Author: KMB
drpicard@aol.com
 

Date: 9 Sep 1998

Rating: R, Language

Classification: VA, M/other-past, MSR implied (just 'cause)

Spoilers: uh, Travelers, FTF-slight

Archive:  Anywhere, just let me know so I can come visit.

Disclaimer: The characters within (w/the exception of Kels) are the
intellectual & copyrighted property of Duchovny, Anderson, the rich Twinkly-
Eyed surfer dude, 1013, FOX and probably Rupert Murdoch, that I use without
permission.
Go ahead, sue me.  My evil old black cat enjoys nibbling lawyerly bums.
 

Summary: The Former Mrs Mulder in San Francisco
More notes: Like there is a great crying need for another take on the
Former Mrs Mulder, but hey....I kinda dig 'em ;) All locales mentioned
herein *do* exist.
 
 

~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~
 
 

Blue Danube Two-Step

by KMB
 
 

~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~

San Francisco 1998

Blue Danube Cafe, Clement St

~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~
 
 

I had forgotten how beautiful he was.  But it was the voice I recognized
first.

That honey coated gravely mumble that was his alone.  That voice that
had murmured and begged, promised and yelled,  whispered and cajoled so many
things.

I hadn't heard it in 7 years, but standing in line to get a triple
orgeat, nonfat latte, a continent away from where I had heard it last,
suddenly there it was. There HE was, behind me.

"...so if we can get the SF bureau to give us a hand with this thing,
with any luck we will be back in DC by Thursday night, maybe catch the Knicks
game."

"I don't know, a Knicks game?  I was thinking more in line of sleep..."
A woman's voice?

"Sleeping is highly overrated."  Good to know he hasn't changed that
much.

"You could have fooled me last night.  Drooling on my shoulder was so
very attractive."

Don't turn around.  I look totally different.  I grew my hair out and
let it go back to red.  He'll never know it is me if I just keep going.

But I need....I'm not sure.

I inhaled deeply,  let it out and turned around.

"I don't know, the Knicks are doing pretty badly this year, FW.  You
sure you wanna make that game?"  Humor, I remembered, had saved us, at least
for a while.

I'll give him this much, at least he had the good grace to look
startled. Actually it was more like poleaxed, but who's keeping score?

"Kelly?!?"

His voice still cracked.  His eyes were still readable.  I hoped for the
sake of the petite redhead next to him, they were readable to her.

He was shocked and worried and remembering.

Looking into those greeny hazel eyes, I was remembering too.
 
 

~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~

Arlington, VA

December 1989

~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~
 

"Kelllllyyyy!" he whined from the bedroom, "Where is my red tie? The one
with the little white dots?"

I was attempting to stuff a huge file into my briefcase, along with a
handful of floppy disc's (could they make them in any bigger?),  3 full,
verbatim speeches that the Senator just *had* to have yesterday and my pumps,
failing miserable at all it.  Plus we were both late.

Now he was asking about this specific tie?

"I'm a speech writer, FW, not your valet. "  I needed a bigger
briefcase.  Or a smaller life.

"I'm serious," he said padding into the living room sans shoes, the
little buttons on his white button-down flapping around his chin.  "I have an
important meeting today about those files I told you about, and I want
to wear that tie."

Married 2 years and suddenly I am his clothing guardian.  When did this
happen?

I sighed and sat down next to my bulging briefcase on the couch.  I
hated this couch: dark green, almost black leather. You stuck to it in the
summer and it was freezing in the winter.  It did look nice against the grey
carpeting.  The chrome and  glass tables gave it, and the matching chairs,
the look I thought projected: "young happy professional".  But man, it was
uncomfortable.

Another fucking metaphor for my life.  I sighed, exasperated.

"Ok, the last time I saw you wear it was that day I had to leave the
Senators $10,000 a plate party fundraising dinner, *before* the speech it
took me 3 weeks to write, to come to the hospital and get stonewalled by fibbie
thugs who wouldn't tell me why my husband was naked, screaming and
hallucinating in the ER.  Maybe those aliens you saw in Baltimore took it?"

His left lower eyelid twitched.  Just a tiny flutter.  His eyes turned
very green and I knew I had gone too far.

"Low blow, Kelly, even for a politician.  Even for you." He turned and
went back to the bedroom.  "All I asked was if you had seen my goddamned tie.
Its not even 7 am and you start with snide remarks, I..."

It was too early to have an argument.

"Fox!"  I whined to his retreating back.  " I meant it as a joke!
Funny, you remember?  Humor?"  It wasn't, but I could try.

