer to him and laid my head on his chest again, right over his heart. I heard his breath catch in his throat when I slipped one tentative hand around his waist.
He sighed, and his arms tightened around me. I felt him bow his head until his chin rested lightly on my hair. I felt one of his hands slowly, gently, stroking my shoulder, over and over.
There were a hundred things I wanted to say to him, but I had no words, no voice. And then I realized that everything we had to say to each other was already being said; it was all there in his caress, in my arm wound around his waist, in the slow, steady beat of his heart under my ear. I wanted to listen to it forever.
We were quiet together like that for a long time.
"Scully," he murmured at length.
I shifted a little against him and opened my eyes. "Mulder."
"Scully, I -- Don't move." His hand left my shoulder and he leaned over to the side. "I just have to reach the phone. I told the guys I'd call them by eleven, and it's five to."
I settled back under his arm and let my eyes slip shut again as he dialed the number.
"Langly? ... Hey. It's Mulder." He paused, listening. "Yeah. Which one of the Three Stooges gets to babysit tonight?" He chuckled, and the way I could feel his voice through my body made me feel warm and safe. It reminded me of when I'd been a very little girl, curled up on my father's lap.
"Okay. ... Yeah, that's fine. Thanks." He must have had the phone tucked against his shoulder; his fingers were slowly separating a strand of my hair, twirling it, laying it smooth again. "Oh? Then I'll see you tomorrow, Langly. ... You too. 'Night." His hand left my head. He leaned over and set the receiver back in the cradle, and wrapped his arm around me once more.
I was almost reluctant to break the silence. "So who is it tonight?"
"Byers," he said softly, his lips near my hair. I began to lift my head, and he said, "You don't have to go right away, Scully. It'll take him half an hour." There was a plaintive note in his voice that made something inside me ache.
As comfortable as it was there in his arms, I couldn't quell the growing feeling of unease that was nibbling away at my stomach. I didn't want to be found wrapped around him like this when Byers walked in. I was tired, too, and I wasn't about to risk another scene like the one two weeks ago, so finally I took a deep breath and sat up a little. Mulder's arm tightened briefly, as if to hold me there, and then let me go.
"It's late for me, too, Mulder," I said, extricating myself as gently as I could from his embrace. I stood up, stretching. "I'm sure you want to get ready for bed."
"I've got to wait for Byers for that anyway." He leaned toward me, catching my eyes, and suddenly my feet seemed bound to the floor. I held his gaze, helpless to do otherwise. "He has to peel me out of these bandages before I can do anything else."
I heard myself speaking. "I can help you with that." What in the world was I saying? "Before... before I go."
An expression of vague alarm crossed his face. "No, I -- That's okay, Scully. You don't have to..."
I had to, now. I did. "Of course I will."
His eyes still held mine. He opened his mouth a little, but said nothing; he closed it again. The silence that enveloped us went on, became awkward, went past that point to something else. The air fairly crackled around us. I listened to the trickling of the water recirculating in the fish tank. I listened to my own deafening heartbeat. I watched Mulder's hand rise, ever so slowly, and begin to pull at the knot of his tie; when the knot was undone I took the tie from his hand and laid it aside.
He opened the top button of his shirt. He opened the second. He fumbled with the third, and I wordlessly reached out and unbuttoned it. His hands fell away as I went on; he never looked away from my face as, one by one, I opened each button. I looked down at my hands in fascination, as if they belonged to someone else -- as if it were another woman undressing him. He shifted his weight a little to let me pull the shirttail out of his pants. He let out a long trembling breath when I pushed the shirt back over his shoulders. I waited while he pulled his hands out of the sleeves.
I dropped my eyes to the bandage under his shirt. It was a one-sleeved, vest-like affair, fitting as tight as a wetsuit, fastened with an array of nylon zippers and Velcro panels. I leaned over Mulder and reached for what seemed to be the first tab of Velcro, and he turned his head to let his face brush my arm. My hands had begun to shake. It took me two tries to get hold of the tab and to pull it back.
