By Susan Esty (AKA Windsinger) and StephanieDavies
Windsinger@aol.com
 
 

Date: 20 Aug 1995 20:40:36 GMT
 

 
The Lady and the Tiger.
 
Another possible outcome of the story following  'Anasazi'.
This story is in two chapters. The first part I wrote, after
reading Windsinger's wonderful story 'Memories', part 5
of her 'Revelations' series. 'Wind', then developed the
idea further in chapter 2.
 
The characters of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are the
property of Chris Carter and Tenthirteen .....and no
copyright infringement is intended....you all know how it
goes!

Also acknowledgement and no copyright infringement
intended to Frank Stockton's story  "Lady  or the Tiger".
 
                            **************************
 
The Lady and The Tiger.
 
Chapter One
by Stephanie Davies
(100573.2252@compuserve.com)
 
 
The smartly-dressed woman in her late thirties raked
her eyes across the clusters of people in the lobby as
she waited in the line to register for her room at the Los
Angeles Airport Hilton. Assistant-Director Dana Scully
had driven down from San Fransisco where she had
been addressing the American Society of Pathologists
on the topic of forensic pathology and investigative
technique.
 
There had been two days to kill before her scheduled
meeting here at 8 am tomorrow, after which she would
catch a flight back to DC. She had stayed overnight in
Monterey, and that morning had set off early.
It had been foggy. She had driven into Carmel, which
was dripping and quiet at 9 am, and bought two
croissants and a coffee for her breakfast, and then had
set off down the winding highway listening to
the Grateful Dead on a local radio station. But as she
had travelled down the coast the fog had lifted, and the
wild beauty of the coastline was continually revealed as
the road twisted and turned.
 
She had stopped for lunch at a roadhouse by the sea
near Santa Barbara and wondered, as she had on
numberless previous occasions in the past eight years,
why she was still doing things like this. And she
remembered a dark night and a stale stakeout on a
hopeless case in Jackson when, to break the tedium,
they had planned this journey.
 
"It has to be a red Mustang, Scully - with the top down
and Jefferson Airplane on the radio... Big Sur.." She
could hear his voice so clearly, with its slightly nasal
twang, and the continual crack of the sunflower seeds...
 
Though intellectually Dana Scully had told herself that
Fox Mulder must be dead after the boxcar fire - all the
reports had concluded so - emotionally she had never
given up hope. To do so would  be to lose such a large
part of her being that she was not sure she would be
able to survive....not as the person she wanted to be.
Just to be able to get through each day she had to
believe.
 
No body or even appropriate human traces had been
found in the burnt -out boxcar. And "Nothing
disappears without a trace," the Navajo elder had said.
So for months she had expected him; then she had
merely hoped for his return. Now she held a passive
belief that he was alive - somewhere. But he had not
come back to her, and Dana Scully knew Fox Mulder;
knew that if he could have, he would have returned to
her side. One day, if she believed enough, maybe
whatever was keeping him away would end, and she
would be reunited with the other half of herself again.
 
She knew it prevented her from  moving on, from
getting a life and all those things she had dreamed of
so long ago - before the day  she had walked into Fox
Mulder's basement domain - babies, a husband.
She had never accepted that a career would
necessarily exclude these dreams. Not before Mulder.
 
In those eight years since his loss Dana Scully had
risen quickly to her present position in the FBI. At times
she wondered cynically whether the guilt her superiors
felt over Mulder's loss, particularly when details of the
conspiracy against him stood revealed, had played
a part in her exceptionally rapid progress through the
ranks. But she knew that she was damned good at her
job, and no-one could have devoted more time or effort
to it.
 
Still, though, whenever she queued at an airport check-
in desk,  or at a hotel reception , stood in line at an
ATM or waited for an elevator, she searched the crowd
in case one day she might see him again. Whilst at first
she had scolded herself for  ridiculous conduct, it had
become such a part of her pattern of behaviour that she
no longer noticed she was doing it.
 
For this reason, she was was totally unprepared for the
feelings crashing through her when, having finally
registered and been given her room key, on turning to
pick up her bag , across the lobby her attention was
caught by a crying child being swept into the air in a
man's arms. The child, a little dark -haired boy,
dissolved his howls to giggles as the man held him aloft
and turned....
 
And Dana looked at him.
And looked again.
 
Her bag dropped to the ground. For a second she
thought she would faint, as she pressed her fist to her
lips to keep from crying out.
 
Then she broke into a run across the lobby, through the
crowd, pushing past people until she was close, till she
caught up with the man who had by now turned away,
holding the little boy by the hand.
 
"Mulder.....Fox". She grabbed at his arm, and the man
turned back at  her sudden touch, shocked.
 
Oh God, the sweet scent of him.......her hand rested on
his arm as she gazed once more into those animated
hazel eyes....and saw , in the length of one breath, that
he did not know her.
 
Her hand dropped nervelessly from his arm and she
stepped back, away from his personal space which she
felt she had invaded.
 
"I'm sorry?" the remembered voice questioned. "Do we
know each other?" he added, with an odd inflection.
 
Still they held each other's gaze. He looked impossibly
younger. She drank in the sight of him after eight years
in her stony desert.  He smiled at her......."Excuse
me....."
 
A woman was pushing through the crowded lobby.
"Sweetheart," he called out to her, "Here's someone
who thinks she knows me!" The woman moved close to
him, putting her arm around his waist protectively,
smiling all the while at Dana.
 
Who stepped back further....and who wanted to run far
away and close her mind because she knew something
hard was coming....
 
The woman had bright copper hair, falling in a thick bob
to her chin, a dusting of freckles and fearless blue eyes.
He said, "I'm Nathaniel Wyatt.  My wife, Andrea........and
you are....?"
 
Dana Scully looked at the possessive way the wife held
her husband. She looked at the dark little boy, quiet
now. She looked at the serious-eyed red-headed girl of
six who stood at the woman's side - and gave in to her
impulse for flight.  "I'm sorry, I've got to go....sorry!" and
she ran back to her bag, grabbed the key off the
counter and escaped to her room.
 
She sat, motionless, for the longest time, hugging
herself tightly, as darkness came to Los Angeles and
crept around her.
 
 
   *********************************************
 
Much later, there was a soft knock at the door. He stood
there, awkwardly, hesitantly.   She tried to think of a
reason not to let him in, but he said, "Please....I won't
make trouble....I just need to know who I am."
 
Her eyes clouded.
 
He sat opposite her on an overstuffed sofa, cleared his
throat and looked up at her."I can't remember anything
except the last eight years of my life. They  say I must
have had a road accident, so badly was a part of my
brain destroyed....they don't know how...."
 
But Dana knew how. Bitterly, she recalled that Fox
Mulder had returned to her once before with no
memory, from Ellens Airforce base in Idaho.How very
long ago that was.
 
"I was found wandering Interstate 10 in Arizona in
December 1995, with no ID and no memory of anything
before." He paused, and the room was so silent she
could hear him breathing. "You seemed so sure who I
was - it's the only time I've truly felt I might find out
about the missing life I must have had. I don't even
know how old I am...." He swallowed, then continued.
"The doctors said there was no chance of my memory
ever  recovering....who did you think I was? You called
me by a name but I didn't catch it."
 
Instead of answering, Dana said, "You have a lovely
family".
 
His face grew soft. Dana had seen that look once or
twice, when Mulder had looked at her....but it had never
seemed the right time.... "Yes, my little girl Beth's six,
and Daniel, he's nearly three. Do you have children?"
 
"No."
 
He sensed the pain, and asked no more. He did not
speak for a minute, and then said softly, "You know,
you remind me of my wife. When I woke up in the
hospital  and couldn't remember anything, she was
there looking after me - a nurse - and it just seemed so
right....I'm sorry - I don't know why I'm talking to you like
this. But it's mostly for her and the children that I'd like
to know who I am."
 
He leaned forward towards her, his elbows on his
knees. "Andrea's parents are both dead, and we'd love
to track down some grandparents, and even a few
aunts and uncles for the kids...." He smiled that wide,
delightful smile,  then became more serious. "And I
know how I'd feel if I lost Andrea - or one of the kids -
and didn't know whether they were alive or dead - year
after year. I'd hate to think of someone grieving for me
all these years - life's too brief to mourn unnecessarily."
 
How she still loved this man, his kindness and
sensitivity. How she wanted to tell him all - to have him
hold her tight and whisper that it was alright, that he
had come back to her, that the unspoken promise
between them could now be fulfilled....
 
Suddenly into her mind flashed a story she hadn't read
since grade-school. <The lady or the tiger, Mulder?>
Did she love him enough to let him go, to go on with his
life and his lady and his children, or too much to lose
him again? What if the price of having him back was to
see his life torn to shreds by a bitter and painful,
potentially dangerous, past?
 
So Dana Scully lied to the man who had given her the
precious gift of his absolute trust.
 
 
"I'm really sorry. I can't help you. I thought  - you were
my - husband. He left me three years ago. So you
see...." Her voice trailed off as his body seemed to sag
with disappointment. <I never wanted to lie to you, Fox.
To mislead you,> the voice in her head pleaded for
understanding. <But this lie is better that all the truths
that could  be told here.>
 
He tried to hide his disappointment as he stood up. "I'm
really sorry to have troubled you..." He held his hand
out to her. She hestitated for a second, then took it. His
grasp was warm and strong.
 
"I hope you find your husband," he said kindly, "if you
want to."
 
"I hope you find what you're looking for ,too," she
whispered, and to herself, <though I think you've got all
you need.>
 
He turned at the door. "You never did tell me your
name."
 
She hesitated.  <Make a clean break, Dana.> "Margaret
O'Brien"....her mother's given name. She shook his
hand, and he walked off down the corridor without
looking back.
 
She thought of the unseen forces that had raged
against Fox Mulder. <You did a damn good job of
stealing his memory,> she thought savagely, <and of
stealing my hopes and dreams.> But she leaned back
against the door as she closed it with a strange,
wild smile on her face. <Perhaps, despite all your efforts
you did him a favour. He's happier now than he could
ever have been in his other life.> Sorrowfully, she
whispered aloud, "Oh my love, how could I
take your peace away from you. Be happy - you always
deserved it."
 
                           end of chapter one.
 
 

The Lady and the Tiger
Chapter 2 (by Windsinger)
Windsinger@aol.com
 

     The doorbell rang. Dana Scully got stiffly to her feet from
where she had been painting baseboards. Wiping her hands on a rag
as she headed for the door, she wondered where the stiffness came
from. After all she was still not even forty.

     Not yet forty. So many years of emptiness lay before her.

     No, that wasn't entirely true. There was worthwhile work for her hands
to do and there was life. It was just that the joy had gone out of it all.

     She looked around her apartment. How familiar... Which was
exactly why, after twelve years, five years after the building had
gone condo, she was selling it. Before, as painful as the memories
were of seeing him here, sleeping on her couch, sitting at the
table eating whatever he could find in her refrigerator, there had
been some point to keeping it. Mulder might come back. Oh, she
could move anywhere and she knew that, if he needed her, he would
be able to find her, but she had wanted to make it as easy for him
as possible. No point now. He was alive, he had wife, he had
children, he had a smile on his face, and absolutely no memory of
anything that had happened before waking up in a hospital eight
years before.

     She opened the door and, standing in the tiny vestibule, there
he was, looking hesitant, embarrassed, tall and beautiful and
unreal. He was wearing a suit, but not an expensive suit, not like
he used to wear. Though she lived with his ghost every hour of
every day since she had seen him in that hotel lobby, in a thousand
years Dana had never expected to see him again in the flesh, .

     "Mul- Mr.Wyatt?"

     "Nate. They call me 'Nate'," he said with a kind smile. And
then continued more pointedly, "And *you* they call Assistant
Director Dana Scully."