I could now hear things crashing:  Doors in our bedroom being violently
opened, hangers being shoved, shoes being kicked aside.  If I spoke to
him face to face it might save some destruction.  Pushing myself off the
loathsome coach,  I entered the bedroom

"Listen, I'm sorry, it -*was* a low blow...I'm just-"

"What, Kelly?"  He interrupted, as he was flinging ties out of the
closet.  "Tired?  Stressed out? Overworked?  Which excuse is it gonna be this
time?"

He finally wrenched his blue and white stripped rep out from the pile on
the bed, snapped it around his neck and turned to me, eyes now deep green
and flashing.

"Y'know, I can handle it when the guys in the VCS start in on me with,
I'm used to that.  But you are my *wife*!  You are supposed to be on *my*
side, for christs'sake!  For the last 6 months all you seem to be able to do
is pick and bitch and fling nasty-ass comments at me!  And don't tell me its the
Job pressure. You have been with the senator since before you even met me!
What the hell is happening to you?  To us?"

I did not want to do this, not now.  Not when I am suddenly,
unreasonably, furious.

Contrary to popular belief, I don't like to argue.  I use words for a
living: my speeches got a senator elected when I was 26.  When I argue I use
those same skills to wound, to draw blood.  I don't mean to be so cruel, it
just happens.   He once accused me of being almost as good as his father at
arguing.  It was not a compliment - his father is a bitter, resentful,
drunken old prick.

"I'm not having this conversation now," I snapped, spinning around
starting back towards the living room.  I didn't remember how fast he was.
He reached out and spun me back towards him.

"No," his voice cracking.  "Don't you dare hide behind that wall!  Not
this time. I want an emotion, an answer, something that vaguely resembles the
truth."

"The truth?!?" I wanted to hurt him, I'll admit it.  Just like I thought
he had hurt me.

"The truth," I repeated.  " Fine.  I want the man I married 2 years ago
back. That's all."

"What the hell are you talking about?"  He really seemed not to know.
Poor sod.

"I don't know who you are!  THIS man in front of me is certainly not the
Fox William Mulder I fell in love with.  This," I gestured a little wildly
at him as I stalked back to the bedroom.  "This is not the same person at
all.  You take off for  days at time, not telling me where you are going.  When
you *are* home, you barely talk to me.  Your desk is covered in these
bizarre, stupid files.  And these new 'contacts' of yours, jesus, FW....
Listen, I understand you have a dangerous job, that makes you have to keep some
secrets from me.  But what is this new personal crusade of yours?!  It has
nothing to do with the VCS or the FBI.  And this paranoia......I don't
understand.  Any of it."  I sank down on the bed, shaking my head.

"You mean won't understand, don't you?"

Oh goody.  Now he's going for the sarcasm.  This day just keeps getting
better and better.

"Whatever your paranoid little mind wants to believe, sweetheart,"  I
smiled, with my best vote for my scum-sucking senator smile.

If it was possible, he turned even paler.  "Fuck you."

"Ya know when I really started having problems, Fox?  When you started
having sessions with this "therapist".  Whom I find our later is, not only a
quack, but seriously endangers his patients!"

"It was hypnotic regression!!  How does that endanger me?!?"

"He made you believe your sister was abducted by little goddamn green
men!"  I held up my hand before he could say it.  "Oh I'm sorry, little
*grey* men! Didn't you have enough fodder for your nightmares?  And lets
not forget the Marquis & Marquise de Sade you have for parents.  You needed
to make your life more painful, didn't you?!"

"Those nightmares are a direct result of Sam being taken!"  he cried,
pacing around the room.  " I just want to find out the truth behind them.  Is
that so hard for you?  I thought my *wife* would support me in this!"

"I won't sit here and let you destroy yourself.  And me!  I happen to
care about my carre-"

"Oh, lets not forget about the almighty ambitious, Kelli Mulder's
Career!"  he interrupted.

"As I seem to remember it, I met you when you were trying to further
*your* career by getting the support of the Senator!"

"You have no fucking clue....."  he had stopped pacing and was just
staring at me.

"You may have your fights with Patterson, but he personally recruited
*you* to be the youngest profiler in the FBI.  Do the words 'Golden Boy" mean
anything to you?  Meteoric rise?"

"So now its a political step for me to be good at my job?"

"Don't give me that.  You were courting the Senator!  And Oxford wasn't
a political step? What? My alma mater prestigious enough?"

"Stop it, Kelly!  You know why I didn't go to Harvard!  My father
couldn't just drive down to England and beat the shit out of me because he
felt like it!"

That brought me up short.  I tended to forget about his abuse. I covered
my eyes with one hand.

The venom gone from my tones, I said  "I know, I know.  I just....I just
don't know what to think anymore.  About you, about us, your sister, about
anything......"