Velcro attaching the sleeve to the body of the vest. A single zipper down the length of the sleeve. Another down the center of the back. Velcro panels at the bottom, near his waist. My ears were ringing. My breath was shallow and uneven. He dropped his head, and the edges of the zipper pulled apart just enough to let me see the patch of pale, unevenly mottled skin at the nape of his neck. I traced it with my fingertips. An image came to me, vivid, unbidden -- my own head bowed, my lips pressed to the scar...
It would be acceptance. Absolution. It would seal what had begun, not even on that plane, but long ago, in the hallway outside. And I knew beyond any doubt that if I let my lips so much as graze his skin, I would not be able to stop at that.
I sucked in my breath and pulled away. His hand closed on my wrist; his eyes burned, searching mine. The aquarium light cast flickering, uneven shadows across his face.
I struggled to speak. My voice came out a whisper. "Can you... Can you get the rest of it...?"
He swallowed hard, and the spark in his eyes flared and died. He nodded. When I straightened up his fingers fell loosely from my wrist. I turned away and took an unsteady step toward the door.
"Dana?"
I looked over and saw my coat and my cane and my purse on the floor near the door; they must have fallen there when we --
"Good night, Mulder," I faltered. I tried to move slowly. I didn't want him to think I was hurrying. "I'll... I'll see you on Monday." I picked up my purse; I snatched up the awful cane. I threw my coat over my arm. I knew it would take too long to find the sleeves and put it on.
"Dana, I'm sorry..."
I stopped, staring fixedly at my hand on the doorknob. If I looked back I wouldn't be able to leave. "It's not you, Mulder. It's me."
I was out in the hallway before he could answer.
I turned to my right, toward the elevator, and stopped short, staring at the place we had stood that day. It seemed so long ago, but it never left me now. I unconsciously lifted my hand to brush at the back of my neck, and shivered. I turned around, heading away from the haunted place, limping as quickly as I could manage toward the stairs.
- - - 8 - - -
One day late in the winter I took the old familiar elevator down to the basement of the Hoover Building. When the doors opened I turned away from the empty office that had been the home of the X-Files, away from the Behavioral Sciences Unit where Mulder worked now. I made my way down another corridor to a huge room full of old files, boxed in an orderly fashion and stored on workmanlike metal shelving, or archived in antediluvian cabinets.
Here was forty years' worth of information that had resisted or somehow simply escaped being committed to microfilm or to a hard drive -- items of evidence, preserved tissue samples, bone fragments; antiquarian files that had never been deemed important enough to be brought into the latter part of the century. Occasionally, as today, some side road of research drove me down here to delve into the trove of information that waited here.
The murmur of voices and the occasional sound of file drawers being opened and closed told me I was not alone here today. I made my way down the rows of shelves, reading the neat labels, and eventually came to the right section. I leaned my cane against the shelves and pulled the box toward me. I lifted the cardboard lid and reached in for the paperwork and the jar with the tissue sample. Then, from the next aisle, I heard someone say my name.
Instead of turning toward the sound and answering like any normal person would, I held my breath, flattening myself along the row of cabinets behind me, and my hand went to my hip for a nonexistant gun. Eight years of being stalked and shot at takes its toll.
The voices across the aisle were coming closer. "Scully? Yeah. I've been working with her about five months." I recognized the voice -- it was Ron Abrams, one of the senior pathologists in my department. "Why do you ask?"
"Well..." the reply seemed tentative. "I'd heard she can be a real bitch."
I tried to place the second voice. A metal file drawer opened on the other side of the shelves. Papers rustled. "She's not so bad, really," Abrams answered. "Sloppy work sets her off, sure, but if you dot your 'i's and cross your 't's you'll be okay."
"Uh-huh. I mean, I don't really know; that's just what I heard. I only met her that once." It had to be the new assistant who'd just come up from Quantico -- Collery? Yes. That was his name. Collery.
The file drawer closed; another opened. "Well, she's been through a lot. She was in that God-awful plane crash last spring, did you know that?"