     Dana blushed. Realizing he was still awkwardly standing in her
doorway, she said, formally, "Please, come in." Despite herself she
watched every movement he made as he crossed to her living room.
There was not a hint of recognition in his face as he took in the
room he must sense from her that he should remember. His posture
was noticeably more tense than it had been when he was with his
wife and children, before Dana Scully reentered his life. He sat on
her couch and crossed his long legs.

     Dana perched on the edge of chair. There was an uneasy silence
between them. She began. "I guess you found me out."

     "Yes," he replied, his eyes level and steady. "Just as you
found out everything you could about me."

     She looked surprised, then guilty. "I didn't mean to pry."

     "No? You looked into my medical records and my financial
statements, and you had my wife and her family investigated." He
did not seem angry, but Dana found to her surprise that she could
not read him, that she could not tell how he did feel.

     Dana pressed her lips together. No, she was not going to feel
guilty about this. After she had had a chance to think clearly, she
found she needed to know. What were the doctors' findings? Did he
need any help financially? This much at least, she realized after
he had walked out of her hotel room, she had to do.

     "How did you find me?" she asked.

     There was that slight smile. His smile. "I may not be FBI any
more, but it wasn't difficult. I asked the hotel manager for your
name when I asked for your room number. How else would I know what
room to come to? I got your FBI affiliation from him after I left,
after you lied to me. It was ridiculously easy to find out about
Fox Mulder. The local FBI officials all knew the story." His eyes
grew troubled and the smile faded. "They knew a lot of stories."

     Dana swallowed. "Don't listen to all the stories. People tend
to exaggerate."

     "I hope so," he said with something like Mulder's old humor.
"The only good thing to come out of this is that the kids love the
name 'Fox'. They call me that around the house all the time now.
Bugs my wife, but, I told her, it's a phase."

     There was an uncomfortable pause. Dana breathed, was surprised
she could. "What brings you to D.C.?"

     He studied the texture of the fabric on the couch, more than
he looked at her. "For as long as I can remember," he smiled at his
own joke, "I've wanted to see the White House and the Smithsonian."
The man who looked so much like Fox Mulder stopped. "That sounds
ridiculous, doesn't it? After all, he lived here for years."

     He.

     "Not ridiculous," Dana said, sincerely. "Just odd."

     "Hmm. Anyway, the local FBI put me in contact with a Director
Skinner. I suppose you know him?"

     Dana nodded, thought it even more odd that Skinner had not
told her he had been in contact. But then, Mulder... Nate, would
have no reason to keep secret how he had come to find out about
himself or how she had tried to cover it up. Dana herself, had, of
course, told Skinner everything anyway. There needed to be closure.
Only Skinner felt strongly that Nate Wyatt should be told and had
been trying to convince her. Dana knew sooner or later he would
have forced the issue so this would have happened anyway.

     Nate Wyatt was saying. "I just wanted to know if there was
anyone who needed to be notified. I found out you had taken care of
that, though there really wasn't anyone to notify."

     "I'm sorry, there's no family," she told him. "Your mother
died two years ago. Your sister is still missing." Not a flicker of
interest about the missing sister. "If there had been anyone," she
continued, "I would have told you at the beginning. Under the
circumstances, I thought it was... for the best."

     He acknowledged her confession with soft glance and then
looked at his fingertips. "Somehow, someone changed my
fingerprints, not a lot but enough so that there were no matches
with Missing Persons. But they did a voice print analysis at the
Bureau today and it's close enough. So I guess I'm him. Or use to
be."

     Nervously, he uncrossed his legs and crossed them the other
way. "Skinner wants me to accept Workman's Compensation, as well as
lump sum retirement and life insurance payments." He looked at Dana
closely. She knew the look. It had not changed. "You were
beneficiary, but you didn't collect. Why not?"

     She sat uneasily on a chair across from the couch. The light
from the low lamps sculpted the planes of his face. There was no
difference from the man she remembered. "We weren't sure, and I
didn't need it, didn't *want* it."

     He nodded, understanding. "Neither do I, but, well, I tested
for some college credit and then took a two year course and I'm an
occupational therapist now. They don't make so much and I have the
kids' college to think about and no retirement." He shrugged.
"After waking up, I needed to do something with my life and doing
that kind of work, helping people to work through their problems in
a constructive way, seemed right to me."

     Dana felt her eyes begin to swim. They had been burning since
he had appeared at her door. An occupational therapist? That wasn't
so far from what he had been. "You had a Ph.D. in Psychology from
Oxford."

     Those beautiful hazel eyes opened wide and he sighed deeply.
"That's what Director Skinner said." He tapped his skull with those
long, slender fingers. "I'm afraid that's all beyond me now. I had
trouble enough getting through the allied medicine classes for my
O.T. The doctors say my intelligence isn't bad, somewhat above
average, amazing actually, considering the amount of brain damage,
but I have trouble learning. It takes a lot of concentration."

     Dana sat as still as a stone. Finally, even her eyes came to
rest - and on that fabulous head with its unruly brown hair. How
many times had she run her fingers through that hair? How many more
times had she wanted to. Now... <Oh, Mulder, what have they done?>

     Noticing her gaze, so direct and clear, Nate Wyatt stopped
speaking and looked unashamedly into this woman's eyes. This was
why he had come, not to make small talk. She was a strong woman and
stared right back, seeming to understand his need and acknowledging
her own.

     Yes, Nate thought, he could see Andrea in this woman's eyes -
and then he realized that he had probably also seen this woman's
eyes in Andrea's eight years before. Oh, God, had that drawn him to
Andrea? Some vestigial memory of this other woman? The doctors had
said there was no memory, would be no memory, but what did the
doctors know about the soul?

     His eyes darted around the apartment. She was getting ready to
move. That was obvious. Why, he could guess. He felt a stirring of
panic. This was a mistake, he realized. He should never have come.
Written a letter maybe, but not come. Not looked into those
grieving eyes. He had thought about asking if Dana Scully wanted to
be friends. She was really the only person Fox Mulder had had.
Funny that he should think about the person he had been as a
separate person entirely. And this woman seemed - lonely. He
thought if they were friends she might find some peace, some
connection to the past, he certainly would and so would his
children. But now that he had seen her again, he realized, no, that
would be too cruel and if he had to look into those eyes much
longer...

     Maybe someday if something happened to his marriage, if
Andrea... <No!> He couldn't live his life thinking that way. That
way was unhappiness for everyone. <You wanted to know, now you
know: Are you happy? Is she?> He knew now he had nothing to look
back on except her, sensed that, at least at this moment, she felt
she had nothing to look forward to.

     Awkwardly, he stood up. "I should go." He let his head hang.
That gesture. His look. Dana felt as if her heart were breaking.
Hearts do break, she was finding out. Not once, but over and over
again. She prayed she would not need to speak any more.

     He fumbled in his pocket, pulled out his wallet. She had half
expected him to pull out his FBI ID, but it was just a wallet that
anyone carried. He pulled out a business card. 'Nathaniel Wyatt,
National Health Services, Occupational Therapist' with address and
phone numbers. "In case you ever need anything," he said softly.

     She took the card with nerveless fingers. She should be saying
that to him. Instead he was extending her his sympathy, his
compassion, his pity. She could not speak but held up her hand for
him to wait. She went into her bedroom, hesitated, jerked open the
drawer of her nightstand and pulled out Fox Mulder's FBI ID, stood
staring at the picture. One had vanished with him but this was his
spare. He lost or damaged so many he always kept an extra.
Abruptly, she shut the drawer which seemed empty now and strode
with purpose back into the living room.

     He was standing uncomfortably by the door. He took the folder
she offered, opened it slowly, and looked at the picture and the
text for a long, long time, willing himself to remember. But
nothing came. Nothing. Just a face that looked like his. The
signature which he had written over and over on the official papers
in Director Skinner's office did resemble his own handwriting but
the name had not felt familiar when he wrote it.

     He looked at her, at the glistening eyes she could not hide,
and gently handed the leather folder back. "No, you keep it. It
means more to you. Besides, the kids would get an exalted
impression of their old dad if I kept that sort of thing around the
house." Just as he had declined the service revolver Skinner had
offered. What a thing to keep as a souvenir...

     He extended his hand. "Good-bye, Dana." The handshake, her
second, her last, with Nate Wyatt, was warm, solid and brief.

     Dana closed and locked the door behind him and did not even
listen for his footsteps to slowly move away from the door. She had
long since slid down to the floor, huddling against the door,
crying in great, soundless, gulping sobs.

     Mulder never called her 'Dana'.
 

End of Chapter 2 (This should end here. It originally did but I,
Windsinger, for one, could not bear it. For the realists in the
group stop here. For those who must have something more, not a
happy ending but something at least better for Dana, Chapter 3, the
last, will be posted in a few days.)

--
"Too long a sacrifice
 Can make a stone of the heart."
 

===========================================================================

From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: LADY AND THE TIGER (THE END)
Date: 24 Aug 1995 19:38:07 -0400
 

THE LADY AND THE TIGER    Chap 3 (the last)
by Stephanie Davies (100573.2252@compuserve.com)
and Sue Esty (Windsinger@aol.com)

Disclaimer: This story is based on the characters created by Chris
Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions and Fox Broadcasting. Used without
permission and no infringement is intended.

Thanks to DD and GA and all the fan fic writers for inspiration.
Thanks to Stephanie for starting this thing and indulging me by
letting me finish it. (Sorry the end got so long, Steph.) Thanks to
Youkneek who thought Danial was a wimp at first so I fixed that.

Author's notes: Chapters 1 (by Stephanie) and 2 (by me, Windsinger)
were sent out under one post a few days ago. The story really ends
at chapter 2 but for my own peace of mind I had to write chapter 3.
For the realists, stop at chap 2.

WARNING: What follows is wishful thinking, catharsis, sad and
whimsical with a lot of metaphysics thrown in. And, yes, there is
a lot of the Theater of the Absurd in my background. There are no
completely happy endings. If you want one, I'm sorry, this isn't
it. This is, in a way, my own vision of a 'future'. Though the
stories are completely unrelated, the idea is mentioned in passing
as early as 3/95 in my story MEMORIES ("And if there is a God...I
pray he will let me know you again.") The 'multiple personality
disorder' spoken of here is a brand new twist... even for me. Call
this my Igmar Bergman (not spelled right, I'm sure) phase and I
hope it doesn't destroy my credibility for all time as a serious
author. If all this interests you, keep reading, otherwise pass it
by, but, beware, it is not as simple as it seems at first.

The Lady and the Tiger
Chapter 3 (by Windsinger)

      Dana stared around at the fog-wrapped expanse of nothingness.
<This is it? This is the best the good Lord can do?> She remembered
when she had almost died before that she had found herself in a
'place' something like this. Since then, she had known, as certain
as breath, that there was existence after the life we know as life
was over, but still she had hoped for something with a little
more... variety.

      Dana took a few steps and looked down at her clothes. She was
younger, thirty years younger than that old tired woman laying on
the bed in her daughter's home dying. Dead now, it seemed. It was
good to feel younger and not encumbered by that failing husk of a
muscle and bone. She shook her head, liking the feel of the soft
red hair, not grizzled and grey. She had seen enough dead bodies in
her life, she didn't want to dwell upon her own.
 
      "Dana! There you are!"

      Her head turned to see emerging from the mist a dark shape.
"Daniel!" She ran to him, pushing through what felt like a heavy
mass of air, but ignoring it in her haste to reach her husband, to
throw herself into his bear-like arms. "Oh, Daniel, it's true," she
laughed, hugging him. "I didn't dream it!"

      "What's true?" the man with the round, laughing face asked as
he kissed her with a kiss that stopped her breath for a moment.

      "That we *do* meet our loved ones on the other side," she
finally managed to continue.