"I have to find out what happened to my sister, Kels.  It's important.
Maybe the most important thing."

I felt the bed sink as he sat next to me on the bed.  His large warm had
came up to make tiny slow circles on the back of my neck.  I sighed.

I slid my eyes open to look at him.  "This isn't what I signed up for, FW."

"I know, Kels, I know."

~~~~

That wasn't the worst fight or even the last.  But it had knelled the
end.  He moved to Alexandria a couple of months later.

He took the couch. To this day, I have no idea what that means.
 

~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~

Blue Danube Cafe 1998

Clement St.  SF

~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~<x>~~~~
 

The red head in the Jil Sander power suit and the regulation FBI trench
looked expectantly at me, then at Him.

Seeing no answers coming from either of us, she stuck out her hand,
"Dana Scully.  I'm Mulders' partner."  Yeah, right. Just keep telling
everybody that, honey.  That hand of his on the middle of your back is just
where it used to be on me.

"I'm sorry, where are my manners?" I replied, shaking her hand just as
my first Senator taught me. "I am Kelly Mulder."

"Mulder? Are you related ..."  she started, her head swiveling to look at
him.

"You kept the name?"  he asked at the same time.

"It seemed to fit better than Von Blairencom.  Easier for the press too."

The redheads eyebrows were attempting to merge with the ionosphere at
this point.

"I hear you are still in the basement at the Bureau."
I was still attempting to be funny before caffeine.  Dumb.

His shoulders suddenly squared and a sheen of suspicion enter his eyes.
"How do you know that?"

I laughed, "Oh FW, still as paranoid as ever!  It's nice to see that you
haven't changed that much!"

"But how do you know?"  Now Scully asked, just as suspicious as FW.
What a pair....

"Remember how ambitious you thought I was?  You were right." I smiled up at
him.  "I am no longer just a speech writer, I am chief of staff to the
Senior Senator from San Francisco and the Great State of California.
She also happens to be on the Senate Budget Oversight Committee."

I shifted my gaze to his partner.  "Imagine my surprise when looking
over the 1998 cost overruns in the budget, I saw this tiny little division,
in the basement of the Hoover Building that had these unbelievable cost and travel
expenditures!  I wanted to know who and why.  So did the Senator.  We found
out."  Smiling again, I added, "That AD of yours made a hell of an argument
for why we shouldn't cut your budget for '99."

"Skinner?"  FW almost squeaked.  God, I'd  missed that...

"Tall, huge shoulders? Glasses, bald?"  I asked. Scully nodded.  "Rather
impassioned from what I remember.  Impressed the Senator.  Hell, he impressed
me and I've been in politics too long.  Would of never thought that some
division so out of the mainstream would be so important."

A look passed between them.  Did *we* ever have that kind of connection?
Nope.

I shook my head, "Funny, no one ever made the connection with our last
names.  Not even your AD.  Then again, it's not common knowledge I was
married."

"Yeah," his partner added, looking up at him with an oddly pained
expression.  "Not for this Mulder either...."

Checking my watch, I yelped.  "Oh gods, I have to be at a staff meeting
in about 15 minutes."  Grabbing my Latte, I explained, "The Senator
keeps a house in San Francisco, just around the corner actually.  I
gotta run.  But it's good seeing you again, FW."

I stuck out my hand to his partner, looking into her deep blue eyes,
"Take care of him.  He's a lot more fragile than he acts."

He made this odd little sound.

I looked up at him once more.  "We all eventually grow up, FW.  Just
because I divorced you 7 years ago, doesn't mean I still hate you today."  I
reached up, pecked his cheek and whispered into his ear, "Be careful.  And if
you ever need a non-smoking friend on the Hill, call me..."

He jerked back, his eyes whirling, "What?"

"Be careful," was all I repeated, half-smiling and turned to walk down
Clement.

"Oh!"  I had suddenly remembered a question their AD had stumbled over.
"What the hell was with the Snowcat rental in Antarctica?"

Another one of *those* looks passed between them. Jesus.....

He spoke up first, "There's not really a Cliff Notes version, Kels.  Sorry."

Nodding, I said, "That's what I thought.  Its just such a bitch getting
those eyes-only reports out of Reno these days, I was hoping....."  I winked
at the astonished redheads face.

I started walking.  I really did have a staff meeting in 15 minutes.

As I turned the corner onto 4th Ave, I heard from behind me -
"Ok, 'FW'!   What the *hell* was that all about..."

And I just kept on walking. Out of his life.
Once again.

~~~~~~~~~~<x>~~~~~~~~<x>~~~~~~~~~~~
Fin.
 
 

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 drpicard@aol.com