"Sure, sure," Collery said. "That's why she has the cane." I winced.
"And before that," Abrams continued, "she spent eight years on those X-Files with Spooky Mulder." He chuckled a little. "That might've done more damage than the plane crash."
" 'Spooky' -- you mean Fox Mulder, in the BSU? I've met him a couple of times. He seems like a regular guy."
"Oh, he is, now. He's changed a lot since he got off that assignment. Used to be, you couldn't get near him. Nobody knows how Scully did it all those years. That alone tells me she's one tough broad -- and maybe that's why some guys would think she's a bitch."
The file drawer clunked shut; I heard the sound of papers being gathered up. "Anyway," Abrams asked, "what was your take on the abrasions on the victim's legs in this case?"
Collery began to answer, but the two men were walking away now, and besides, I wasn't interested. I let out a sigh and stepped away from the cabinets I'd still been leaning against.
They thought I was a bitch. I wondered who 'they' were -- who Collery had been talking to. Other people in Forensics? Had I snapped at some of the lab staff? When I needed things done, I always asked for them in no uncertain terms; I hadn't thought I was being rude. Was that why they were calling me a bitch? Just because I was strong?
I tried to read the papers in my hand, to see if I really needed to take the file back upstairs with me, but I found my hand was shaking. When a man is strong and overcomes the odds, I thought angrily, people admire him and call him a hero. When a woman acts just the same way they call her a bitch.
It was just that they didn't know me that well. That was all. Mulder knew me -- he wouldn't make that mistake, wouldn't take my strength for bitchiness. Mulder knew me, and...
I hung my head in shame, alone there in the labyrinth of files. Mulder had more reason than anyone to think I was a bitch. After all I'd told him, promised him, on that accursed plane, I had done my level best to wall myself up again, to keep him at arm's length. And while I tried to shut him out, he waited, and waited. And what had he gotten for his patience? One kiss. Just one kiss...
Damn. I couldn't finish this down here. I was going to have to take the whole file upstairs. Maybe I'd make that Collery run it back down here when I was done. And he'd better put it back in the right place, too, or he'd hear about it -- I'd make sure of that.
So what if they thought I was a bitch? I set my jaw stubbornly. I'd seen people shattered by the piddling little things they called crises, and I was stronger than that. I was stronger than all of them, and I could be proud of that.
I was proud of that. I lifted up my head and squared my shoulders, and I took my cane and my files and I marched back up the aisle toward the elevator.
- - - 9 - - -
"But, Scully, I still want to go."
It wasn't the first time we had discussed this. It wasn't the second time, or even the third. I must have told him a dozen times that I wasn't going next week to the one-year-anniversary service for the survivors and the victims' families. To get on some stupid barge, and be towed out on the bay so that we could stare morbidly out at the ocean where that damned plane had fallen? I didn't think so. I was sure the handful of survivors would be gawked at like a bunch of carnival freaks. I was not about to get involved with this mess, and I had said so until I was blue in the face, but he just wouldn't leave it alone.
I lifted one shoulder in what I hoped was a noncommittal gesture. "No one's stopping you, Mulder. If you want to go, then go." I pulled the lab report across the desk toward me and flipped the manila folder open.
He leaned further over my desk. "You should go with me. It would be..."
I trained my eyes on the tox-screen printout. I knew he was searching for the right words. I didn't want to encourage him.
"...Closure, Scully. I know the word is overused, but -- "
"Mulder, I've told you. I don't know why you keep asking." I looked up at his face. "It's easy for you -- if you wear a long-sleeved shirt, no one will see the scars. You can blend into the crowd. When I come dragging myself in on this cane, people notice. Somebody's going to ask me if I'm a survivor. And then everybody's going to want to talk to me, or just look at me. And there'll be a lot of media coverage of the damned thing, and some reporter is bound to find me. I just don't want to deal with it, okay?"
He let out a long breath and pursed his lips; he dropped his gaze and straightened up again. "I still think you need to go."