      "Well, that's one way to describe it," he said smiling. He
stroked her hair. Oh, he was so big, a real armful. He looked the
age he had been when they had met: thinning, dark hair, slightly
grey at the temples, the age she felt now, about mid forties.

      Twenty-five years, they had had twenty-five years.

      "You came earlier than I expected," Daniel Chesterton said
entwining his large hand in hers.

      "I guess I was eager," she admitted.

      His eyes twinkled. He always seemed a little like a very
earthy Saint Nicholas to her, now more than ever. "Children being
a pain?"

      "They mean well, but they wouldn't give me any peace."

      "Sounds like them. They get their mothering from you."

      "From their *grandmother*," Dana corrected. "Remember, you
always complained I spent too much time at work."

      "Just kidding, Sweets," he said planting a kiss on her
forehead. "How are they doing, by the way."

       "They're fine, doing well. Jennifer sends her love. She was
certain I'd be seeing you."

      "What about William and Harriet?" he asked, in mock distress.
"No message for their old Dad?"
 
      Dana smiled. "They're sceptical. *That* they get from me."
 
      "They were wonderful to raise," he said, remembering. "Ever
wish we had adopted more?"

      She laughed. "Three was a handful, but I can't imagine what
life would have been like without any one of them. We were lucky at
our age that the agency let us have them at all."

      Out of the corner of her eye Dr. Dana Scully Chesterton
noticed a form standing in the mist from where she had come, a
woman who looked just like...

      "Daniel...?" she began, fearfully.

      He glanced in the direction of the shape that caused her
concern and smiled tenderly. "Don't worry. It's just that *he's*
coming. We had best move along."

      "What?"

      "Never mind, I'll explain." And Daniel put his arm around his
wife and led her off to tell her a few thousand marvelous things.
 

      Special Agent Dana Scully looked down at her clothes. The suit
was one such as she had not worn in forty years and there were the
stylish, yet practical pumps, low heeled enough to make running
after fleeing felones and who-knows-what possible. She flipped back
her shower of red hair as she watched her older self walk off with
some man she could not place immediately. <Daniel?> Yes, Daniel,
her husband, but in a later life. She had wanted to join them, felt
so alone here, but they seemed so happy and she did not want to
intrude. And, oddly, as the distance between them lengthened she
sensed herself becoming estranged from that life, that existence,
even while her time at the Bureau so many years ago was coming back
to her as clear as yesterday.

      She heard a sound of hurrying footsteps, detected a swirl in
the mist.

      "Scuuully!"

      She whirled in the direction of that voice. That dear,
impossible voice. "Mulder..." she whispered. <No, Nate...,> she
reminded herself as she had almost every day of the last forty
years in those quiet little moments when she was alone, when
something wonderful happened in her life she wanted to share with
*him*. <But Nate's not dead... so he can't be here.>

      A tall, dark shape moved in the mist to her left, calling her
name, then began to move away from her. "Nate...?" she called
almost fearfully, almost hopefully. He spun in her direction, his
long legs closing the distance between them quickly. He stopped
within arm's length, a little breathless.

      "Sorry," he said in his warm, languid voice with a hint of a
smile, "always did tend to get lost in a fog."

      "Nate?" she asked, hesitantly. Somehow, his form was not
clear.

      "Nate?" Hazal eyes showed for a moment, darkened in
disappointment. Had she forgotten him? His voice dropped. "No,
Mulder..." His posture showed he was more than hurt. Crushed
described it better.

      She took a step back, then another. "Not... Mulder. You're
Nate Wyatt, only he's not dead." She looked around frantically.
There must be someone who could tell her what was going on. "I
don't understand -"

      He reached out his hand, his form became more solid, so much
so that he touched her, desperate that she not leave him. "It's
*me*, Scully. Really and truly. You're confused. That's
understandable. It's a very confusing place, at first. Well, still
is," he confessed.

      <*That*,> Scully realized, with something awakening in her she
had thought long buried, <can only be Mulder-speak.> She had been
too shocked to look carefully before. Now, almost fearfully, she
allowed herself to look up, to open her eyes fully, to see...

      And filled her eyes and her mind with the sight of him. He was
as young as the first year they had worked together. His eyes would
have been glittering with mischief and life, except that they were
shadowed with a sudden deep sadness as he looked at her. He wore a
dark suit that fit him, oh, so perfectly and his tie bore a pattern
of tasteful, little white ghosts. The atmosphere around them was
like it had been before, a little awkward, tension like electricity
between them. Even the fog seemed right. Scully only wished she had
a liverwurst sandwich and a root beer to hand him. No, an ice tea
this time.

      "Mulder," she said, with a delivery perfected from long
practice, "if what you just said was intended to make me feel
better, it didn't."

      Special Agent Fox Mulder sighed with relief and the shadows
left him. "Thank God, at least, you have my name right."

      Scully pointed vaguely in the direction where her other self
and Daniel had gone, her mouth open but unable to put any of her
questions into words.

      His eyes flashed with humor. "We all have multiple personality
disorders here, Scully. Fertile ground for a psychologist." To her
continuing bafflement, he explained with a sly smile, "Did you
think we each had only one life worthy of being remembered?"

      Scully was distracted before she could reply and turned her
head in the direction of a regular thumping sound. A boy came
running up, a boy of about twelve expertly dribbling a basketball.
He was of average height for his age but a little pudgy with a
pixieish face, a boy on the point of launching into another growth
spurt, one, she realized, which would turn him in time into the
beautiful man who stood before her.

      "Wanna play one-on-one, Mulder?" the boy asked,
enthusiastically.

      A look of affection passed over Mulder's features. "No, Fox,
I told you, Scully's here now."

      "Well," the boy asked with a sulk, "what am I gonna do then
until Sam comes?"

      Scully found herself staring and then began, hesitantly,
"Samantha will be here soon. I hear she's not doing well."

      Fox nodded but hung his head. "I'm sorry she's having a tough
time of it." Then he brightened, "but she'll be real happy when she
gets here. I have so much planned."

      "I'm sure you do," Scully said with love. She raised an
eyebrow at her partner. "Basketball, Mulder?"

      Mulder shrugged. "You have to do something. Playing harp is
not all its cracked up to be." He blew on his fingertips. "I know,
I've tried."

      A slow, tolerant smile forming on her lips, she turned her
attention back to the boy. "Tell you what, Fox: You let Mulder and
I have a few minutes and I'll let him play with you a little later.
I'd like to get to know you myself."

      "Oh, he's told me everything about you," the boy told her with
a huge smile.

      She glanced up at Mulder's bemused face. "I'll just bet he
has." To Fox, "Well, then you have one up on me because he hardly
ever told me anything about you."

      As the boy raced off, Mulder shrugged. "No one ever said death
had to be boring."

      "As long as you're here, I can't imagine how it could be."

      He picked a direction, seemingly at random, and they began to
stroll, not in a hurry. After all, they had all the time in the
world. Still, under his skin, he seemed the same Mulder, more
energy than he knew what to do with.

      "Mulder," Scully said seriously, "I'm sorry you weren't there
to see Samantha when they returned her."

      For the first time since she had accepted him, a crack
appeared in the perfect contentment he was radiating. "That was
hard. Not to be there for her." His head hung in a very familiar
way. "I could see it was a rough transition, but you were great. I
can never thank you enough. She's had a pretty good life from what
I could see."

      "Daniel had a lot to do with it," Scully said. "He was the
officer in charge of the recovery team. I could not have managed
without him."

      "I saw," Mulder said with a frown.

      "I bet you didn't think I should have trusted him."

      "He was part of the establishment."

      "You weren't there. I had to trust someone."

      He looked at her with respect. "And you chose well, both for
Sam and for yourself."

      His approval warmed her. "I did, didn't I?," Scully told him.
"Sam did better than I expected. Though not physically strong, she
had faith in herself and she had your example. She has circulatory
problems from the years of weightlessness. It won't be long." She
paused, uncomfortably. "There's nothing else you regret?"
 
      He stopped and studied her, his eyes deeply disturbed. "Of
course, there are, but, Scully, if there's one thing I've learned,
it's that they would have killed me sooner or later. The way they
did it, at least Nate got to live, was allowed to have the life
they would never have let us have."

      Us.

      Scully swallowed and tried not to let him see she had heard.
What could she say? There is some sadness that can never be
relieved, some evil that can never be undone. But if it were
possible in this place, she would try.

      He was staring at the ground, shifting from foot to foot, his
hands in his pockets, his Fox look again, "I probably would have
been a lousy husband, anyway. Most likely a lousy father, too."

      That tore. <Mulder, is this how you survived the agony of
leaving the world so young? Berating yourself, even now? I guess,
we are what we are, what we are, what we are... Even here we have
all our warts but, finally, time perhaps to heal them.>

      Scully sighed and touched his cheek. "You would have done
fine, Mulder. If only those bastards...!" Her anger had lit up her
skin. She seemed to glow.

      "Shhh," he said in mock warning, shaking off the clouds that
had gathered. "*He* might hear."

      "*Him*, Mulder? And when do I get to meet *Him*? Because I
still don't understand. If Nate's not -"

      "Not dead? Now that's an interesting situation and one which
the Powers That Be have been trying to figure out. My position here
is rather unique, Scully -"

      "Why am I not surprised."

      Mulder gave her an off center smile. "Two points," he conceded
before continuing. "When they cut out my brain, they killed Fox
Mulder, not his body but a big hunk of his spirit." He shrugged.
"So here I've been for forty years the only spirit who still has a
mortal coil. Well, me and young Fox. I've spent a fair amount of my
time, vicariously living Nathaniel Wyatt's life. There's this
attachment - "

      He stopped, realizing this was not what he had waited so many
years to be talking about. He turned to face her, touched her
shoulders feather light with care as if afraid that *she* was not
real. There was her perfect skin, that amazing mouth, her eyes,
like the sea, fathomless and at this moment only for him. His next
words were spoken in deadly ernest. "I've been waiting for you for
a very long time, Scully. Such a long, long time..."

      A silence followed, a silence that seemed to go on for many
blissful years in which they just stood and enjoyed each other's
presence, imbibing each other's spirit like food and drink and life
itself.
 
                                     ***
 

      Jennifer Chesterton pulled the covers over her mother's small,
thin body. It had been a peaceful death. Under her fingers Jennifer
had felt Dana Chesterton suddenly slip away, as if she had accepted
death at the first moment it had been offered.
 
      "Went to join Dad," Jenni remarked.
 
      "You really believe in an afterlife, don't you?" Peter asked,
the words a little indistinct from the clef pallet the operation
had not succeeded in correctly completely, though his sisters had
learned over the years to understand his lisp perfectly.

      "I want to believe," Jenni said turning her blind eyes towards
the sound of her adopted brother's voice. "I'd like to see Mom and
Dad again someday."

      "What did you find, Hare?" Peter asked, looking at his younger
sister, her leg braces shining in the sunlit room. Harriet sat with
a metal box on her lap. They had found it under their mother's
pillow just a few minutes before. They had all seen it many times
over the years, and knew it held a special meaning to their mother,
but none of her children had ever been given a look inside.
 
      "Just letters and cards," Harriet said with disappointment in
her voice. "Most from Uncle Fox but a few are from Andrea."

      Peter limped over to look over her shoulder. "I'm not
surprised she kept them. Mom got so misty every time a letter
came."

      "Think he was an old beau?" Jennifer asked.

      William shrugged. "Who knows. Someone from before Dad. I think
her old partner when she worked for the FBI. He must have had an
alias or changed his name because I found an old FBI ID one day
when I was thirteen and looking for something in her desk drawer.
Her partner's name was Fox Mulder."

      "I always wondered why we called Nate Wyatt, *Uncle Fox*,"
Jenni mused. "Too bad we never met him or his family in person."