I pushed my glasses up on my nose and turned to the next page in the analysis. I picked up my pencil. Mulder made a slow circuit of my office and came back to stand in front of my desk again. I didn't look up from my work.
"I'm sorry, Scully," he finally said. "I didn't mean to try to force you, if it would be too hard for you. I just -- "
"Oh! It's not that," my pride blurted out. I regretted it the moment it was said, but by then it was too late. I determinedly steadied my hand and kept taking my notes.
"Well... since you've said that... " He put his hands down on the desk and leaned over me again. "I wish... It'll be hard for me, Scully. I wish you'd come for my sake, if you can."
I felt every muscle in my body tighten. That sneaky bastard! If he was trying to bait me, I'd -- I looked up sharply and the mute plea in his eyes rendered me speechless. He wasn't lying this time. He really thought he needed me there.
...Hadn't I just been berating myself for being such a bitch to him? I ought to go -- not for myself, no; for him. I could do this. After all, I was the strong one. I could hold up my head and get through this like I'd gotten through the rest of this mess...
I had been looking steadily at him as these thoughts ran through my mind, and I suppose he took my long pause as evidence of my refusal. He slowly lowered his gaze; his shoulders sagged. The defeat written in the gesture broke what was left of my heart. I dropped my pencil, impulsively reached out, and covered his hand with mine.
"I'll take you, Mulder. I'm sorry. I didn't know you needed..."
He looked up quickly. He didn't smile; I couldn't read his expression. "Thanks, Dana. I..." His voice trailed off and he just nodded. "Thanks," he repeated.
I withdrew my hand. "You'll let me know what time we have to leave?"
"Yes. Yes, I will." He stood up, still watching me, and I picked up my pencil again and wondered what I had really gotten myself into.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I had to admit that the barge had been a good idea after all. The organizers of this service had done a good job, had gone to great lengths to protect us from the journalists and the TV crews clustered around the police barricades at the entrance. Mulder and I showed our identification, and the guard at the entrance checked it against the list on his clipboard and admitted us. Mulder drove slowly through the gate into the parking lot.
When we got out of the car he didn't even ask if I wanted the cane; he just offered me his arm, and I took it. We made our way through the crowd toward the ramp at the end of the dock. The gaggle of journalists and media people were left at the dock, training their long lenses on our backs as we were towed out into the bay. There was a stiff breeze here on the water, even though it was May; I was glad for my long coat. I was glad for Mulder next to me. I only wished the evening sun would stay out, instead of vanishing behind the gathering clouds. I was invisible behind my sunglasses. I didn't want to take them off.
We were a quiet group, for being so large; people spoke in low tones, leaning toward each other to be heard. I felt safe enough to slip off my dark glasses and tuck them into my coat pocket. I looked down at the carnation I'd been handed as I boarded the barge -- volunteers had given one to each person who got on. Mulder was holding his in the hand that was draped across my shoulders; from the corner of my eye I could see the motion of the white flower as he twirled the stem slowly between his fingers.
The gentle movement of the water beneath us brought me back to the times my father had taken us children down to the harbor to see the ships he was stationed on. Missy had always wanted to stand high on the bow, imagining the wind and the spray as the ship steamed majestically forward into some great adventure. I had gone toward the stern, forever fascinated by the ship's churning wake, by the way the water would tug things down into itself and take them away. Life had become like that for me -- too many things, so many people, dragged down and drowned and lost. I leaned a little harder against Mulder and his arm tightened around me.
I heard a childish giggle and looked up, startled from my reverie. A little sandy-haired boy was perched on his father's shoulders, chortling gleefully as he tugged at the man's hair. "Brian -- Brian -- ow!" the man laughed, trying to disengage the child's tenacious fingers. "Leave Daddy's hair alone."
My heart leaped to my throat. I was certain it was the little boy I'd seen on the doomed plane, the toddler just taking his first steps in the airport. He was a year older, but it had to be him. Before I knew what I was doing I had wriggled out from under Mulder's arm and approached them.
"Excuse me." The man turned toward me. "Is this -- I mean, I think I saw your little boy..."
"On the news? Yes -- they called him the 'miracle baby'," the father smiled, extending his hand. "I'm Paul McEvoy."
"Dana Scully. I saw -- I saw him on the plane, actually. We sat a few rows over from..."
"From my wife," Paul nodded. To my unspoken question he said, shaking his head, "No -- Sandie didn't make it."
"I'm sorry," I said simply.
"Thank you." On his shoulders, his son squealed with laughter and took another double fistful of his father's hair. "I'm just grateful to still have Brian -- ouch! Most of the time!"
I found myself smiling at Brian, and reached up a hand toward him. He let go of Paul's hair and slapped at my hand, playing pat-a-cake. "He's a beautiful boy," I said. "He must be a comfort to you."
"He is," Paul agreed. "Whenever think about Sandie and start to feel bitter about what was taken from me, I look at Brian and realize I'm more grateful for what I've been given." He swung the restless child down to the floor, where he immediately capered away.
"It was nice meeting you, Dana, but -- "
I nodded. "Take care, Paul." He went off after the boy. I felt Mulder's hand on my head; he stroked my hair once and wordlessly settled his arm around my shoulders again.
A minister was stepping onto the raised platform at the front of the barge and beginning to speak, but I was too lost in my own thoughts to hear him. I saw again the children I would never have, remembered the aunt and the grandfather they'd never have known.
How much longer could I keep up this facade? How much longer could I hold up my head and pretend it didn't matter, that I was a rock, unmoved by the storms and by the sea? I looked up at the banks of clouds above us. Even now it seemed impossible that I should have fallen all the way from that sky to stand here and gaze back up at it.
The crowd began to move. A line formed; one by one we came to the front of the barge and dropped our white flowers into the sea. I tossed mine quickly, not waiting to see it hit the water. I turned away without watching Mulder drop his. I began to walk away, but Mulder's hand held me back.
I glanced back and saw Paul at the front of the line. He crouched down next to Brian, handing him the carnation; he held the little boy's hand, and together they dropped the flower into the bay. I looked away, and pulled at Mulder's hand, and this time he followed me back into the crowd.
Beside me Mulder bowed his head; he raised his free hand to brush at his eyes with his fingertips. I heard him sniffle softly. A rush of sympathy overwhelmed me, and I put my arm around his waist and hugged him. His arm squeezed my shoulders in response, and -- and...
And something broke inside me. I wanted to turn to him, wanted to let him comfort me, but I didn't even know how anymore. I had held myself aloof for so many years, afraid that he would despise my weaknesses as much as I did. The price of this strength had become too great. I had nothing left to pay.
I tugged at Mulder's hand. He turned to me, and I looked up at his face, and quickly dropped my head again. He reached up, put his hand beneath my chin, turning my face up to his; I opened my mouth to speak, but I had no words. He put both arms around me, and I let him draw me close, and all at once I was crying, my face buried against his chest, my arms around him, my fingers clutching at him. I was crying for my family, for my children, for everything that this life had stolen from me. I was crying for what it had tried to give me, for what I had refused to accept -- for the love this good, brave, loyal man had tried for so long to give me, and that I had never believed I deserved.
I clung to him, sobbing helplessly, and he cradled me in his arms, saying softly, "It's all right, Dana. It's all over now. ... It's finally over."
- - - 10 - - -
Fox and I were married two years to the day after the accident. We didn't plan it that way -- we sat down with Father McCue and Rabbi Hruska to find a date that was convenient for all of us and that would still leave my mother enough time to make the elaborate plans I knew she wouldn't be able to resist. As the two compared their appointment books and narrowed down the list of weekends, Fox and I realized what was coming, and shared a furtive look. I could see the mirth in his gaze, and I put my hand over my mouth to hide my smile.
Rabbi Hruska pushed the calendar across the table. "How about May third?"
I couldn't help it. I giggled. Fox's mouth twisted into a crooked grin. "Do you know what that date is?"