      Harriet ruffled through the cards and letters. "Well, we
certainly heard about every important event in their lives -
promotions, graduations, births - we felt like we knew them. Funny,
all the letters are dated and yet the oldest one I've been able to
find is a card sent at the time of Mom and Dad's wedding. Odd
message: 'Director Skinner's kept us up to date. We've been waiting
for some good news for you. So happy, Nate and Andrea.'"

      "Hey, people," William said. "Look at Mom. I swear, it looks
like she's smiling."

                                     ***

      Reluctantly, Mulder gently broke contact. Her spirit touching
his had filled, for him, an emptiness, a lonely space he had left
especially for her, for this moment. "More later, Scully?" he asked
softly.

      "Yes," she breathed, opening her eyes, coming up as if for
air. More.

      "After all, we did say we'd join Fox," he added,
apologetically. She only smiled slowly in response.

      They began walking again, Mulder's step light, almost on his
toes. He took off his suit coat and rolled up his sleeves,
obviously eager for a good game of one-on-one.

      Scully stopped, however, placing a hand on his arm to halt him
and raised her head as if listening. Something was nudging at her
brain.

      "Something wrong, Scully?" he asked.

      She shook her head to clear it. "I don't know. Something tells
me I should stay here for a little while."

      He pursed his lips and slung her suit coat over his shoulder.
"Best to stay put then. She usually has a good reason for her
little messages."

      Dana looked up. "I thought you used *He* before?"

      Mulder shrugged, noncommittally. "Depends."

      They waited. They could almost hear the sound of labored
breathing far away. Coming nearer. Scully found the sound a little
frightening until Mulder moved close so that she could feel the
warmth of his body against his back. "It's alright," he told her.
"Someone's coming, that's all. Someone we should meet. I sense it,
too, now."

      The fog thickened in one spot, blocked the light a little that
seemed to be everywhere, began to take form. Another new soul was
coming onto this waiting plane. Even though there had not been many
people to meet, his mother whom he had taken to join his father,
Frohike who went who-knows-where, Skinner who left with his ex-
wife, Mulder never tired of seeing such arrivals. But this time he
had a shock. The figure was male, tall, dark with a touch of grey,
slim - and totally confused when he saw them both.

      "Nath!" Scully exclaimed in surprise and welcome. The new set
of hazel eyes slipped from Mulder's face, as surprised as his own,
to the woman's. After a moment he recognized her through she was
nine years younger than the only two times in his life he had seen
her and he had never known her flushed with happiness as she was
now.

      "Dana Scully." He looked around with apprehension but dawning
acceptance. "All right," he began, "I can guess what this must be
but -"

      Mulder recovered first. He stepped forward and held out his
hand. "I'm Fox Mulder. I guess you've heard of me."

      Numbly, Nathaniel Wyatt shook the hand, identical to his own.

      Mulder was thoroughly enjoying the other's discomfort. "You
must not have known anyone close who has died so I guess we're your
welcoming committee."

      "You're me..." Nate said lamely. "I'm you..."

      Mulder put a hand on the broad shoulder. The man had obviously
kept up his swimming. "Neither. We are separate. As separate as we
can be. Twins, separated at birth when we were thirty-five. Gee, I
always wanted a brother..."

      Nate looked like he wanted to step away.

      Scully raised her eyes - heavenward. It was obvious, just from
the way they were acting, that telling these two apart was not
going to be difficult. Nath also wore Dockers and a polo shirt.
Clothes her Mulder would never wear.

      "Don't mind Mulder," she said in an aside to Nate. "He likes
to kid around. You'll get used to his sense of humor." Nate seemed
very uncomfortable. Uncomfortable and lonely, Scully sensed. "How's
Andrea?" she asked with sincerity.

      The man who looked like Fox Mulder, but who did not look at
her at all the way Fox Mulder did, brightened at the name. "She's
a lot younger than I and she's in good health. I went quickly, a
stroke. A result of the brain damage years ago, I imagine."

      "It will probably be a while then until she comes," Mulder
said, sympathetically. He knew what it was to be alone here. He
looked to Scully for confirmation and then turned back to Nate. "If
you want, you can hang around with us until she comes. Then we can
all move on together."

      Nate still looked shell-shocked but also relieved and
thankful. Scully let her eyes tell Mulder how wonderful he was,
then hooked an arm with each of them. They were both sweet and
caring men and she couldn't be happier. She didn't even care to
find out what 'moving' on meant. That for later.

      Mulder led them off across the fog shrouded plain. "I have
something to show you," he whispered to Scully in unsuppressed
excitement. "Extraterrestrials! Do you know, I was wrong all along.
They *are* green."

      Nate's eyes grew positively round and he hung back a little.
Maybe the stories did *not* exaggerate.

      "Mulder," Scully said warningly. "Nate, does not have your
appreciation of the weird. You are scaring him."

      "Okay, later then, when we're - alone," He whispered. He said
the last word in a way that sent a warm chill up her back. <Do they
*do* that in heaven?> she wondered.

      Mulder let his smile rest on her for what felt like an
eternity and then moved back to Nate. "Nate, as I remember you play
basketball."

      "A little," Nate said quickly, feeling on safer ground with
this subject. "I played with my son on the driveway."

      "I watched. He went on to play college ball. You should be
proud," Mulder told him and Scully definitely detected a hint of
envy in his voice.

      "You should be proud, too," Nath said in the same voice, only
it was a little less dreamy and more mature. "They were your genes
first."

      Mulder smiled a small, sad smile. "Granted, but you raised him
well. Come on, I have someone I want you to meet."

      They heard the sound of a basketball and running feet. The fog
seemed to thin and there was a hoop suspended literally in thin
air. Underneath it shooting baskets were Fox - and Daniel, with
Dana standing off to the side watching. The contented smile on her
face widened when she saw them. Before he moved off, Mulder let his
fingers rest a moment in Scully's palm and looked curiously at
Dana, who nodded in Daniel's direction. With a wave, Mulder threw
down his jacket and joined Fox against Daniel and Nate.
 
      Dana and Scully stood shoulder to shoulder watching the men.
 
      "Why are we letting them have all the fun?" Scully asked.

      "Because we're short."

      "We could kick them in the knee."

      "I don't think that's allowed."

      "Pity."
 
      "I know. When they're done, we'll take them sailing. On a
nice, rolling sea."

      "Oh, you are cruel. Does Daniel get sea sick?"

      "In the bathtub."

      "Think She'll let us?"

      "We can only try."

      They smiled with evil delight.

      Over the sound of the dribbling ball, they heard a girl's high
voice calling, "Fox!" and the sound of her light, eagerly running
steps, coming nearer.
 

The End (For good this time.)

Windsinger says: Okay, it's odd, but perhaps one way of working
through inconsolable grief and who knows, after all, what 'it' is
really like? Eternity to work through all our problems and our
little idiosyncracies, to heal our wounds, seems more satisfying
then everyone starting out perfect and playing harp. (I play harp
and after a couple of hours it gets really boring.)

For a similar example of dealing with grief, look up MAD HATTERS
and MONO LISAS by Idria Barone Knecht (under Mono_Lisas on
ftp.cs.nmt.edu).

===========================================================================

From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger)
Subject: NEW: LADY AND THE TIGER, chapter 2.5a
Date: 4 Sep 1995 21:59:16 -0400
 

THE LADY AND THE TIGER    Chap 2.5
by Stephanie Davies (100573.2252@compuserve.com)
and Sue Esty (Windsinger@aol.com)

Disclaimer: This story is based on the characters created by Chris
Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions and Fox Broadcasting. Used without
permission and no infringement is intended.

Thanks to DD and GA and all the fan fic writers for inspiration.
Thanks to Stephanie for starting this thing and indulging me by
letting me continue it. (Steph, I'm finished now.)

Author's notes: Chapters 1 (by Stephanie) and 2 (by me, Windsinger)
were sent out under one post a couple of weeks ago. The story was
going to end at chapter 2 but kept growing. Chap 3 was written and
posted but questions about Daniel prompted the writing of chapter
2.5 (to sit between chap 2 and chap 3). Make sense to you?

THE LADY AND THE TIGER
Chap 2.5 (By Windsinger)

     Dr. Dana Scully huddled under her umbrella as she trudged the
last ten feet in the sleety rain to her Georgetown townhouse.
Professor of Pathology at Georgetown University, guest lecturer at
the FBI academy, expert witness for more cases in the courts than
she cared to count, Dana kept herself very busy and she was tired.

     Seven years before she had left the FBI. Despite the fact that
she had worked herself up to a position of power, the decision had
not been so hard to make in the end. Once all the questions about
Fox Mulder's disappearance in New Mexico had been answered, at
least all that mattered, there was no longer any reason for her to
stay. The resources, the position she would need to find him if any
trace turned up, were no longer needed. She was tired of death and
conspiracies. The living was what she needed. To touch the living
and not just the dead, and so she had gone back into pathology,
using her knowledge and strengths to help identify the ravaging
diseases in the living and not just to identify the harbringers of
death, to heal others and herself.

     Still, she knew there was good she could do in her old life
and the familiarity of that which she had lived with for so long
was a comfort and so she still lectured in Quantico and helped to
save the innocent and punish the guilty with her testimony. She
also had dinner occasionally with Walter Skinner and his new wife.

     Skinner married. The mind boggled. <Well, Mulder, there's
something I bet you never thought you would be responsible for.>
Something about finding out the truth of what had been done to
Mulder had made Skinner reexamine his own life. He had let his
sister fix him up a few times and, amazingly, one of his 'blind'
dates worked.

     <Hasn't worked for me, though,> Dana sighed, but then she had
to admit she never really let any of the men her mother or sister
or girlfriends sent her way get even remotely close. They were all
so boring. <You've ruined me for every other man, Mulder. Without
even trying. Just by being your own amazing self.>

     Not that she needed a man. In Washington at this time, no one
thought it odd for a professional woman to be unattached, but it
was hard coming home to her exceedingly comfortable and exceedingly
empty townhouse.

     And right now her exceedingly empty townhouse was also
suspiciously dark. Where were the lights that were timed to come on
at dusk? The house has black. Only a couple of small lights
upstairs seemed to be on. Dana fought down suspicion. The Shadow
people had not bothered her for years. Just a short in one of the
light sensors or a couple of burned out bulbs, she assured herself.

     Carefully, she let herself in by tapping in the combination on
the electronic lock. Before she shut the door she stood and
listened. The hum of the refrigerator. Noise from Wisconsin Avenue
a few blocks away. A neighbor's dog. That was all. Without thinking
she flipped the hall switch and the overhead light came on.
Certainly no burned out bulb. She hung her wet umbrella and coat on
the coat rack and walked carefully into the hallway, heading for
the kitchen. She could still feel the sting of the sleet. Tea would
be good, but her eyes continued to search the shadows, her ears
were still attuned to any noise she did not expect.

     That was when she saw the man's legs. Illuminated by the hall
light, she saw the bottom of a man's long legs as he sat in the
large arm chair in her living room, a man dressed in a grey suit.
She blinked several times to make sure that what she was seeing was
not a trick of the deep contrast of light and shadow. No, a man was
definitely there, completely in the dark shadows from the knees up.
He did not move.

     She tried to remember if the gun which she kept in the drawer
by the front door was loaded and started stepping back for it.

     "Don't go, Scully," came a soft, startling voice from the
dark.

     Dana stopped, paralyzed. Not by the words themselves but the
voice. After several breaths she took a few steps to the end table
beside the doorway to the living room. "May I turn on the lamp?"
she asked, neither her voice nor her hand steady. "It's dark in
here."

     "Why not?" came the reply.

     She turned on the lamp. And caught her breath. Her heart
pounded an impossible rhythm in her chest. "Nate, how did you get
in? What are you doing here?"

     "I had something to tell you." He was sitting too tense for
Nate, too formally for Mulder.

     And there was more that was not right here. Nate had a sweet
innocence about him. This man was wrapped in Mulder's serious,
brooding darkness but his face was as firm and smooth and well
planed as she remembered. He did not seem to have aged at all in
fifteen years. Her brow furrowed as her eyes narrowed, her memory
ran back.  A figure standing in the doorway of her room at a little
motel. <"Mulder, where have you been?"> and a moment later,
impossibly, his voice on the phone <"Scully, it's me. Where are
you?">. A gun in her hands, a sweeping attack, a cruel hand
reaching for her, a man wearing *his* face, using *his* voice.
<"Where is he? Tell me where he is?"> Like now, only now there was
no cold anger, no demands. Not yet, anyway.

     "You're not Nate," she told him. "But you're not Mulder
either." Without the years of running after and into the
unimaginable, she knew she would never have been this calm.

     He seemed surprised at her rapid assessment. "We thought you
would take the news more readily from him."

     "Since you're obviously not him, let's just say you have my
attention," she said coolly. "Though I see no reason why I should
believe anything you say."

     A pause, *almost* his smile. "You are so alike. Mulder was
never very trusting."

     "He had good reason," Dana said. Indeed he did, but his
paranoia had not prevented his enemies from succeeding in the end.
"Say what you came to say and get out of here."

     "We're bringing her back."

     The thumping in her chest moved up into her throat. Dana felt
as if she were going to choke. Her voice, when it came out, was
tight and small and angry. "You're bringing her back? What? Now?
Why now?" <When he will never know.>

     The figure stood. She could not take her eyes off the tall,
dark form. <Damn, you!> She wanted to scream. <Why do you have to
look so much like him?>

     "For many years we watched Fox Mulder from a distance." He
leaned casually against the fireplace mantle, his lanky form making
a long, lean line. "Later, when our needs became more critical, we
stepped up our surveillance. He was important to us. We came to
understand that as long as we had his sister he would keep looking,
keep asking questions, would keep our 'agenda' in the eyes of your
leaders. Paving the way for us. Subtly, carefully, nothing
obvious."

     "Oh, my God...." Dana whispered as the reality sunk in, then
her eyes blazed. "*You* used him. And all the time we thought...
How dare you!" she spat. "Do you have any idea of the hell you made
of his life! From the moment you took her you caused him pain no
one should have to endure and then you turned the knife, didn't
you, and you kept turning it." She tore her eyes from him. "Don't
you dare wear his face. You don't have the right." When she finally
looked back it was to the taller, broader, lantern-jawed man, the
one who made her blood run cold in her dreams. He stood as if he
were carved from stone.

     "He would have been vindicated in time," he told her in the
rich Northern European accent of this other personae, probably no
truer than the one before. "We regret what happened. We
underestimated the viciousness of those who set themselves up
against him and his message. It was never our intention to lose his
voice for our cause."

     Incredibly, Dana believed him. She sank weakly down onto the
couch. "Can you bring him back?" she whispered without thinking,
without thinking of the complications that would mean. Nate had a
wife, teenage children now.

     The figure looked at her with, she thought, a softening in his
hard features. "We cannot. We couldn't fifteen of your years ago.
If we had known their plans, we would have prevented it. But we
were too late. We saved his life. That was all we could do."

     "Then why are you bringing her back? Why now?"

     "She serves no purpose to us any longer. In the beginning, she
was just one of our 'textbooks'. Only after the first few years,
after careful observation of the 'survivor', did we come to truly
appreciate how he could be used. She was the 'carrot' to mold his
passion, his obsession, to our needs."

     "And if she is of no use to you any longer, why has it taken
your people fifteen years to return her?" Dana asked bitterly.

     "Choose to believe us or not," the accent intoned
indifferently. "We are not an impulsive people. There were
decisions to be made. There are others who will accept her if you
will not -"

     "No," Dana insisted. "Give her to me." To get Sam back, she
would do anything. She owed him that much, that much and more.
"Where can I find her?"

     "It has taken a long time for my people to come to an
agreement on the conditions of her return. We will not simply bring
her here to you, which is what many of our more 'humanitarian'
members would have wished."
 
     "Then how? Where?"

     "The decision has been made. It is time to open the door. To
enlighten a few more minds. You may come and one other. That one
you will choose. But it must be someone who those in power cannot
so easily dismiss. When you have chosen put the sign there," he
pointed to the living room window that faced a high rise a block
away, "as he used to do. Then we will let you know where to meet
us."

     Abruptly he turned and walked past her, his intention clear.
He was leaving. As simple as that.

     "No," she found herself saying when he was beside her, and
looked up into his face, needing to speak but willing herself not
to. The figure's expression became almost gentle and then its
facial features began to flow before her eyes, the body even shrunk
a little though it was still tall, became slender hipped and broad
shouldered. The familiar face looked down upon her with those sad
eyes. "For you, who were often his only ally, we would do much. You
have only to ask..."

     She should have shrunk away from him. Could not. She knew what
he was offering and for one impossible moment the idea of accepting
was tantalizing. For in this form, some memories remained, this was
not appearance only. She had proof of that. <"Be careful. I got
shot once and I didn't much like it.">  Incredibly, some of Mulder
survived here. Was it possible to enjoy his wit and not just to
hear his voice, to look into those eyes and see him remember all
that they had done together?

     <Dana you are a fool. 'The devil doth assume a pleasing
shape,'> she remembered from Sunday sermons. Accepting for the
moment, that he held a value structure which allowed him to execute
his own people, the entire crew of that sub had died. This 'man'
was a cold hearted murderer. And then there was the anguish they
had brought Mulder. Only the burning need to have Sam received into
the care of someone who would love her, instead of those who would
use her yet again, had convinced Dana to deal at all. This she must
do for Mulder's sake as well as for Samantha's.

      "Get behind me, Satan," she replied with a grim smile.

     The face lighted with an achingly realistic impression of Fox
Mulder's wry humor. "We understand the analogy. You made the
decision we expected." He did reach out, touched her hand ever so
lightly. "Remember the instructions, Scully, and leave the sign,"
the figure said in the familiar voice. "We'll we waiting." Then he
walked past her and moved into the hall. She heard the sound of her
front door open, and close.

     With slow deliberation, Dana went into the kitchen and washed
the place on her hand where he had touched her. Then to wash her
ears clean of the unnatural voice, she huddled over a cup of tea
and listened to a audio recording she had made years before. Buried
within a pile of old dictation tapes, which Mulder had made for her
to use when writing up their field reports, were many irreverent
comments and worse jokes. She had not listened to the compiled tape
for a long, long time because after she laughed, she always cried.
 
 

     Hours later, a quilt wrapped around her shoulders but still
shivering, Dana phoned the only person she could think to call.
Walter Skinner woke instantly. She smiled, thinking of all the
calls he must have gotten at night when Mulder and she were on a
case and how that must have ingrained in him that instant
alertness.

     "Sir, it's Dana Scully."

     "Scully, what's wrong?" After all these years, she still
called Walter Skinner 'Sir' and though he had dropped the 'Agent',
he still called her 'Scully'. He was the only person who still did.

     Dana explained in tones as even and analytical as those she
might have used fifteen years before. Walter Skinner had aged and
changed in many ways, but he remembered the 'Samantha' clones all
too well and did not doubt her story for a moment.

     "Sir, the 'Hunter' requires that I find some 'witness' for the
pickup. We need someone the military will trust, but I also want
someone *I* can trust. Only I've been out of touch.  I'd like to
ask you but -"

     "A cabinet Under Secretary not high enough?" his voice said,
raspier than in the old days and yet softer. "No, I know what you
mean. It must not be anyone who had ever met Agent Mulder. No one
who could be accused of being sympathetic." There was silence on
his end of the line. "Perhaps... " A longer pause. "Scully, I met
a three star general at a working cocktail party a few months ago.
As we were introduced, it was obvious he knew my name, knew my
background and actually asked about the X-Files, though he was
guarded in his questions. We retreated to the balcony and had a
long talk. He's had an experience or two of his own which might be
considered paranormal. I think he knows something about EBE clean
up operations, too. He seems much more open minded than most. I
remembered thinking what a pity it was that he had not been
around... before."

     Dana allowed herself an audible, derisive hiss. A pity? No, a
tragedy, even more so with what she knew now. Wrong place, wrong
time, Mulder. They manipulated you, forced you up against such
impossible odds. There had never been any hope and yet he had
tried, broken his heart and his body more times than she could
count against that windmill.

     Coming back from her musings, Dana asked, "What's his name?
Maybe I've heard of him."

     "General Chesterton. Daniel Chesterton."

     Dana whistled. "The media hero of the Fourth Iranian War?"

     "The same. And, as for that media image, it's not all for
show. He's all that and more, larger than life. Better for our
needs. If this is the kind of visibility the EBE's want, he'll give
it to them."

     "But, sir, he's military..." How many times had she retrieved
Mulder's pummeled and bleeding body after their incarcerations and
interrogations. How many times had the evidence, that the two of
them had collected with their sweat and tears, been taken out of
their hands and destroyed before their eyes.

     "Scully," Skinner said with deep understanding, "you are the
only one who can decide if you can work with him. Remember, the
military also saved Agent Mulder's life on more than one occasion.
I think Chesterton would be the best person for the job. Do you
want me to contact him? You can say no."

     Dana drew the quilt closer around her. She could feel the
ghosts of all those who had died around them during those years as
they struggled towards the truth. Not only Mulder. She would not
let them die a meaningless death. Reluctantly, she agreed.

     Just at the end of their conversation Skinner added
cautiously, "Nate Wyatt asked about you."  This was not the first
time, Skinner had said this. Skinner, she knew, kept in touch. It
was a debt he owed which she knew he felt could never be repaid.
"He wants to know if you are happy. He carries a terrible burden,
Scully. He knows what was taken from you, from us all." Which was
why Dana knew they could never meet again. To see her would just
make his position more difficult.

     Dana shifted the phone. "How is Nate?" she asked solemnly.

     "He's well," Skinner told her, the sympathy readily apparent
in his voice. "His family is doing well. He was promoted. He's head
of the OT unit at a large teaching hospital in Seattle. He's well
liked and respected by his peers."

     Dana felt the hot tears sting her still-swollen eyes. Mulder
would have liked to have been well-liked and respected for
something he enjoyed doing. But for him it was never to be.

end of chapter 2.5a

===========================================================================

From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger)
Subject: NEW: THE LADY AND THE TIGER, chapter 2.5b
Date: 4 Sep 1995 21:59:30 -0400
 

THE LADY AND THE TIGER
by Stephanie Davies (100573.2252@compuserve.com)
and Sue Esty (Windsinger@aol.com)

Chapter 2.5b
 
     Two days later, the doorbell rang just as Dana had started a
fire in the fireplace in an attempt to take the chill off the room.
She had only been in the house ten minutes. Someone must have been
watching. Winter's cold wind blew in as she warily opened the door.
A man filled her doorway. For a moment, back lit by the lights from
the street, she thought it was the 'Hunter' again, only this man
was even broader.

     "Dr. Scully?" inquired the clipped, authoritative voice.

     Dana turned on the hall light. "Yes?" The evening had darkened
significantly since she had gotten home. This was a big man, not
fat but solid. Even though he wore casual pants and a sports coat
under a huge army-green parka, he could just as well have been
wearing a uniform. He had military written all over him, except,
surprisingly for his face. His face was round, hair thinning. No
real expression, not yet, but not a cruel face. Just an official
face. He was probably about Dana's own age though she knew she
looked younger and he, older.

     "I'm Daniel Chesterton."

     He went up a notch in Dana's appraisal. He had not tried to
impress her with either his uniform or his title. Two points for
him. "Come in." She took his coat. "Would you like some tea?" she
asked as she led him into the living room.

     "That would be appreciated," he told her. "The weather's raw."

     He sat down in the chair 'Mulder' had last sat in. She thought
about telling him not to, but changed her mind. To have someone
else sit there was a blessing. She had been avoiding it.