"Why, I -- " He turned to look at Father McCue, who paled visibly. They both began to apologize at the same time, but Fox and I burst into hearty laughter.
"We'll do it," I said.
"Are you sure? I don't think -- " Rabbi Hruska sputtered awkwardly.
"It's perfect." Fox held up one hand to silence them. "It'll redeem the date. It changed our lives, but this way we'll have the last laugh. Won't we, Dana?"
"We will. We really, really will," I said, and leaned over to kiss his cheek.
My mother was so happy that she almost forgot she wouldn't be getting the big church wedding she'd always wanted for me. In the end, we gathered beneath a huge white tent in Rock Creek Park, overlooking the Potomac River, on a beautiful, balmy May afternoon, and I stood under the little canopy before Father McCue and Rabbi Hruska, watching Fox wrap the wine glass in his handkerchief. He put it on the ground, and I crushed it after him under the low heel of my sensible cream-colored shoe.
When he lifted the veil from my face and gazed down at me I wouldn't have changed so much as a day of the two years that had gone before. I reached up and wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him for such a long time that everyone began to laugh.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A scant month before our first anniversary, Fox and I took a deep breath and boarded a plane again for the first time. We were only taking the shuttle from DC to New York, but I knew it was a milestone, and I could tell from the way he clasped my hand in his that he knew it, too.
We touched down without incident, and right on time. Fox kept checking the paperwork again and again to make sure we were headed in the right direction.
"We've been to LaGuardia a hundred times, Fox," I reminded him. "We know where to meet Ms. Singworth."
"I know," he sighed. His hand sought out its familiar place at the small of my back. "I guess I'm just nervous, Dana. Aren't you?"
I smiled up at him. "I'm so nervous I'm numb. That's why I'm okay now."
Just then he froze, and I almost stumbled against him. "I think that's her -- over there. In the green suit."
Following his gaze, I saw a woman a little older than me talking animatedly with a young couple; she was writing busily on a clipboard. I saw other couples, sitting, standing; milling around, waiting.
"Come on." I took Fox's hand and we made our way toward her. The other couple walked away as we approached, and the woman in green looked up from her clipboard and turned toward us, smiling.
"Ms. Singworth? We're Fox and Dana Mulder," Fox said, extending his hand.
"Good to meet you. Please -- call me Lucille." She offered me her hand; she had a kindly, competent, no-nonsense air that appealed to me immediately.
It only took a few minutes to sign the last of the papers. Lucille tucked them away into her briefcase and gave us a reassuring smile. "It won't be long," she said. "They're checking the passports now. We have some rooms set up down the hall. I'll call you when it's time."
"Thank you," Fox said beside me, and I nodded. I was past speech by then. Fox led me to the row of chairs, and we sat down; we twined our fingers together and looked steadily, silently down the hall, waiting. Those last thirty minutes must have been the longest of all the year that had led up to them.
"Mr. and Mrs. Mulder?" Lucille came to the end of the hallway. "Please come this way." She showed us to a small office that might have been a conference room. "I'll just be a moment."
I clung tightly to Fox's arm, but he didn't seem to notice; he just kept gently patting my hand with his own. Lucille reappeared in the doorway, carrying a little pink-wrapped bundle. And I let go of Fox's arm, and I reached out to take the baby from her.
I lifted the corner of the pink blanket and found myself looking into a pair of luminous dark eyes. I was transfixed. I was breathless. Behind me, Fox put his arms around me, leaning his head over my shoulder. Our daughter turned her little head to gaze calmly from my face to Fox's and back.
Fox's chin dropped down to rest on my shoulder. He reached out to caress her head; a tiny hand emerged from the blanket and formed a determined fist around one scarred finger.
"All her paperwork says Hee Cho, of course," Lucille was saying, " but you said you had a name in mind for her...?"
I still couldn't take my eyes from her face. I nodded. "Samantha," I breathed.
"Samantha Melissa," Fox corrected me, his voice thick. I turned my head, finally, and kissed the tears from his cheek.
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End
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