     She made the tea, heard sounds from the living room. He was a
restless man for all his size. She found him standing by the
mantle. He had tended the fire and was now examining her photos.
She felt her stomach twist to see he was looking at the photograph
of Mulder and her together.

     "I take it that's Fox Mulder," he said, accepting the tea but
not sitting.

     "Many years ago." <And if he thinks he is going to intimidate
me by sheer size, he's got a big surprise coming,> Dana thought
sitting down on the couch with exaggerated calm. <Still, another
point for him. He knows I know why he is here and he gets to the
point.>

     "The kind of activities you two were engaged in -" he began,
obviously not pleased.

     "What about them?" Dana asked taking the offensive.

     His eyes took on a steely sheen. "Over the last two days,
since Under Secretary Skinner contacted me, I've done a lot of
reading on Mulder's work with the X-Files. Infiltrating government
installations, restricted zones. I'm surprised you weren't arrested
-"

     "We were," Dana retorted, her gaze steady.

     "You put yourselves in danger with those kind of activities
and compromised National Security. Why?"

     "For the truth," she said simply. She would play Mulder's game
here, or maybe it was hers now, too.

     His expression was hard. "You were, on occasion, accused of
getting good men killed by your irresponsible actions." He was
trying to grow above her, unnerve her.

     <Not a chance.>

     "If you read our files well, you will see that there were
never any formal charges."

     "Just multiple FBI disciplinary hearings and suspensions."
 
     Dana Scully set her tea down and stood up, all five feet two
of her. "There were a lot of people trying to protect their butts
over the X-Files. Some of them good people like Walter Skinner. You
work for the government. You know how it is. So Mulder and I got a
little down time. Lord knows we needed it. It was all a game, as
well you know. Just like what you are playing now is a game. What
is this? I don't need this. There are more important issues at hand
then going over ancient history."

     He looked down at this bristling bundle of outrage and nodded
once in approval. He took his tea from the mantle where he had set
it down and took the chair again. His face relaxed, as did his
posture. It was as if another man sat before her. "At ease, Dr.
Scully. I just needed to know if you still had all the fire I read
in your reports. I needed to know if you would stand up to me. I
have veterans under my command who are too afraid to speak their
mind. When I need their ideas, their opinions, they give me
silence. Useless baggage."

     "This from a military man?" Dana inquired, clearly surprised.

     "Don't get me wrong. There is a time for giving and taking
orders. Just as there is a time for gathering information. Some
people don't seem to know the difference. Do you?"

     "You read the X-Files reports. What do you think?"

     "That you don't. At least, that you don't know when to take
orders. At least that Mulder didn't."

     "Some of the orders were stupid. To follow them would have
been dangerous. Besides, we weren't in the military," she defended.
"We were paid to think and act. We did."

     He took a large swallow of tea but his eyes never left her
face and she did not back down. "But between the two of you, you
had to agree on a plan of action."

     She shrugged. "You must know about Mulder. Mulder was
brilliant, though most considered him difficult. His initial
hypotheses were often outlandish, but we usually met in the middle.
In the end, he was seldom far wrong." She paused before continuing
and when she did she looked at the General with firm eyes. "We were
partners. Do you know what that means?"

     The General nodded. "We have them in war, too. A 'buddy', to
watch your back in a battle. With your buddy, you don't have to
ask. You just know he'll be there." Dana nodded slowly. "But you
are no brother," he added, looking at her with a man's eyes, and
somehow she did not find his chauvinism offensive. Perhaps because
he was so matter-of-fact about it.

     "Our relationship was - unique," she agreed. "But then you had
an army and we were alone."
 
     "If we accept this assignment -"

     "I have no choice," Dana responded firmly.

      He set the cup down and leaned towards her, his elbows on his
knees. "If *I* accept this assignment, we'll need to be like that,"
he insisted. "Buddies, partners, if you will. There's not a lot we
can plan ahead for." He stood up and walked purposely up and down
the room. Not Mulder's restless prowl. "I know what they want me
for, but I'll need to depend upon you a lot for cues. You have
their trust and you have more experience in this sort of thing than
I do, but I've been involved in more than you might think." She saw
the solidness settle over him again.

     He had seen things, she could tell. And he would be unwavering
in a fight. A good 'buddy'. A rock. "I hope you'll tell me," she
said. "About what you've been involved it."

     "What I know, you'll know. But you must be willing to leave
the 'official' parties to me," he told her.

     She agreed with that. She had no desire to pick fights with
cancerman's successors. *He* had died of emphysema and congestive
heart failure five years before.

     "What makes you think the Shadow people, the men in the black
coats, even your own people, are going to let us get near a
rendezvous point?" she asked with bitterness. "What makes you think
they will not kill her and try to kill us in some *accident* to
hide the evidence yet again? Are you ready to die? This is not the
war you're used to. In this war you don't know who your enemies
are." <Or your friends,> she admitted.

     Daniel Chesterton's eyes turned to embers, burning
underground. "They won't dare touch us, because I'm leaving a trail
a mile wide." He looked at her. "You left the agency after you
discovered Nate Wyatt so you may not have heard, but a lot of heads
rolled when what had been done to Mulder became known. Many
individuals overstepped their bounds. There was a massive coverup.
Eventually some paid, but the most significant change is that
underlings are not so willing to obey blindly any more." His voice
was full of sympathy. "Good did come of that horrible action.
Mulder led the way. It is regrettable that more of those
responsible were not punished and that those who were punished were
let off so lightly. But there is only so much that can be done when
no murder has been committed."

     "No murder?" Dana launched herself from the couch. "How dare
you sit there and say no murder? You say you've read the reports.
What does it 'officially' say in the records about Fox Mulder?"

     The general was taken aback by this whirlwind. "That there
was some sort of brain damage. That he is no longer the man he
was."

     Dana barked a quick, sarcastic laugh, her small body quivering
with rage. "'Not the man he was.' Ah! What a euphemism! As if he
were just a little slow maybe, or less aggressive, or maybe that he
doesn't have nightmares any more. No! General Chesterton, they
killed him. As cleanly as if they had taken a gun and shot him. And
as completely as if he were now lying in his grave. They cut into
his brain. Everything that was ever Fox Mulder is gone! Gone!" And
that was too much for Dana. The anger had slipped over into agony
and she sat down heavily onto the couch before her knees gave way.
She had sworn to herself she would not cry, not in front of him,
when she must be strong and professional. But here she was, full of
tears. She felt him come and sit down beside her. Hesitantly, he
placed a large hand lightly on her knee, an awkward attempt at an
act of comfort.

     His breath came out tense, harsh. "Those damn, mother-fucking
bastards!" he swore. "I didn't realize. I just thought he had a
breakdown from the interrogations or a drug, maybe. Some
complications from a concussion. They said he was still alive, just
changed his name, got a new life."

     His genuine anger surprised her and helped to cleanse her own
grief. Anger was better, after all, going into battle. Yes, revenge
*was* a dish best served cold. "A new life, a new name? Yes, his
body lives," <his beautiful body>, "but his mind is gone.
Everything that made him uniquely Mulder...is gone." There were no
sobs this time, only icy rage. "And now Samantha will come home and
he'll never know. After he sacrificed his whole life and all of his
happiness to get her back. What a farce! And what if she wants to
see her brother?" Dana grumbled sourly. "What do we tell her?"

     Daniel took her small hand in his huge one. His hands were
strong but amazingly gentle. Dana fought panic, felt something
crumble within her, a wall, a wall which had chipped into it "Dana
against the World". And something rose in its place which she had
not felt in a long, long time.

     "Now I understand better the discussion I had with Secretary
Skinner," Daniel said with dawning understanding. "He had the same
concern as you. Mr. Wyatt has been informed of the situation and
understands the implications. When and if the time comes, when she
understands what happened to Fox Mulder, he had agreed to see her."

     <That will take a while,> Dana thought sadly. How do you
explain a thing like that to a woman after she has been through
what Samantha will have been though. Still, Dana was gratified and
at the same time, not surprised. Nate Wyatt, from the two times she
had seen him, seemed a good person, which was one of the reasons
she knew she could never see him again.
 
     The big man at her side seemed to sense her distance and had
dropped her hand. "I'd better go." He rose and she got his coat.
"I'm looking forward to working with you, Dr. Scully," he told her
at the door and extended his hand. "I think it will prove to be a
very interesting experience."

     Dana took the proffered hand and looked up, up even higher
than she had needed to look into Mulder's eyes, to find his grey
ones on hers. They were full of determination for their cause and
respect, respect for her. Their hands lingered longer than one
would expect and she did not know if that was at his desire or
hers.

 
     Hours after Daniel Chesterton had gone, Dana sat in the
darkened room staring at the chair where the figure that had looked
like Mulder had sat and later, Daniel Chesterton. The few embers
from the dying fire provided the only light in the room with the
exception of the lamp which was pointed at the crossed tape on the
window, the window the 'Hunter' had pointed out.

     In her hours of solitude Dana had come to realize that she had
been wrong. She had been living for fifteen years allowing herself
to think that Mulder was the only one. The only fighter, the only
worthy knight. But as Daniel sat beside her on the couch for those
few minutes, she had felt the tension in his body, a tension that
was familiar to her. This man blazed with a fire, too. His own
fire, his own battles, his own arena. Had fought alone and with
those close to him. He had just suffered within the rules, Mulder
had suffered outside of them.

     Dana looked at Mulder's picture in her lap and let the tears
roll down her cheeks. How she missed him, would never stop missing
him. <Mulder, what do I do? I have to get her back. I swore to you
that I would and this is my chance. A chance it turns out you
created by sacrificing your life. Mulder, Daniel is strong, he has
the power. I sense, he wants this, too, for his reasons, but still
the right reasons. He will help me fight your enemies.>

     She put the picture back on the mantle and laid down on the
couch, wrapped herself in his old afghan which was nearly worn out
now and had long ago lost his scent.

     On the edge of sleep she thought of him, and opened her soul
and felt something like his spirit enfolding hers, a breath of
spring in the winter. It helped and once this would have been
enough, more than enough, to keep her going, but now she remembered
the feeling of Daniel's body beside her, the look in his eyes.
Waiting for Mulder, who would never come, brought him no comfort,
and her little. Perhaps it was time to move on. No, it was well
past time to move on. "Forgive me, Mulder?" she whispered.

     Wind whistled down the chimney. A cool breath ever so gently
touched her cheek.

                               ***

8 months later

     Dana Scully looked up from her book to see a tall, slender,
exceeding fair-skinned young woman moving unsteadily across the
sculpture garden like a sailor who has been to sea too long. The
young woman sat down beside Dana on her bench.

     "It's still early," Dana said. "You could stay longer if you
wanted. Nate doesn't come to D.C. that often."

     The young woman smiled a little and began to speak like one
who finds forming words difficult. "No, long enough. His son wants
to see the revision of 'To Fly' at the... Air and Space Museum at
two o'clock and I don't want to keep you. Besides," the young woman
added, "I think he felt uncomfortable with me just staring at him."
The young woman looked towards the patch of grass under a tree a
block away where she could just make out a tall man and a woman and
two tall children. They were packing up a frisbee and a picnic
lunch.

     "Oh, he gave this to me for you." The young woman held out a
card which Dana took gingerly. It was the first communication they
had had. Carefully, she placed it in her book. "He was very
handsome, my brother, wasn't he?" Samantha asked.

     Dana put the book away in the satchel she had used to carry
her own lunch. "You should have seen him sixteen years ago." She
got to her feet and started walking to where she had parked her
car, pausing to let the younger woman catch up. As always, Dana
marveled at the tricks time had played. This young woman should be
her own age.

     Samantha placed a hand on Dana's arm to steady herself. "I'll
bet he was a real *fox*."

     Dana laughed brightly. "That he was. And who's been teaching
you colloquialisms?"

     "Daniel, but that one was easy. You might say I had... mo-ti-
vation." Samantha Mulder had trouble with that last word.

     Sam shook her long dark hair in the wind. "Though he was
uncomfortable having me there, I could tell Nate is a happy man."
They walked on a little.

     Dana's eyes saddened. "Your brother was never that happy. He
missed you so."

     "Is that why you don't like to see Nate?" Samantha asked.
"Because he has the happiness Fox never had."

     Dana kept walking. "Partly. Mostly, I guess. It hurts too
much. Seeing you again would have given him heaven on earth."

     They reached the car. Dana slid in behind the wheel and the
young woman got in the passenger side.

     "Tell me a Fox Mulder story," Sam asked as they pulled into
traffic.

     "Again?" Dana smiled as she stopped the car at a red light.
"Which one?"

     "The one about the woods," Sam giggled.

     Dana gasped dramatically. "Oh, no! Not the woods!"

     "All right, just the part when you were in quarantine then."

     "Veerry well," Dana agreed, with mock reluctance. "When Mulder
got bored, which was often, he would play this trick on the medical
staff with a rubber glove, bleach, two gauze squares and a urine
sample..."

     Dana drove quickly. Daniel was waiting.

End of Chap 2.5b (Now this is a good place to end the story, but
there is a chapter 3. I guess you might say, chapter 3, which has been
posted,  is optional.)

===========================================================================

From: windsinger@aol.com (Windsinger)
Subject: REPOST: LADY and the TIGER, chap 3
Date: 28 Aug 1995 10:23:38 -0400
 

Hi, this did not make it to all servers (not even my co-author's) so I'm
reposting. This was an experiment so please me me know what you think,
good AND bad. I know it was not the kind of story people  expected. I've
been asked to  think about a chap 2.5 (how Dana meets Daniel.) Shall we
let this story rest or not? Daniel was not a real person to me until a
very, very late editing of chap 3. Thank Youkneek for getting me to think
about Daniel more as a real person worthy of Dana's love.

THE LADY AND THE TIGER    Chap 3 (the last)
by Stephanie Davies (100573.2252@compuserve.com)
and Sue Esty (Windsinger@aol.com)

Disclaimer: This story is based on the characters created by Chris
Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions and Fox Broadcasting. Used without
permission and no infringement is intended.

Thanks to DD and GA and all the fan fic writers for inspiration.
Thanks to Stephanie for starting this thing and indulging me by
letting me finish it. (Sorry the end got so long, Steph.)

Author's notes: Chapters 1 (by Stephanie) and 2 (by me, Windsinger)
were sent out under one post a few days ago. The story really ends
at chapter 2 but for my own peace of mind I had to write chapter 3.
For the realists, stop at chap 2.

WARNING: What follows is wishful thinking, catharsis, sad and
whimsical with a lot of metaphysics thrown in. And, yes, there is
a lot of the Theater of the Absurd in my background. There are no
completely happy endings. If you want one, I'm sorry, this isn't
it. This is, in a way, my own vision of a 'future'. Though the
stories are completely unrelated, the idea is mentioned in passing
as early as 3/95 in my story MEMORIES ("And if there is a God...I
pray he will let me know you again.") The 'multiple personality
disorder' spoken of here is a brand new twist... even for me. Call
this my Igmar Bergman (not spelled right, I'm sure) phase and I
hope it doesn't destroy my credibility for all time as a serious
author. If all this interests you, keep reading, otherwise pass it
by, but, beware, it is not as simple as it seems at first.

The Lady and the Tiger
Chapter 3 (by Windsinger)

      Dana stared around at the fog-wrapped expanse of nothingness.
<This is it? This is the best the good Lord can do?> She remembered
when she had almost died before that she had found herself in a
'place' something like this. Since then, she had known, as certain
as breath, that there was existence after the life we know as life
was over, but still she had hoped for something with a little
more... variety.

      Dana took a few steps and looked down at her clothes. She was
younger, thirty years younger than that old tired woman laying on
the bed in her daughter's home dying. Dead now, it seemed. It was
good to feel younger and not encumbered by that failing husk of a
muscle and bone. She shook her head, liking the feel of the soft
red hair, not grizzled and grey. She had seen enough dead bodies in
her life, she didn't want to dwell upon her own.
 
      "Dana! There you are!"

      Her head turned to see emerging from the mist a dark shape.
"Daniel!" She ran to him, pushing through what felt like a heavy
mass of air, but ignoring it in her haste to reach her husband, to
throw herself into his bear-like arms. "Oh, Daniel, it's true," she
laughed, hugging him. "I didn't dream it!"

      "What's true?" the man with the round, laughing face asked as
he kissed her with a kiss that stopped her breath for a moment.

      "That we *do* meet our loved ones on the other side," she
finally managed to continue.

      "Well, that's one way to describe it," he said smiling. He
stroked her hair. Oh, he was so big, a real armful. He looked the
age he had been when they had met: thinning, dark hair, slightly
grey at the temples, the age she felt now, about mid forties.

      Twenty-five years, they had had twenty-five years.

      "You came earlier than I expected," Daniel Chesterton said
entwining his large hand in hers.

      "I guess I was eager," she admitted.

      His eyes twinkled. He always seemed a little like a very
earthy Saint Nicholas to her, now more than ever. "Children being
a pain?"

      "They mean well, but they wouldn't give me any peace."

      "Sounds like them. They get their mothering from you."

      "From their *grandmother*," Dana corrected. "Remember, you
always complained I spent too much time at work."

      "Just kidding, Sweets," he said planting a kiss on her
forehead. "How are they doing, by the way."

       "They're fine, doing well. Jennifer sends her love. She was
certain I'd be seeing you."

      "What about William and Harriet?" he asked, in mock distress.
"No message for their old Dad?"
 
      Dana smiled. "They're sceptical. *That* they get from me."
 
      "They were wonderful to raise," he said, remembering. "Ever
wish we had adopted more?"

      She laughed. "Three was a handful, but I can't imagine what
life would have been like without any one of them. We were lucky at
our age that the agency let us have them at all."

      Out of the corner of her eye Dr. Dana Scully Chesterton
noticed a form standing in the mist from where she had come, a
woman who looked just like...

      "Daniel...?" she began, fearfully.

      He glanced in the direction of the shape that caused her
concern and smiled tenderly. "Don't worry. It's just that *he's*
coming. We had best move along."

      "What?"

      "Never mind, I'll explain." And Daniel put his arm around his
wife and led her off to tell her a few thousand marvelous things.
 

      Special Agent Dana Scully looked down at her clothes. The suit
was one such as she had not worn in forty years and there were the
stylish, yet practical pumps, low heeled enough to make running
after fleeing felones and who-knows-what possible. She flipped back
her shower of red hair as she watched her older self walk off with
some man she could not place immediately. <Daniel?> Yes, Daniel,
her husband, but in a later life. She had wanted to join them, felt
so alone here, but they seemed so happy and she did not want to
intrude. And, oddly, as the distance between them lengthened she
sensed herself becoming estranged from that life, that existence,
even while her time at the Bureau so many years ago was coming back
to her as clear as yesterday.

      She heard a sound of hurrying footsteps, detected a swirl in
the mist.

      "Scuuully!"

      She whirled in the direction of that voice. That dear,
impossible voice. "Mulder..." she whispered. <No, Nate...,> she
reminded herself as she had almost every day of the last forty
years in those quiet little moments when she was alone, when
something wonderful happened in her life she wanted to share with
*him*. <But Nate's not dead... so he can't be here.>

      A tall, dark shape moved in the mist to her left, calling her
name, then began to move away from her. "Nate...?" she called
almost fearfully, almost hopefully. He spun in her direction, his
long legs closing the distance between them quickly. He stopped
within arm's length, a little breathless.

      "Sorry," he said in his warm, languid voice with a hint of a
smile, "always did tend to get lost in a fog."

      "Nate?" she asked, hesitantly. Somehow, his form was not
clear.

      "Nate?" Hazal eyes showed for a moment, darkened in
disappointment. Had she forgotten him? His voice dropped. "No,
Mulder..." His posture showed he was more than hurt. Crushed
described it better.

      She took a step back, then another. "Not... Mulder. You're
Nate Wyatt, only he's not dead." She looked around frantically.
There must be someone who could tell her what was going on. "I
don't understand -"

      He reached out his hand, his form became more solid, so much
so that he touched her, desperate that she not leave him. "It's
*me*, Scully. Really and truly. You're confused. That's
understandable. It's a very confusing place, at first. Well, still
is," he confessed.

      <*That*,> Scully realized, with something awakening in her she
had thought long buried, <can only be Mulder-speak.> She had been
too shocked to look carefully before. Now, almost fearfully, she
allowed herself to look up, to open her eyes fully, to see...

      And filled her eyes and her mind with the sight of him. He was
as young as the first year they had worked together. His eyes would
have been glittering with mischief and life, except that they were
shadowed with a sudden deep sadness as he looked at her. He wore a
dark suit that fit him, oh, so perfectly and his tie bore a pattern
of tasteful, little white ghosts. The atmosphere around them was
like it had been before, a little awkward, tension like electricity
between them. Even the fog seemed right. Scully only wished she had
a liverwurst sandwich and a root beer to hand him. No, an ice tea
this time.

      "Mulder," she said, with a delivery perfected from long
practice, "if what you just said was intended to make me feel
better, it didn't."

      Special Agent Fox Mulder sighed with relief and the shadows
left him. "Thank God, at least, you have my name right."

      Scully pointed vaguely in the direction where her other self
and Daniel had gone, her mouth open but unable to put any of her
questions into words.

      His eyes flashed with humor. "We all have multiple personality
disorders here, Scully. Fertile ground for a psychologist." To her
continuing bafflement, he explained with a sly smile, "Did you
think we each had only one life worthy of being remembered?"

      Scully was distracted before she could reply and turned her
head in the direction of a regular thumping sound. A boy came
running up, a boy of about twelve expertly dribbling a basketball.
He was of average height for his age but a little pudgy with a
pixieish face, a boy on the point of launching into another growth
spurt, one, she realized, which would turn him in time into the
beautiful man who stood before her.

      "Wanna play one-on-one, Mulder?" the boy asked,
enthusiastically.

      A look of affection passed over Mulder's features. "No, Fox,
I told you, Scully's here now."

      "Well," the boy asked with a sulk, "what am I gonna do then
until Sam comes?"

      Scully found herself staring and then began, hesitantly,
"Samantha will be here soon. I hear she's not doing well."

      Fox nodded but hung his head. "I'm sorry she's having a tough
time of it." Then he brightened, "but she'll be real happy when she
gets here. I have so much planned."

      "I'm sure you do," Scully said with love. She raised an
eyebrow at her partner. "Basketball, Mulder?"

      Mulder shrugged. "You have to do something. Playing harp is
not all its cracked up to be." He blew on his fingertips. "I know,
I've tried."

      A slow, tolerant smile forming on her lips, she turned her
attention back to the boy. "Tell you what, Fox: You let Mulder and
I have a few minutes and I'll let him play with you a little later.
I'd like to get to know you myself."

      "Oh, he's told me everything about you," the boy told her with
a huge smile.

      She glanced up at Mulder's bemused face. "I'll just bet he
has." To Fox, "Well, then you have one up on me because he hardly
ever told me anything about you."

      As the boy raced off, Mulder shrugged. "No one ever said death
had to be boring."

      "As long as you're here, I can't imagine how it could be."

      He picked a direction, seemingly at random, and they began to
stroll, not in a hurry. After all, they had all the time in the
world. Still, under his skin, he seemed the same Mulder, more
energy than he knew what to do with.

      "Mulder," Scully said seriously, "I'm sorry you weren't there
to see Samantha when they returned her."

      For the first time since she had accepted him, a crack
appeared in the perfect contentment he was radiating. "That was
hard. Not to be there for her." His head hung in a very familiar
way. "I could see it was a rough transition, but you were great. I
can never thank you enough. She's had a pretty good life from what
I could see."

      "Daniel had a lot to do with it," Scully said. "He was the
officer in charge of the recovery team. I could not have managed
without him."

      "I saw," Mulder said with a frown.

      "I bet you didn't think I should have trusted him."

      "He was part of the establishment."

      "You weren't there. I had to trust someone."

      He looked at her with respect. "And you chose well, both for
Sam and for yourself."

      His approval warmed her. "I did, didn't I?," Scully told him.
"Sam did better than I expected. Though not physically strong, she
had faith in herself and she had your example. She has circulatory
problems from the years of weightlessness. It won't be long." She
paused, uncomfortably. "There's nothing else you regret?"
 
      He stopped and studied her, his eyes deeply disturbed. "Of
course, there are, but, Scully, if there's one thing I've learned,
it's that they would have killed me sooner or later. The way they
did it, at least Nate got to live, was allowed to have the life
they would never have let us have."

      Us.

      Scully swallowed and tried not to let him see she had heard.
What could she say? There is some sadness that can never be
relieved, some evil that can never be undone. But if it were
possible in this place, she would try.

      He was staring at the ground, shifting from foot to foot, his
hands in his pockets, his Fox look again, "I probably would have
been a lousy husband, anyway. Most likely a lousy father, too."

      That tore. <Mulder, is this how you survived the agony of
leaving the world so young? Berating yourself, even now? I guess,
we are what we are, what we are, what we are... Even here we have
all our warts but, finally, time perhaps to heal them.>

      Scully sighed and touched his cheek. "You would have done
fine, Mulder. If only those bastards...!" Her anger had lit up her
skin. She seemed to glow.

      "Shhh," he said in mock warning, shaking off the clouds that
had gathered. "*He* might hear."

      "*Him*, Mulder? And when do I get to meet *Him*? Because I
still don't understand. If Nate's not -"

      "Not dead? Now that's an interesting situation and one which
the Powers That Be have been trying to figure out. My position here
is rather unique, Scully -"

      "Why am I not surprised."

      Mulder gave her an off center smile. "Two points," he conceded
before continuing. "When they cut out my brain, they killed Fox
Mulder, not his body but a big hunk of his spirit." He shrugged.
"So here I've been for forty years the only spirit who still has a
mortal coil. Well, me and young Fox. I've spent a fair amount of my
time, vicariously living Nathaniel Wyatt's life. There's this
attachment - "

      He stopped, realizing this was not what he had waited so many
years to be talking about. He turned to face her, touched her
shoulders feather light with care as if afraid that *she* was not
real. There was her perfect skin, that amazing mouth, her eyes,
like the sea, fathomless and at this moment only for him. His next
words were spoken in deadly ernest. "I've been waiting for you for
a very long time, Scully. Such a long, long time..."

      A silence followed, a silence that seemed to go on for many
blissful years in which they just stood and enjoyed each other's
presence, imbibing each other's spirit like food and drink and life
itself.
 
                                     ***
 

      Jennifer Chesterton pulled the covers over her mother's small,
thin body. It had been a peaceful death. Under her fingers Jennifer
had felt Dana Chesterton suddenly slip away, as if she had accepted
death at the first moment it had been offered.
 
      "Went to join Dad," Jenni remarked.
 
      "You really believe in an afterlife, don't you?" Peter asked,
the words a little indistinct from the clef pallet the operation
had not succeeded in correctly completely, though his sisters had
learned over the years to understand his lisp perfectly.

      "I want to believe," Jenni said turning her blind eyes towards
the sound of her adopted brother's voice. "I'd like to see Mom and
Dad again someday."

      "What did you find, Hare?" Peter asked, looking at his younger
sister, her leg braces shining in the sunlit room. Harriet sat with
a metal box on her lap. They had found it under their mother's
pillow just a few minutes before. They had all seen it many times
over the years, and knew it held a special meaning to their mother,
but none of her children had ever been given a look inside.
 
      "Just letters and cards," Harriet said with disappointment in
her voice. "Most from Uncle Fox but a few are from Andrea."

      Peter limped over to look over her shoulder. "I'm not
surprised she kept them. Mom got so misty every time a letter
came."

      "Think he was an old beau?" Jennifer asked.

      William shrugged. "Who knows. Someone from before Dad. I think
her old partner when she worked for the FBI. He must have had an
alias or changed his name because I found an old FBI ID one day
when I was thirteen and looking for something in her desk drawer.
Her partner's name was Fox Mulder."

      "I always wondered why we called Nate Wyatt, *Uncle Fox*,"
Jenni mused. "Too bad we never met him or his family in person."

      Harriet ruffled through the cards and letters. "Well, we
certainly heard about every important event in their lives -
promotions, graduations, births - we felt like we knew them. Funny,
all the letters are dated and yet the oldest one I've been able to
find is a card sent at the time of Mom and Dad's wedding. Odd
message: 'Director Skinner's kept us up to date. We've been waiting
for some good news for you. So happy, Nate and Andrea.'"

      "Hey, people," William said. "Look at Mom. I swear, it looks
like she's smiling."

                                     ***

      Reluctantly, Mulder gently broke contact. Her spirit touching
his had filled, for him, an emptiness, a lonely space he had left
especially for her, for this moment. "More later, Scully?" he asked
softly.

      "Yes," she breathed, opening her eyes, coming up as if for
air. More.

      "After all, we did say we'd join Fox," he added,
apologetically. She only smiled slowly in response.

      They began walking again, Mulder's step light, almost on his
toes. He took off his suit coat and rolled up his sleeves,
obviously eager for a good game of one-on-one.

      Scully stopped, however, placing a hand on his arm to halt him
and raised her head as if listening. Something was nudging at her
brain.

      "Something wrong, Scully?" he asked.

      She shook her head to clear it. "I don't know. Something tells
me I should stay here for a little while."

      He pursed his lips and slung her suit coat over his shoulder.
"Best to stay put then. She usually has a good reason for her
little messages."

      Dana looked up. "I thought you used *He* before?"

      Mulder shrugged, noncommittally. "Depends."

      They waited. They could almost hear the sound of labored
breathing far away. Coming nearer. Scully found the sound a little
frightening until Mulder moved close so that she could feel the
warmth of his body against his back. "It's alright," he told her.
"Someone's coming, that's all. Someone we should meet. I sense it,
too, now."

      The fog thickened in one spot, blocked the light a little that
seemed to be everywhere, began to take form. Another new soul was
coming onto this waiting plane. Even though there had not been many
people to meet, his mother whom he had taken to join his father,
Frohike who went who-knows-where, Skinner who left with his ex-
wife, Mulder never tired of seeing such arrivals. But this time he
had a shock. The figure was male, tall, dark with a touch of grey,
slim - and totally confused when he saw them both.

      "Nath!" Scully exclaimed in surprise and welcome. The new set
of hazel eyes slipped from Mulder's face, as surprised as his own,
to the woman's. After a moment he recognized her through she was
nine years younger than the only two times in his life he had seen
her and he had never known her flushed with happiness as she was
now.

      "Dana Scully." He looked around with apprehension but dawning
acceptance. "All right," he began, "I can guess what this must be
but -"

      Mulder recovered first. He stepped forward and held out his
hand. "I'm Fox Mulder. I guess you've heard of me."

      Numbly, Nathaniel Wyatt shook the hand, identical to his own.

      Mulder was thoroughly enjoying the other's discomfort. "You
must not have known anyone close who has died so I guess we're your
welcoming committee."

      "You're me..." Nate said lamely. "I'm you..."

      Mulder put a hand on the broad shoulder. The man had obviously
kept up his swimming. "Neither. We are separate. As separate as we
can be. Twins, separated at birth when we were thirty-five. Gee, I
always wanted a brother..."

      Nate looked like he wanted to step away.

      Scully raised her eyes - heavenward. It was obvious, just from
the way they were acting, that telling these two apart was not
going to be difficult. Nath also wore Dockers and a polo shirt.
Clothes her Mulder would never wear.

      "Don't mind Mulder," she said in an aside to Nate. "He likes
to kid around. You'll get used to his sense of humor." Nate seemed
very uncomfortable. Uncomfortable and lonely, Scully sensed. "How's
Andrea?" she asked with sincerity.

      The man who looked like Fox Mulder, but who did not look at
her at all the way Fox Mulder did, brightened at the name. "She's
a lot younger than I and she's in good health. I went quickly, a
stroke. A result of the brain damage years ago, I imagine."

      "It will probably be a while then until she comes," Mulder
said, sympathetically. He knew what it was to be alone here. He
looked to Scully for confirmation and then turned back to Nate. "If
you want, you can hang around with us until she comes. Then we can
all move on together."

      Nate still looked shell-shocked but also relieved and
thankful. Scully let her eyes tell Mulder how wonderful he was,
then hooked an arm with each of them. They were both sweet and
caring men and she couldn't be happier. She didn't even care to
find out what 'moving' on meant. That for later.

      Mulder led them off across the fog shrouded plain. "I have
something to show you," he whispered to Scully in unsuppressed
excitement. "Extraterrestrials! Do you know, I was wrong all along.
They *are* green."

      Nate's eyes grew positively round and he hung back a little.
Maybe the stories did *not* exaggerate.

      "Mulder," Scully said warningly. "Nate, does not have your
appreciation of the weird. You are scaring him."

      "Okay, later then, when we're - alone," He whispered. He said
the last word in a way that sent a warm chill up her back. <Do they
*do* that in heaven?> she wondered.

      Mulder let his smile rest on her for what felt like an
eternity and then moved back to Nate. "Nate, as I remember you play
basketball."

      "A little," Nate said quickly, feeling on safer ground with
this subject. "I played with my son on the driveway."

      "I watched. He went on to play college ball. You should be
proud," Mulder told him and Scully definitely detected a hint of
envy in his voice.

      "You should be proud, too," Nath said in the same voice, only
it was a little less dreamy and more mature. "They were your genes
first."

      Mulder smiled a small, sad smile. "Granted, but you raised him
well. Come on, I have someone I want you to meet."

      They heard the sound of a basketball and running feet. The fog
seemed to thin and there was a hoop suspended literally in thin
air. Underneath it shooting baskets were Fox - and Daniel, with
Dana standing off to the side watching. The contented smile on her
face widened when she saw them. Before he moved off, Mulder let his
fingers rest a moment in Scully's palm and looked curiously at
Dana, who nodded in Daniel's direction. With a wave, Mulder threw
down his jacket and joined Fox against Daniel and Nate.
 
      Dana and Scully stood shoulder to shoulder watching the men.
 
      "Why are we letting them have all the fun?" Scully asked.

      "Because we're short."

      "We could kick them in the knee."

      "I don't think that's allowed."

      "Pity."
 
      "I know. When they're done, we'll take them sailing. On a
nice, rolling sea."

      "Oh, you are cruel. Does Daniel get sea sick?"

      "In the bathtub."

      "Think She'll let us?"

      "We can only try."

      They smiled with evil delight.

      Over the sound of the dribbling ball, they heard a girl's high
voice calling, "Fox!" and the sound of her light, eagerly running
steps, coming nearer.
 

The End (For good this time.)

Windsinger says: Okay, it's odd, but perhaps one way of working
through inconsolable grief and who knows, after all, what 'it' is
really like? Eternity to work through all our problems and our
little idiosyncracies, to heal our wounds, seems more satisfying
then everyone starting out perfect and playing harp. (I play harp
and after a couple of hours it gets really boring.)

For a similar example of dealing with grief, look up MAD HATTERS
and MONO LISAS by Idria Barone Knecht (under Mono_Lisas on
ftp.cs.nmt.edu).

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